The Xbox 360's Operating System, otherwise known as the Xbox Dashboard, is a vast improvement over what the original Xbox had. The four "Blades" are organized pretty well. There are, however, a few things that should be improved. I don't see why they cannot upgrade the Xbox Dashboard like they upgraded the original Xbox. There have already been small updates to the Xbox Dashboard since Nov. 22, 2005 - but I am proposing some major overhauls in terms of usability.
Auto loading Games
I have a lot of games for my 360. I also have bought a number of Xbox Live Arcade games. I play the Arcade titles just about as much as the ones that cost me $60. After two months of playing the 360, I never turn it on and want to jump into Call of Duty 2 right away. I check who is online, see if I have any messages, or play an Arcade title first.
It cannot be that difficult to put a radio button for auto loading of games in the System Blade under Console Settings. This would give users the choice.
To turn on my 360 now I push the eject button. When I am ready to play the game I push the "Close Tray" button. But this could be hours after I turn the 360 on. Or I might turn it off after only playing Arcade games - imagine that.
This is a serious usability oversight. It was not a problem on the original Xbox because that console did not have an operating system that let you do so much. Auto loading of games was expected then. Now you have Xbox Live Arcade, Xbox Live Marketplace - not to mention the music/vidoes/photos in the Media Blade - all before you pop in Call of Duty 2.
A simple preference would solve this.
UPDATE: Thanks to "Lest II" I now use the free remote that came with my Xbox 360 to turn it on. By pushing the Media Center button it turns the unit on, and goes strait to the Media Center Blade. You simply push B and you are looking at the Media Dashboard Blade. This is a usable solution for this annoyance. You would of course need the free remote pack-in from the initial shipment, or purchase the $20 Xbox 360 Universal Remote to do this. But other than that, it's a solution.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Matt Paprocki
Where's the rest of this piece Ken? It was three times as long on BW!
2 - Ken Edwards
You are right. Now that is odd. Very odd.
3 - Wayne Garrison
This is a great article, I basically agreed with every single point (I waited around 1hr30mins for PGR3 demo, doing nothing...).
When turning the console on it should give you a mini menu that gives you the option of playing the game, or going to dashboard... simple. I would go on but I would just be reiterating what you said
All in all a great article!
10/10!!!!!
4 - Ken Edwards
A small menu at start-up would be a splendid idea! It could even detect if it is an Xbox/Xbox 360 game or if it is a music CD or DVD.
And thanks.
5 - Jerrad
360 is the best!!
and way better than w/e playstation has to deliver
6 - asdf
hey
7 - pj
you said in this article that when you turn the game on that you had to press the eject button to not load the game. why dont u just press the (x)button in the middle of the controller then hit y. that takes you to the dashboard, its not that hard.
8 - pj
custom soundtracks are at system level, hit the guide button in the middle of a game and pick the soundtrak you want. And navigating the marketplace aint to hard, everything is in the "download games/alphabetical list of games" you can find just about everything in that list. the list aint to long the will probally organize it when the have more stuff to go in it.
9 - Ken Edwards
pj - it still loads the game. Sure you can get out to the Dashboard this way, but it still loads the game, if only partially. It is much faster for me to turn the darn thing on by pushing the eject button (either on the unit or using the remote control) then to hit power, hit the Xbox Guide button, hit Y, and wait for the 360 to catch up to my actions, just so I can play a Live Arcade game.
See what I am getting at? A simple menu would do the trick - when a game is in the console, and you turn it on you get a menu says Load Game or Go To Dashboard.
Hell lets make the thing brainless (meaning even MORE usable) and give it a 10 second count down. After 10 seconds it loads the game. That gives people that want to get out of the Dashboard time to make that choice, that would satisfy all users.
Sometimes I do start up my 360 and let the game load (by sometimes I mean VERY LITTLE) so having a 10 second delay would be good for those situations too.
Usability Engenerring is not an easy task. Hardware and software make it to market all the time that don't follow very good usability all the time. For the most part the 360 Dashboard is very well designed with usability in mind.
But I am obviously not the only one who wishes not to have an auto loading game ever time I hit the power button.
10 - Ken Edwards
pj - not every game allows you to drop out to the Dashboard by hitting the Guide button to go to Music. It is a feature that the developer has to program into their game.
In a sense, custom soundtracks have always been system level, even on the original Xbox. But the developers had to program it into their games on that console too.
11 - pj
i agree about the multitasking part when your downloading something. it shouldnt take all the xbox360's resources to download a file. i think you should be able to anything on the dashboard (ex. play music, play arcade games) besides play actual 360 games while downlaoding something.
12 - pj
i just havent played a game yet where you coundt use custon soundtracks, so i assumed it was like that on all the games.
13 - anonymous
Dear sir,
Are you aware that what you pay $50 a year for is availalble on standard xbox for free. Standard xbox can be modded to run xbox media center for free. It can auto load or not games. You can download games, trailors etc.. for free. You can even play DVD's without the dongle.
Also, it can be used as a linux pc, web server, etc.... The only thing it doesnt do just yet is play 360 games, but there is a mod comming out for the 360 which both does and fixes all that.
Overall, microsoft charges money for things you dont need, only because they make big bucks off it. I dont blame them, so many americans are stupid sheep out there that they pay for it.
14 - Ken Edwards
I think it will be quite some time until we see mods for the 360 comparable to what can be done with a modded original Xbox.
15 - jackie-o
what game title where you can't use the custom soundtrack? curious cause i thought all games had that feature
16 - triggerhappy336
name the game that doesn't allow you to use custom soundtracks.
17 - Lest II
If you do not want to autoload a game and have the xbox 360 remote this is what you do. Hit the media center button on your remote when it is turned off and it will automatically turn your 360 on and bring it to the meida center blade in the dashboard. This will work with and without a media center PC. I do this all the time. This and some other handy tricks were mentioned in Major Nelson's Podcast. You all should check it out. It has been very useful.
18 - raine
I would like to point out you can press the guide button during any game, and your gamer tag will apear, just below that is your music player, which you may use to play music off the HDD, while playing games, you will have to turn the games music volume down in options. But there is a compromise.
19 - Ken Edwards
raine - that is not the point! Games like Ridge Racer 6 try and tell you there is no compatible music on your hard drive (even though you can hit the Guide button and hit Select Music). I guess I will add that to clear up the confusion.
Also to my knowledge every game so far supports custom sountracks, and that is a huge leap forward from the original Xbox.
This came out almost a year ago, way before the launch of the system, that MS said that custom sountracks would work in every game. Shortly after it was uncovered by one of the gaming magazines/sites that in fact it is not a universal feature. The feature still needs to be "turned on" by the developer.
Lest II - Major Nelson has a lot of podcasts on his site. Could you be specific as to which one had the tips in it that you describe?
Thank you for telling me about the Media Center button on the remote. I will add that to the post, as that does work great.
20 - Matt Paprocki
Anonymous up there is funny. We bought the 360 for 360 games. Kind of hard to play those on the original console. That's what we want. I can assure you that I will never run Linux on my Xbox... ever. Besides, most people pay $50 for Live. I'm not sure what you're trying to get at, but illegally modding your Xbox doesn't get you on Live.
21 - What you say?
anonymous, the reason we pay 50 bucks is to play games online idiot, you cant do that with a modded xbox, and just because your too much of a cheapskate to pay $4.16 a month (which is like the price of a big mac special) doesn't make you better than us, it just makes u cheap. And quit following everybody else (like a SHEEP)with this hating on America crap, it gets old.
22 - Sinime
You can que up downloads and play other games. A couple of weeks ago I qued up a couple of downloads and started playing Enchanted Arms. After being in the game a while I would get a message that one DL was done and another was starting.
No custom soundtracks? Just hit the logo on the controller and when the blad pops up tell it to play your music. Then turn the soundtrack volume off within the game. It works great and the songs don't end because you finish a level or zone somewhere (in game).
23 - Ken Edwards
Please take note as to when this was written. This was before the major dashboard update.
Custom soundtracks do not work the same in every game. If it was a system level API, they easily could. The interface is different in every single game. Also, while the games do support setting your music in the Xbox Guide, they all don't handle that music the same, or the correct way.
24 - Venomous Shadow
Well.. I have been reading quite a bit about the marketplace recently.. and most of it seems to be quite disturbing. I would like to get two points out of the way right now though..
1) There is an option in the System that you can choose that will stop the game from auto-loading.
2) Your media can be accessed from anywhere.. just click the middle button, and use that media player. It should override the game's music.
Alright.. now onto the problems. Ever take a look at the size of the downloads you buy? You know, like the extensions for Oblivion. They are about 108kb. That is because you are not paying to download an extension. You are paying to download a key that unlocks the content that was already on your game when you purchased it! That is right, you are paying for what you have already purchased.
My other complaint.. ADVERTISEMENTS! Gold users get access to new videos and such sooner than Silver. This means you are paying to see advertisements first! What next? They start charging you MS Points just to view the videos on top of membership? Keep that in mind next time you download a commercial. You are getting it because you pay them to let you watch it. Corrupt much?
25 - Ken Edwards
Venomous Shadow - I wrote this article one year ago, in Jan. of 2006. Before they updated the Dash. They have fixed many of my complaints I outlined here.
NFS Carbon does the same thing, you are only downloading a 100kb key, the stuff is on the disc for the "Collectors Edition" content. Sucks.