Xbox 360 - Up Close & Personal with Live, the Console and the Wireless Controller
by Anand Lal Shimpi on May 20, 2005 12:57 AM EST- Posted in
- Trade Shows
The Live Marketplace: More Ways to Spend Money
The Xbox 360 will also allow you to bring up the dashboard without having to restart your console. The new dashboard looks a lot cleaner and the entire interface is very smooth and quite media-center like, with a gaming touch, of course.Microsoft is particularly happy about their new Xbox Live Marketplace, a place where you will be able to download or purchase new content (demos, themes, levels, etc.):
The Xbox Live Marketplace in the Xbox 360 Dashboard
See that banner looking thing at the top of the screen? Clicking on it brought us to the following screen:
Here, you can see how much the game download costs and how much credit your account currently has. The download for this particular game took less than 10 seconds after the purchase was confirmed.Honestly, we aren't nearly excited as Microsoft is about the new Live Marketplace, simply because the name implies that we'll be paying for quite a bit that finds its way in there. After spending $300+ on the console, $50 a pop for games and a monthly Xbox Live subscription fee, we're not sure how much more we'll feel comfortable parting with - especially for things like additional content and levels.
Bungie's strategy of charging for early access to levels in Halo 2 for example is reasonable in our opinion, as the levels eventually are offered for free to everyone else in time. Initially, we don't expect to see anything drastic from Microsoft in the Marketplace, but the potential always worries us.
As we mentioned in our first Xbox 360 article, Microsoft is particularly interested in expanding the potential user base of the new console to include "casual gamers." It is these "casual gamers" that the Xbox Live Arcade is targeted at.
Microsoft mentioned that you would be able to conduct a live video chat with your friends while playing the Arcade games.
Messaging in Xbox Live - No Email, No Spam
Connecting your Xbox 360 to a MP3 Player, iPods supported
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fishbits - Friday, May 20, 2005 - link
"Honestly we aren't nearly excited as Microsoft is about the new Live Marketplace, simply because the name implies that we'll be paying for quite a bit that finds its way in there."I don't get where this is coming from. I'm able to buy from brick and mortar stores or online, and this is a good thing. I'm able to shop and buy 360 stuff on Live (or choose not to buy) and that's a bad thing? Looks like an actual workable micro-payment system to me, something that's been much in desire.
Really, I'd much rather have devs/content providers busting their humps to provide games and goodies that are worth cash, especially in the pennies to few dollars range. If the item sucks, people won't buy it. If it's good, the creator gets rewarded, encouraging the creation of more quality low-priced goodies for us to enjoy.
Of course software companies could try and sell gimped games in retail, where you need to buy additional stuff off of Live to really enjoy it. I think that would be a recipe for their demise though.
slashbinslashbash - Friday, May 20, 2005 - link
Anand,Thank you for this coverage. It's amazing to me that there are numerous "gaming" websites out there, none of which tell me what I want to know (things like: how the hard drive is removed; what the sides of the unit look like; multiple views of the controller so I can see how the top buttons are placed). Gaming websites basically provide me with press releases. You, on the other hand, cut straight to what I consider to be the important stuff.
It's funny. If you'd have asked me two years ago (you might have even done so in a forum poll or something) whether Anandtech should go into covering video game console hardware, I would have replied to the negative -- that that was taken care of, there are too many gaming sites already, etc. I would have thought that it would be outside your core competency. It was the same way with digital cameras. I thought that Steve's Digicams was good enough. Boy, was I ever wrong!
You are doing a great service to the world by providing the truth and having unbiased, straightforward reviews. Thank you.
Tefl0n - Friday, May 20, 2005 - link
Looking more and more like Sega had some influence on that controller(think Dreamcast). which isnt a bad thing.TheSnowman - Friday, May 20, 2005 - link
Yeah the Killzone demo is all real time just like the geforce3 can render Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within in real time and just like The Getway looked every bit as good as the footage from the PS2 unvailing. Seriously, if you want to enough you can belive anything; but it doesn't make it anything more than BS hype.Reflex - Friday, May 20, 2005 - link
#8 - If those formats are supported currently, then yes. I don't think they are however...#3 - The Killzone 2 demo was not in game, that has been confirmed with the developers who stated that it was made 'to the PS3 spec' in the sense that thats what people can expect them to be shooting for. It could not have been done on the PS3, they started working on that in November, but PS3 test kits only came out two months ago and still do not have everything needed to make a demo like that.
#1 - The controllers recharge when plugged into the USB ports. So you don't have to worry about battery expenses.
her34 - Friday, May 20, 2005 - link
"If you have a Media Center Edition PC, the Xbox 360 will also act as a Media Center Extender, streaming any SD or HD content from your MCE machine."the video file on the pc can be any format? it can be xvid or h264?
how exactly does that work? does it get re-encoded on the fly? or does it just stream the file and the codec gets installed on the xbox360?
Jeff7181 - Friday, May 20, 2005 - link
Awesome... AA batteries... I was afraid that was an "assembled by Microsoft" battery pack that costs $69.95 and won't hold a charge after a year.dripgoss - Friday, May 20, 2005 - link
I'm stoked for one. The live integration and media possibilities looks cool. Progressive and HD native along with small wireless controller is a definite plus. I'll be buying one...GhandiInstinct - Friday, May 20, 2005 - link
Why is E3 sucking so bad this year? Nothing new, and the worst is that games that are supposed to be presented aren't even there, i.e: Stalker.What happened? BOO!
Cygni - Friday, May 20, 2005 - link
The controllers are rechargeable... you wont be swapping out batteries like its a wavebird or anything.They are also RF and not IR. Im not going to complain. A solid RF controller (like the Wavebird) is hard to beat, especially if its still light, like was mentioned. I wonder if the rumble actuator was taken out of the controllers? Hard to imagine a wireless controller being lighter than an S.