I recently decided to get an Xbox 360 to replace my ageing desktop computer, and here are my initial thoughts after running with it for a couple of weeks.
Music and Video
The main reason I got the Xbox 360 is not for games, its primary purpose is to replace my old desktop computer with a new way to access entertainment:
- Streaming music from my laptop using the built in Xbox media player
- Zune Music and Video through Zune Pass
- Lovefilm streaming for films and TV shows
- iPlayer and 4oD for on demand television
Watching programs like Red Dwarf on Lovefilm has been very cool, as well as using Zune Pass to quickly find new albums and music videos. It’s generally a lot nicer to be able to run these entertainment experiences on the Xbox verses the PC.
Installing and Playing games
One of the things that the Xbox lets me do is install games directly onto the system – much like you can on a PC. This means that the software can load faster and the machine itself can be a lot quieter, as it does not need to spin up the optical media to load assets. I got the Xbox 360 256 GB * which is the newer Xbox 360 S design. This is already pretty quiet, so having a game installed like this makes the whole experience a lot nicer for a living room. As playing each game has its own personality, so I won’t be going into any at this point. In this case I’m going to focus on more of the interface and apps.
The ‘Metro’ Dashboard
Yup, Microsoft are making some amazing strides in their user interface unification. By crafting all of their major operating systems on the new Metro design language, they’re creating a consistent experience for users to interact with their electronics. The Xbox 360’s latest dashboard update included a large amount of these Metro principles – though I believe the transformation is not yet complete (at time of writing, naturally). This is due to the ‘Metro style‘ philosophy only going as far as the design language of the main home screen, most of the operating system is the same as it was before, including the pop-up ‘Blade style’ guide, to ‘NXE style’ menus.
Launching and running other Apps
Apps like Facebook and Twitter are lacking the integration that applications like Windows Phone and Windows 8 are capable of. You don’t notice so much with single tasked apps like iPlayer because the main focus is to single task – watching something. Social applications require more multitasking. I would love to see Facebook chat work like the Messenger integration, and the ability to pin apps (or deep links from apps) directly to the dashboard is a must.
* Note that they refer to the consoles by size now, rather than calling one Arcade or Elite like they did with the early Xbox 360 units. That’s better if you ask me.