New Xbox 360 Update

[TRF]

I like that the voice quality is higher over Xbox LIVE, but I hate the new dashboard. Bland, ugly, and too bright for my tastes.

 

[DarkONI]

Then it might be just me, but having owned a Wii in the past, I see and hear many similarities. From the soft corners, soft color palate, to the innocent toddler-toy sounds whenever I select something. It would be great if they were developing their own ideas, but (at least to me) it seems that they're attempting to tap into the larger audience of people who enjoy games like Kinectimals. Unfortunately that means they'll keep sacrificing the dashboard environment that made the 360 special, once again this is just my opinion and I hope what I think I'm seeing is due to paranoia on my part.

In this market in particular ideas are made and... Well others take inspiration from them. I believe Nintendo made a good initiative with the Wii's user interface, dashboard and I'm glad that Microsoft has adopted it too. The Xbox 360 is an unique console with it's own dashboard and features.

It is to be expected that minimalism is the new call for design, therefore they are moving into this new trend. I found the very first Xbox 360 dashboard a bit.. bulky, it was old, slow and too much 2006's style. I'm glad they moved on, with a brand new version of the Xbox 360, a new Dashboard and that the .net platform gets better by the day. (and not only)

Such improvements mean a lot, not just for the customer but also for the developers themselves. Things were harder and development had to slow down because of the difficulties that the Xbox 360 had in the past. Now, seems that developers are more comfortable and can focus mostly on their game instead of playing around with the specifics of the Xbox 360.

Of course, the other companies with their consoles improve their techniques with time, however I wanted to focus on the Xbox 360 specifically because it offers a vast set of options, features and entertainment in its own way, unlike the other consoles.

I have heard people saying that Wii is focused on creating an enjoyable environment and give a fun time to the player. I do agree with that, I haven't played the Wii much, but as usual it is a Nintendo console, it keeps minimalism in every sense and offers what it promises. However, I want to point out that even the Xbox 360 (and of course, our PS3 friend) Offer an equal amount of fun and game play experience. Although it falls mostly on the developer that's creating a video game rather than the console.

Let me explain: in 2006 there were different options for a console the old Xbox, Playstation 2 or the GameCube. During that time many new franchises were introduced and some reached their peak, becoming famous even nowadays. However, the developers were young in such environment (most of them) However, thanks to the progress made in years, both inside the various engines used in video games (proprietary or not) Were mastered and towards the 'end' of the time of this generation of consoles, the game were using their limits and full extents in order to give a good game play.

The story repeats itself, as Nostradamus said. We're almost at the peak of the Xbox 360, even though it's an old console, I'm glad to see that the companies are steady into making a brand new console and that the developers focus on creating the engines and learning the platform before releasing a video game (well at least, most of the developers) I'm glad to see revisions of the same consoles over and over again and to see that games are getting ligher, smoother and minimalistic.

It's just the breeze of a new way of doing things, it happens every time. We will live with it. Every console offer it's unique franchises with the respective 'veteran' developers for it's systems. And of course, many games are ported on all the possible platforms.

The good thing, is that we have an option between consoles and that we can surely enjoy a good video game on any console you might buy, regardless of it's hardware (whereas little children that know nothing about hardware, shouldn't get excited. We're past the 16 bits)

That's all! I love how the markets progressing and I hope the developers that don't focus on learning the system(s) they work with before releasing a video game to perish in the ugly video games hell!

 

[zmalt]

In this market... [too many words to re-quote]

So basically, you like the new dashboard. Good to know.
I agree somewhat with the minimalist trend, not stylistically, but in terms of efficiency and easy navigation through menus that would otherwise be cluttered. Then again, I'm not sure if I would call basic steps forward in ease of use and user-friendly controls a trend. Considering that there's going to be at least four more years of this hardware, if the direction of efficiency moves all three consoles toward an identical goal, it will be a loss for those of us who have progressed through the evolution of them. I do love efficiency, and the goal should be to maximize it, but if the consoles end up sacrificing their uniqueness for it, it will be unfortunate.

 

[DarkONI]

They won't lose anything unique they have. There will be always developers dedicated on a certain platform and each console offers its own features in its own way. Believe it or not, design is mostly something about trends, if you keep following design news and articles you will notice that very easily.

2010 pushed too much minimalism, as you can see. Expect the next year to introduce something new.

 

[zmalt]

They won't lose anything unique they have. There will be always developers dedicated on a certain platform and each console offers its own features in its own way. Believe it or not, design is mostly something about trends, if you keep following design news and articles you will notice that very easily.

I dunno, I guess I feel that the 360 has already lost something, there was a feeling I got navigating through the dashboard before the update that was almost... businesslike, purposeful. It was an appropriate feeling before going into Modern Warfare 2 or Battlefield Bad Company 2 multiplayer. How cool would it be to be able to have a deeper dashboard customization system? Color and shape of even the most basic aspects of the menus. Now that would be satisfyingly unique.

2010 pushed too much minimalism, as you can see. Expect the next year to introduce something new.

Here's hoping the new trends go in different directions this time.