Thoughts on Xbox Live

[nintenho]

I don't see how that would ever be implemented considering the lag it would undoubtedly introduce.
there is only so much bandwidth available on most people's connection.

I was being sarcastic!

 

[Tap In]

I was being sarcastic!

 

[A176]

Xbox Live is simply wonderful. Atleast, the services. The real bad thing is the interface. No matter how many times MS tries to "improve" on it, it simply doesn't make the cut.

 

[AlNom]

Why do people assume simultaneous downloads would be any faster? You'd probably stil be wqorkign with the same bandwidth, just split over multiple files. I prefer the serial method as it allows you to prioritize which one will finish first, whereas simultaneous, everything would just crawl...

I was referring to opening more connections and causing more problems on that end (that's what I mostly describe in the post). The bandwidth will ultimately be limited at MS's side, but think about having 10 open connections per user with 3 million users versus 1 open connection per user at a given time. Just look at the problems they're already having with the video/movie downloads -> likely caused by having a ton of connections trying to be opened at roughly the same times of the day.

It's not unlike the "issues" that mirror providers have with download accelerators that open several connections downloading the file in smaller chunks but simultaneously. It's hogging the number of connections or "lanes" that the provider has allowed for downloading.

When I talked about wanting to see bandwidth figures at the very end of my first post, I was mainly just curious. I meant it to be exclusive from what I was talking aboot with simultaneous downloads, and I was more complaining aboot the figures that MS released during E3. "OMG 24 million downloads!" i.e. thanks, I don't care because I'd like to know just how nuts the bandwidth transfer is for them. Call it better trivia. But at the same time I was wondering if the serial method kept people from prioritizing with time, spreading out downloads over a longer period (leading to slightly less bandwidth usage per month).

edit: hm.... just to clarify, I meant that last part as something psychological. On PC it's not uncommon to be downloading multiple files simultaneously. But when a person suddenly moves to the 360 with serial downloads, it can give the impression of wasting time... Do you see where I'm going here? Anyways... pure speculation. So... nevermind.

 

[Tap In]

I was reminded again today of the integration of your Xbox Live Gamertag to the Xbox.com web site.

It allows you the ability to type messages to friends on your PC that show up on the X360 or to check your X360 messages from a PC.

adding friends from a PC with a keyboard (or copy paste)

check out your friends games and who is (or was recently) online from any PC and what they have been doing and when they were last on.

also...

The ability to voice chat over Live while you and a friend are playing different games or movies!

The ability of Silver users to voice chat for free

the fact that every 360 comes with a headset so everybody has voice (Xbox 1 did not include one).

oh and also, if you are inactive for a while, the system recognizes this and shows your friends that you are "away". Also you can manually set your listing as invisible, busy or away mode etc. at any time.

 

[xexuxjy]

Trying to remember my server stuff but I wouldn't have thought that it was strictly necessary to have one open connection for each item being downloaded, surely you could just slice the downloads on a given connection. Client could then re-assemble them to the appropriate place.

Maybe just rambling