What features does Xbox Live lack?

[AzBat]

This might be a little, umm... Harsh? And I don't mean to pick you specifically, Nav, but aren't we a little better than just a bunch of list collectors?

Take your desired improvement above: What would be the reasoning for having to input your parental code each time to play an Indie game? It's an annoyance, but they didn't do it irritate you to stop buying Live and go play on the PS3 for free. I'm sure it's part of their parental security controls - controls that you requested when you took advantage of them.

Point being, if they didn't force you to input your parental code when your son wants to play avatar golf, what else would they be giving him access to do without your code that you set up the restriction to prevent?

I agree with this. I don't have restrictions on my kid's Live account & he can access XBLIG just fine with no need for me to enter a code. However, the Indie Games channel is considered user-generated content and as such they have no ESRB ratings(they're unrated). I had believed this influenced Nav's next problem: having to be connected to Live in order to play the game. But that's not entirely the case either. For some good reading on XBLIG, ratings & why the Live connection is required go here...

http://forums.xna.com/forums/t/40617.aspx
http://forums.xna.com/forums/p/19178/101196.aspx#101196
http://forums.xna.com/forums/p/19178/101223.aspx#101223

Tommy McClain

 

[ShadowRunner]

Well a simple solution would be the ability to permanently authorise access to games so that once you have validated a game to be ok the prompt for a code could be disabled.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Yep. Authorise it for subaccounts on the system, and give you child their own access to Live! etc. on the box that is filtered for content by settings. That seems the most convenient and straightforward solution to me.

 

[Karamazov]

the ability to automaticaly mute all people under a certain age yelling (user defined) in your headphones during games =)

 

[corduroygt]

Posting your trophies to Facebook, like PS3 has. Although secret trophies show up as ????? when posted, the PSN implementation is severely lacking, you can tell they didn't bother spending too much time on it.

 

[E2K]

Vidzone would be good (for the people that still have the 360 as the main console).
Webbrowser, facebook integration for trophies or whatever they're called on the 360.

 

[bkilian]

Live Family Memberships
My wife cannot play as herself in 1 vs 100 because she is only a Silver member so she needs to logon to the generic account.

I would like something similar to Netflix sub-accounts for child accounts and "family" accounts. I would also like my MS Points to be usable by all "family" accounts or the ability to gift without having to resort to amazon.com online codes OR some integration with amazon whereby I can link my gamertag to my amazon account then use that to gift to other gamertags.

Yes, this and ubiquitous login would make my year. Now that we have two consoles, it is a real pain to have to go find which one you plugged your profile into. Often I'll notice that the console I'm on doesn't have my profile and then just switch it off and watch TV instead, because it doesn't require me to go grab the memory card.

On my wish list:
Search for Netflix.
A youtube browser. I generally don't need a full internet browser, 99% of the time that I use the Wii for is showing friends and family a youtube video.

 

[obonicus]

Would MS ever put a youtube browser in their console?

 

[AlNom]

Maybe if you could record video from a game and upload it at the press of a button? It'd be a sort of extension of what Bungie is doing with Halo 3.

 

[obonicus]

Right, but would they use google's service? Bing points to it, but I don't think it has a choice.

 

[infinity4]

Microsoft will never allow that sort of thing unless they are making money out of it. Think about it, they added price tags for anything. Additional achievements now require you to pay for the DLC (in another words free DLCs are not allowed to add achievements nowadays), last.fm/Facebook/Twitter requires you to have Gold subscription. And of course, they don't allow browsers or UGC sharing.

 

[obonicus]

Bing video seems to index videos from everywhere, but does Microsoft have its own video service? There's Showcase, but that seems to be internal-only.

 

[NavNucST3]

This might be a little, umm... Harsh? And I don't mean to pick you specifically, Nav, but aren't we a little better than just a bunch of list collectors?

Take your desired improvement above: What would be the reasoning for having to input your parental code each time to play an Indie game? It's an annoyance, but they didn't do it irritate you to stop buying Live and go play on the PS3 for free. I'm sure it's part of their parental security controls - controls that you requested when you took advantage of them.

Point being, if they didn't force you to input your parental code when your son wants to play avatar golf, what else would they be giving him access to do without your code that you set up the restriction to prevent?

You seem to be conflating my complaint with, too be honest, I'm not sure with what...but it sounds like you haven't even watched a video for parental controls let alone used them.

I already gave to code to purchase the game what I want is what, ShadowRunner, suggests. You seem to believe that by me entering my parental code for one game that this magically opens the console to my son, this is not the case at all. I need to enter the parental code for every item that is "Unrated", that is perfectly acceptable in Netflix it is irritating in TV/Movie/Games Marketplace when I have already given consent.

AzBat, what you allow your kids to play and watch is up to you, I prefer not to let my son see my entire Netflix queue or have access to items like the Wet and Bayonetta demos. With the parental controls enabled on my sons 360, "Explicit Content" doesn't even appear in his TV/Movie/Games Marketplace or on Spotlight, while in a party or on Live he can only hear and/or communicate with people that are already his friends, I also get an e-mail for friend invites that I can approve or deny for him; personally, I love the parental controls of the 360 but I'll refrain from any listing or more active parental involvement with what my son can do on his machine...

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

I already gave to code to purchase the game what I want is what, ShadowRunner, suggests. You seem to believe that by me entering my parental code for one game that this magically opens the console to my son, this is not the case at all. I need to enter the parental code for every item that is "Unrated", that is perfectly acceptable in Netflix it is irritating in TV/Movie/Games Marketplace when I have already given consent..

So, again, what is it you would prefer to have happen and why do you think it isn't programmed that way now?

That was the point I was getting across.

You want there to be some sort of special "tag" on each purchase that stays with the purchase that designates it as allowed content?

It seems to me, you've made a decision to block a certain category of entertainment. You can override that block of content on a case by case basis. Your complaint is that you want MS to develop a means of having Live "remember" that you've unblocked specific content within your chosen restricted category?

Do I have that correct?

If so, I don't know how they'd implement such a thing. They'd need a special library for each individual game to record exceptions to the parental blocks, right?

 

[AzBat]

Nav, my son is now 15 & I believe my wife & I have done a good job of teaching him right from wrong. So much that even he doesn't want to view explicit content. I don't have to hand hold him & tell him he can't do that. I understand that not all kids are like that. We are blessed to not have to worry about it. With that said I do have him locked out of a few things. Playing Indie games isn't one of them though. Even though he don't have a Gold account I do have a few settings like you. I could see having more stringent requirements if he had Gold & played as much or more Xbox than I do. But at the moment he plays Halo 3, Guitar Hero & Crackdown locally with friends & a few Arcade/Indie games. He's not even interested in Netflix or other types of media.

Anyway, I understand your dilemma. Microsoft needs to implement separate parental controls for Indie games, even it meant just using the scales that the developers have to rate their own titles. Just treating them as all Unrated is not very bright or well thought out.

Tommy McClain

 

[Acert93]

How's that lame? Over-reaching a bit?

Tommy McClain

No Tommy, it is lame. You pay $60 for a game and you pay $50 for a Gold account (tagged to a GT), but then an alt tag (e.g. my son wanting to DL a simple paint job in the storefront) and due to his lack of Live this feature isn't available. Buy a console, buy the game, and buy live--but all tied to a single GT? It is bad enough online play is locked out (when high cost services bleed across to all the Silver moochers) but locking out non-online play features diminishes the value of the purchased product and, for those who actually pay for a Game+Gold account, to be locked into a single GT is just stupid. It essentially turns the console into a 1 person platform. Hardly compliant with a social or family platform with multiple users--which is really lame, especially if you already forked over $50 for Gold.

Over-reaching would be a non-Gold user defending MS for locking out features and content to Gold-subscribers who may wish to use another GT on their same console/games.

 

[AzBat]

No Tommy, it is lame. You pay $60 for a game and you pay $50 for a Gold account (tagged to a GT), but then an alt tag (e.g. my son wanting to DL a simple paint job in the storefront) and due to his lack of Live this feature isn't available. Buy a console, buy the game, and buy live--but all tied to a single GT? It is bad enough online play is locked out (when high cost services bleed across to all the Silver moochers) but locking out non-online play features diminishes the value of the purchased product and, for those who actually pay for a Game+Gold account, to be locked into a single GT is just stupid. It essentially turns the console into a 1 person platform. Hardly compliant with a social or family platform with multiple users--which is really lame, especially if you already forked over $50 for Gold.

The whole jist I got from your post was that it seemed like this whole idea of the Gold subscription is tied to one user was something brand new. It's been like this since Xbox Live came out in 2002 and you're just now figuring it out? Now, your son could get the DL content if you created him a child Silver account. How could a non-Live account access Live content otherwise? Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for evolving the service with family plans. It's a great idea & one that I think compares very well with cell phone services.

Over-reaching would be a non-Gold user defending MS for locking out features and content to Gold-subscribers who may wish to use another GT on their same console/games.

Don't see anybody doing that. I think myself and everybody else here all have Gold.

Tommy McClain

 

[obonicus]

The whole jist I got from your post was that it seemed like this whole idea of the Gold subscription is tied to one user was something brand new. It's been like this since Xbox Live came out in 2002 and you're just now figuring it out?

Which is why this thread is about stuff that should be added/changed about XBL. It's not 'why XBL sucks' -- I don't see why you're defending a bunch of features which could certainly be improved.

 

[NavNucST3]

So, again, what is it you would prefer to have happen and why do you think it isn't programmed that way now?

That was the point I was getting across.

You want there to be some sort of special "tag" on each purchase that stays with the purchase that designates it as allowed content?

It seems to me, you've made a decision to block a certain category of entertainment. You can override that block of content on a case by case basis. Your complaint is that you want MS to develop a means of having Live "remember" that you've unblocked specific content within your chosen restricted category?

Do I have that correct?

If so, I don't know how they'd implement such a thing. They'd need a special library for each individual game to record exceptions to the parental blocks, right?

Bro, I think you would be surprised with just how much data is collected by MSFT from Live...believe me...they could do this.

 

[RancidLunchmeat]

Bro, I think you would be surprised with just how much data is collected by MSFT from Live...believe me...they could do this.

LOL! No, I wouldn't be surprised by the amount of data they collect, I'm sure it's a goldmine.

My point was just to get past the "This sucks" and get to the "Why do they do it this way?" and "How difficult would them be to fix it" and then ofcourse the "Why don't they fix it?"

Honestly, complaints about the access restrictions and annoyance due to gold memberships vs silver memberships makes perfect sense to me. It's about revenue. I get why they would place restrictions on silver accounts. Sharing things between two gold accounts, I don't understand but I haven't seen anybody really make a case about that one.

Hell, I'm annoyed that when I go to the bedroom to use my arcade to watch netflix I've got to re-enter all my info... my gamertag, my email account & my password. It's a pain in the ass. They already know my gamertag because when I turn it on it says "This gamertag was used by another console, relog in or choose another account". Of course, why isn't my netflix account just tied to my console? Well, because it requires a gold live membership to use so it's tied to the membership, not the console.

But if they already know my gamertag, why do I need to enter it again? That annoys me. As does entering in my email address and password. But after thinking about it, I can understand why they do.

Really... how would they have an easy way to record which games are allowable in your restricted category? I've presented what came to mind first - a library catalog of exceptions that could be checked each time a game was attempted to be accessed. I think that way would make more sense that actually attaching the flags to the games themselves.

Is there another way? In your response you seem to think this would be something easy to implement, and maybe it would be. I'm not a programmer, so I don't know. But then you get into the discussion about where this information is stored. Is that library of exceptions stored locally, so it is console specific? Or is it stored globally by MS and tied into their servers? And even if it were easy to implement, what would be the cost of storing all that extra information?

I'm actually rather sad this started to swerve off into a discussion about parental skills, because I was never questioning yours, Nav and I don't think Az was either.

Merry Christmas, everybody!