Xbox 360 Preview now rolling out

[Rockster]

Cloud acts like any other memory unit. It's actually a bit annoying, because I'm used to only having the hard drive on, so games didn't really prompt me to choose my save location. Once you configure cloud storage, it's just like having a jump drive in and you'll have to select the storage location. I like idea, who ever suggested it, of cloud syncs, but that would imply you will always have some local storage of sufficient quantity to sync down to where ever you go which may not be the case. And if you didn't treat the cloud as an actual device the game wouldn't be able to access it. Besides, they only give you 512MB, so you can't use it for everything and have to be selective about what you put there (ie. save games but not DLC, etc).

Haven't experimented with roaming profiles yet so I'm not sure how they work. Perhaps by copying your profile to the cloud? Might try it this weekend if I get some time.

 

[Rangers]

Yeah I'm not sure about cloud storage. It doesn't sync all your saves automatically.

Seems like the best idea might be for everything you save to local since cloud became available, it auto syncs it to the cloud. As of now you either choose cloud, or you can manually copy over. I'm not actually sure what "best" practice there would be. It might even be ideal if it automatically backed up all your current/past local saves on your machine to the cloud too, but that might start to squeeze the memory. But I wonder why if gmail and hotmail can give me unlimited storage, it's not an option for MS cloud saves?


I thought I recall some 360 saves can be quite relatively large, though. Just a few outliers, at least I think I remember that from persuing/editing my hard drive in the past.

 

[AlNom]

Where do you get Kinect in this?

He mentioned using it in the lab

Kinect Labs.

Unless you refer to software development studios as labs. *shrug*

 

[Rangers]

Right but, there was no reference to Kinect labs just "the lab". Unless I'm missing something I thought that just means, some place where they prototype Xbox 360 stuff, kinect or otherwise, that Major Nelson has access to playing around with unreleased stuff.

I dont see why Kinect would have anything to do with a 360 browser either. Except maybe for some voice stuff if they chose.

Edit: yes I see misunderstanding.

 

[AlNom]

I dont see why Kinect would have anything to do with a 360 browser either. Except maybe for some voice stuff if they chose.

How about using your arm to move the cursor or page view, or flip back and forth through the page history? Just some simple ways to replace the gamepad for web browsing. And/or just voice commands to do stuff with say... Bing search.

(just wait for the kinect arm flailing command that switches web browser tabs away from lewd sites )


---------

Anyways, the other two consoles utilize motion control for their web browsing. So why not Kinect? FYI, I think web browsing on a console is about as wrong as an RTS on console, but it'd be a pretty novel feature I guess if you could use your bing etc voice commands and use your arms like that certain movie to manipulate the web pages. >_>

edit: Minority Report

 

[Arwin]

I am not sure yet which system I prefer for Cloud saves. PS3 allows you to set per game first time you boot it whether you want it to sync to the cloud. But it is one way only, pretty much just a backup and that happens at night. Still a big advantage especially having two PS3s, but you can only do it on one of them, and there isn't any auto check on whether your cloud storage has a newer save. Also, only 150MB. So I'm inclined to prefer the 360 version.

 

[RudeCurve]

I predict MS will allow cloud syncing to their free 25GB SkyDrive cloud service eventually, not sure if they'll wait until X720...but I think they should have it fully fleshed out on X360 before deploying it for next gen. It's not really hard to do as it's just an extension of achievements which is cloud based anyway.

 

[Acert93]

Finding/Browsing the Arcade and Indie games is difficult AND buggy. That better get fixed!

 

[AlNom]

You say it, Xbox finds it.

ಠ_ಠ

 

[Acert93]

But I want to see what is new. And find the "by release date" is goofy. And it is a moronic set of priorities if Indie and Arcade games cannot be browsed to but require voice ... dumb dumb dumb. Did I mention it was dumb? And when I found new release Arcade games it popped up Joe Dangerous (yay!) but then it was only a video (what?) And the Indie games sorting by release date is totally broken.

I game on my Xbox 360 game console, so finding games (and no On Demand) is a priority. Not all those "coming soon, services/apps we want you to buy but I never wanted on my console to begin with" tabs

 

[AlNom]

Yeah, I'm not very impressed with the new layout and organization. It's almost as if they made it really shitty because they have a search function now.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

That's sounding painful, like 'we have this great new tech and we'll use it no matter what'. It amazes me what silly choices designers make. PSN can be a bugger to find anything, but at least you don't have to know the name of what you're looking for to be able to find it! Why don't they add improvements to existing good systems, rather than make changes that make as many mistakes and advances?

Has anyone tried searching for something like "top down zombie shooter" "team based cooperative multiplayer" and seeing what's offered?

 

[NavNucST3]

But I want to see what is new. And find the "by release date" is goofy. And it is a moronic set of priorities if Indie and Arcade games cannot be browsed to but require voice ... dumb dumb dumb. Did I mention it was dumb? And when I found new release Arcade games it popped up Joe Dangerous (yay!) but then it was only a video (what?) And the Indie games sorting by release date is totally broken.

I game on my Xbox 360 game console, so finding games (and no On Demand) is a priority. Not all those "coming soon, services/apps we want you to buy but I never wanted on my console to begin with" tabs

I can't comprehend what you are saying in this sentence what do you mean by "cannot be browsed to". Arcade, Indie, Games on Demand, and XBOX Originals all have their own entry points under Game Type. I agree that counting a trailer as part of the New Releases is going to definitely take some getting used to but I would prefer the New Releases to actually be when the title is available for Trial and Purchase and DLC releases (though they have their own section as well) as opposed to a new trailer being released. I don't find it difficult to find most things I would however have preferred the Game Types to be the initial panels as opposed to drill-downs but none of that...NONE OF IT compares to how Netflix has now introduced, easily, their worst implementation EVER.

Shifty, I haven't used PSN Store in a LONG time but my single largest complaint with PSN Store was that I DID need to know exactly what I was looking for back when I was using it they didn't even have, what should be a no-brainer, "ALL"! I would go into demos and at best I could get the Search by Alpha but no ALL...causing me to go "A...nothing interesting...back to list...B...oh that looks cool...back to list...C" whereas the 360 has always allowed me to browse ALL games on demand, originals, xbla, etc...AND (another complaint of mine with PS navigation in general) a page at a time (LT or RT for previous page and next page, respectively) versus scrolling through a list one by one with the sticks.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

PSN was a complete mess, but it's much improved, although still varies store layout via region. Games are available as latest, demos, genre, alphabetic, and search. I haven't tried key-word searches like "top down zombie shooter" - I'll have to give that a go. IMO if a service is going to 'work as people do' then it needs to understand the sort of descriptors people use, like "that new zombie shooter" or "what's that game NavNucST3 was playing?" The demo vid I saw of the new XB dash had someone asking for something like 'Batman' and being given content named Batman, but that's only one type of access people will use. What Acert describes sounds like MS had dropped some of the more vague and explorative searching methods. Is this not the case?

 

[kagemaru]

Absolutely hate what they did with the Netflix app. I was originally worried that the cluttered look would be an issue, but it's not bad. I hate that they took out basic functions like skip forward/reverse and restart to beginning. I'm also not a fan to how the app auto-plays the supposedly latest episode when you click on a series. I appreciate the new features like 5.1 and subtitles, but I still liked the old layout much better.

Also don't care for the new game marketplace or how I'm forced to use the Zune player to watch game videos (which doesn't sort correctly for me BTW).

NXE had it's issues at launch, but this is just....meh.

 

[AlNom]

My main beef now is just how many sub-menus I have to go through before I can get to where I want to see what I want (e.g. latest demos, not latest everything and then sub-category uuuugh), which does remind me all too much of how PS Store is setup.

XBLM organization was much simpler and more logical than what I'm seeing now. Gotta keep flipping through tabs and such underneath all the sub-pages. The whole way the friends and parties are viewed now is unnecessarily tedious.

Even viewing the games I have on my console is more tedious with the giant box art vs previous listing. What if I only want to see the games I can launch sans disc or just the new demos I downloaded? Oh wait, gotta go through more sub-menus to filter shit out or just shift through the entire bloody gallery of box art.

 

[kagemaru]

Yup, how you view your games library is completely asinine now.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Can you manually categorise? XMB has zero sorting other than custom folders, but despite the effort of custom folders, at least you have everything just how you want it!

 

[AlNom]

No manual stuff. When you go to the games listing gallery, you push up, then select to view what sort of categories there are then select the category. >_> Couldn't they have done that before throwing all the games in my face. If I'm going to view the games list I'm not doing it to brag to myself how many games I have. I'm going there to look for something specific.

 

[NavNucST3]

Absolutely hate what they did with the Netflix app. I was originally worried that the cluttered look would be an issue, but it's not bad. I hate that they took out basic functions like skip forward/reverse and restart to beginning. I'm also not a fan to how the app auto-plays the supposedly latest episode when you click on a series. I appreciate the new features like 5.1 and subtitles, but I still liked the old layout much better.

Also don't care for the new game marketplace or how I'm forced to use the Zune player to watch game videos (which doesn't sort correctly for me BTW).

NXE had it's issues at launch, but this is just....meh.

I was being polite when I said worst implementation of Netflix...it isn't so much the layout it is all the shit that is now missing/taken away like you mention "chapter" skip, no episodes list WITHOUT having to play one of the videos first...seriously...who thought that was a user friendly idea, "hey guys, instead of letting them go directly to a specific episode lets make them start watching the 'next episode' and THEN they can press down and THEN side-to-side to choose their episodes". "Hey guys, I have another brilliant idea lets make sure playing the next episode in succession has NO SOUND so that the user has to back out to the home screen and then play and when thats done lets make sure the audio is out of synch"; I'm full of AWESOME ideas like this!!!