Xbox NXE Fall Update 2009 (with E3 announcements)

[AzBat]

Hey Azbat, how does the facebook friends thing work I've got the app on my 360, but it's not recognizing you... It seems to check the facebook-only or the facebook + XBL list rather than... the XBL list of people who have facebook. :/

You have to tell the app in the settings to share your information with Xbox Live. BTW, you're not the only one who has zero Xbox Live friends who are also on Facebook. Maybe you don't have that setting checked?

Other than that the Facebook app isn't too bad. Don't be expecting it to completely replace what you can do on the PC. You can update your status, view/comment on friends' statuses & view/comment on their photos. That's it. I really like the photo aspect of it the most.

Tommy McClain

 

[AlNom]

hm... pretty sure I have that checked. I see someone now on "facebook friends on XBL", who isn't on my Friends list currently. But I thought I'd be able to see you on the "XBL friends on Facebook" list.

Yeah, I don't plan to use it much considering I have a laptop right next to my console. I might fiddle with it once in awhile if I'm not playing anything and in a party chat while you guys are playing a certain game I'm never going to get.

 

[AzBat]

hm... pretty sure I have that checked. I see someone now on "facebook friends on XBL", who isn't on my Friends list currently. But I thought I'd be able to see you on the "XBL friends on Facebook" list.

Same here. Not sure what is going on. Maybe I need to remove the app & re-download it? I think I was the probably only one on my friends list to get into the preview.

Yeah, I don't plan to use it much considering I have a laptop right next to my console. I might fiddle with it once in awhile if I'm not playing anything and in a party chat while you guys are playing a certain game I'm never going to get.

LOL, never say never.

Tommy McClain

 

[NavNucST3]

Ahhh. See, I don't have that issue with any of my shows on Hulu(except maybe for "V"). Don't really care since it's still free.



Yeah, I miss the 'Y' to play, but I'm not sure I understand the problem with purchase history. The video purchase history is still available on Xbox.com. Also, Video Marketplace never had ratings. Only Netflix has had this. Ratings were added last update for game content only, not videos. I agree that the web experience is now woefully unsatisfactory. Hopefully they'll pull their head out of their posterior and fix that. But other than the slight problems with some older licensed content, I think I like the new service better. The biggest draw is the instant on streaming since I no longer need to download the shows to the hard drive. Could care less about 1080p at the moment, since I'm only have a 720p TV, but that could always change in the future. Anyway, post your concerns about this on Connect.Microsoft.com. That's been one good thing about getting into the dashboard preview program. You get to complain about things you don't like.

Tommy McClain

My complete purchase history is NOT available from xbox.com that is my complaint. It is now spread between the Zune thick client (I cant even see my purchases from the zune site -- though this could be new user PEBKAC) and marketplace this is what led me into my rants in the first place. The xbox.com purchase history only contains those items purchased from the "old" marketplace while the Zune app does in fact show all of my VIDEO items. I no longer have a unified place to view my total purchases for games, tv, movies, avatar items.

It bothers me that the items that were not initially in the original Video Marketplace like press Y to play, were identified by the teams through feedback, to be implemented, and then for a new service to come along and remove those features is absurd, I would almost guarantee that the next dash update will have those items and they will again be bullet points. To me this was a case of just slapping these two sites and services together unification/seamlessness be damned.

I like the instant-on a lot, I like the ability to download my videos to my computer but there are definite improvements that need to take place, New Releases has always been borked but that I can deal with the splitting of my info...that is a little tougher to swallow.

 

[AzBat]

"I see" said the blind man. LOL "borked" doesn't seem like a strong enough word.

Tommy McClain

 

[Arwin]

My comments notwithstanding the Zune 1080p video quality is really good, the feeds are progressive so it may take a few minutes to get to full quality. It takes about 30seconds to a minute for me to reach full quality but I'm on 50Mbps so I'm not sure at lower speeds.

We've just started Constantine at 1080p - my wife has been wanting a service like this, so I thought I'd let her pick a movie and review it. The HD video quality is excellent (watching on my 1680x1050 Samsung LCD) and I didn't even see a transition phase. We're on 20Mbps right now I believe.

Biggest complaint right now is that it seems (read this on a forum) only the latest Harry Potter movie has subtitles! That's kind of ridiculous. I'm just about the only person I know who doesn't need subtitles over here, everyone else wants them. My wife is usually more than happy with even just English subtitles for the deaf (best option if you generally understand a foreign language imho), but even that is not available.

As long as that remains the case, this service will never be mainstream over here and they might as well not have bothered. So what I thought gave Microsoft an early lead here over Sony turns out to give them the opportunity to alienate a user-base that they might not get back once they do get the subtitles implemented.

Then again I guess they'll figure out soon enough and add subtitle options. Hopefully they can manage to do so outside of the stream eventually, so that you get real options.