Why isn't there an app store for the 360?

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Yes I know there are community games but games are not apps. It would be nice if I could get an app that would embed weather into the front page or an rss crawl or something. Imagine all the stuff the 360 could do, just look at XBMC on the old xbox. I think MS is missing a big opportunity here. They need to relax their grip on the dashboard and let the coders get in there and make it awesome.
 
Are you asking for an open source 360? Or for M$ to release an SDK? It's never gonna happen.

If you want Microsoft to release these types of apps themselves, it will slowly happen over time. When the 360 came out who thought we would be streaming Netflix on it? Or using Facebook or Last FM?

But really, do we need the Weather, or stock tickers on the 360's main page? I know I don't.
 
Is anyone actually using Facebook on their 360? Talk about a completely useless app. If there were a browser (please, god, no ActiveX) it would be a different story, but given that you can't go to any links you see, it's pretty fricking pointless. Really a pretty solid example of how Microsoft can be completely clueless - the Facebook and Twitter apps should have been scrapped long before they were completed. Facebook intergration makes sense, but not a Facebook app, not without a browser, etc.

Which isn't to say that other apps wouldn't be good. There's plenty that could be done. Certainly a nice weather app would be welcome. An shoutcast and such radio app. Etc. And they could make a browser and it could even be an IE variant, and that would open up lots more possibilities, such as a useful Facebook app. Just really don't include ActiveX. Please.
 
Well, the Facebook app makes sense from the perspective of marketing. Of course when you think about it it makes no damn sense to have on the 360 but when MS can say on press releases and during marketing that it supports and ties into the most popular social networking site on the web, it sounds good and wins over people who don't know any better. Sort of like how the Wii is popular thanks to the fact you can wave a controller around even though it's a piece of crap with terrible software.
 
Well I can't say I agree about the Wii. That's a popular opinion on CAG, yes, but certainly not in our household, nor most households. But let's not go there, please - if you want to fight over the Wii I'd rather see that in a general gaming forum.
 
The problem with that is people creating apps that could break licensing with another company. Also they would have to create new jobs for that and I just don't think they would spend money when they have already cut many positions already.
 
[quote name='whiptcracker']Indie Games service. It has a bunch of apps on it if you're interested in that sort of thing.[/QUOTE]

Ehhhh.. barely. It's mostly rumble massagers and virtual fireplaces and fishtanks.

The only halfway useful app I've seen amongst the indy games is the screen calibration sniper thingy.
 
[quote name='Puffa469']Ehhhh.. barely. It's mostly rumble massagers and virtual fireplaces and fishtanks.

The only halfway useful app I've seen amongst the indy games is the screen calibration sniper thingy.[/QUOTE]

I saw 360 Calculator on there too! Who doesn't want to use a calculator on their 360?! You can add things, subtract, multiply, and DIVIDE!!!! Wow these "apps" are sooo useful. lol :roll:
 
[quote name='Puffa469']Ehhhh.. barely. It's mostly rumble massagers and virtual fireplaces and fishtanks.

The only halfway useful app I've seen amongst the indy games is the screen calibration sniper thingy.[/QUOTE]

Don't forget the new bible reader that just came out. ;)
 
[quote name='ImLuhkee']I saw 360 Calculator on there too! Who doesn't want to use a calculator on their 360?! You can add things, subtract, multiply, and DIVIDE!!!! Wow these "apps" are sooo useful. lol :roll:[/QUOTE]

I use that calculator all the time to figure out how much XBL games cost in actual dollars! =P
 
[quote name='SuperPhillip']Apps would be cool, but what would 360 owners be interested in?[/QUOTE]

Let's start with a browser. You would think that the one console made by a company famous for its software and trying to avoid losing browser marketshare would include their own browser on their console. The 360 is the only one of the consoles that does not have a browser. It makes no sense. I agree with the previous suggestions about being able to link a browser with Twitter and Facebook. Allowing Facebook apps to run on the 360 would be sweet.
 
I think the reason they don't release a Web browser is because that way they have control still of what your looking at. Plus it gives them more options as to what's integrated into the xbox instead of people just using a browser to look at their facebook.

[quote name='Puffa 469'] I use that calculator all the time to figure out how much XBL games cost in actual dollars! =P[/QUOTE]

I can't believe you waste harddrive space on that! If I need a calculator I just use my phone. Guess thats not much better, but least I have that 10 or what ever it is MB!!! XD
 
I use my 360 to game. I could care less about having apps for it. The indie gaming market is fantastic on there, and that is all that really matters.
 
No just no.

Whatever happened to using the xbox360 to just play games and movies?

Weather? I have an app for it. Go outside or watch your local news.
Stock ticker? I have an app for it. Go on your computer or call your stock agent.
Web Browser? I have an app for it. Go on your computer.
 
The only "app" I'd really want would be a more fully-featured music player. I use my Xbox to stream music all the time so I'd love to have more options for sorting/tag display/visualizations/etc

Facebook does seems like kind of a waste, but I do like watching the slideshows on a TV. I just wish they had some more options for that, like the ability to randomly cycle through all your own photo albums, and show the pics within each album in order (right now you can just do one album at a time).
 
I just never got why people so desperately want a web browser on a game console. And I know a lot of people do, because from time to time, I do see threads pop up around the web about a 360 web browser. I'm sure a lot of that is Sony fanboys looking to stir people up, but still, many people are still serious. And I just don't get it. Do you really want to surf the web on a shitty game console browser? And apps seem like an even bigger waste to me. Apps for phones and other portable devices make sense, because they help you do stuff and/or kill time while you're on the move. If you're at home, you probably have your computer pretty near by, and you can do all of those on there and have a lot easier time and/or more fun doing them.
 
[quote name='bigdaddybruce44']I just never got why people so desperately want a web browser on a game console. And I know a lot of people do, because from time to time, I do see threads pop up around the web about a 360 web browser. I'm sure a lot of that is Sony fanboys looking to stir people up, but still, many people are still serious. And I just don't get it. Do you really want to surf the web on a shitty game console browser? And apps seem like an even bigger waste to me. Apps for phones and other portable devices make sense, because they help you do stuff and/or kill time while you're on the move. If you're at home, you probably have your computer pretty near by, and you can do all of those on there and have a lot easier time and/or more fun doing them.[/QUOTE]
On the PS3, you can use a browser to download videos, music, podcasts, and even user-created themes for the PS3 directly to the hard drive. If you have albums that you ripped to the hard drive whose art wasn't added, you can go on to amazon and save the album to apply to that folder. Sure, you could download all of this on to your PC and then download to the PS3 from the media server, but saving a step is great and a useful feature. That's not counting any quick information you could need to grab.

On the Xbox 360, the Twitter and Facebook apps are mostly useless because you can't do anything with the links that people post on there. I don't know if MS would actually allow you to download stuff from the web directly to the hard drive, but it could be a great feature if they don't lock it down.
 
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