I know a lot of this has been mentioned in articles about the 360 before, but I just wanted to post about how nicely everything is implemented on the 360 now that I've had some hands on time with it.
I'm really amazed about the whole "blades" setup on the Xbox 360. Everything is so seamless and thoughtfully integrated. It truly is a unique experience that is unlike anything a previous console has offered.
Everything about the dashboard operating system just feels right. Streaming your entire music collection from your PC is easy to set up and the fact that you can skip through songs with the media remote while you are still within the games shows that they really thought how people are going to want to use the features.
The center button on the controller does an excellent job of letting you access the important information while you pause a game you are playing. It's a very useful button and it lets you check on your friends list and other Live features without having to exit a game.
I absolutely love the achievements aspect of games and how they add up to a "gamerscore". I think it's going to add a lot of replay value to games as people are going to want to get all the achievements.
The Marketplace is set up nicely as well, and downloading demos and videos is extremely easy. I can definitely see this area being a big hit and I already know I'm going to be wanting some Marketplace points soon.
I think Microsoft has really outdone themselves with the entire setup on this thing. It's clear that they learned a lot from the first Xbox and it actually looks like they took a lot of ideas from what people were doing with modded Xboxes into account when they were planning this thing out.
This isn't your standard check your saves and account dash anymore. This is a huge step forward in home console design.
I'm really amazed about the whole "blades" setup on the Xbox 360. Everything is so seamless and thoughtfully integrated. It truly is a unique experience that is unlike anything a previous console has offered.
Everything about the dashboard operating system just feels right. Streaming your entire music collection from your PC is easy to set up and the fact that you can skip through songs with the media remote while you are still within the games shows that they really thought how people are going to want to use the features.
The center button on the controller does an excellent job of letting you access the important information while you pause a game you are playing. It's a very useful button and it lets you check on your friends list and other Live features without having to exit a game.
I absolutely love the achievements aspect of games and how they add up to a "gamerscore". I think it's going to add a lot of replay value to games as people are going to want to get all the achievements.
The Marketplace is set up nicely as well, and downloading demos and videos is extremely easy. I can definitely see this area being a big hit and I already know I'm going to be wanting some Marketplace points soon.
I think Microsoft has really outdone themselves with the entire setup on this thing. It's clear that they learned a lot from the first Xbox and it actually looks like they took a lot of ideas from what people were doing with modded Xboxes into account when they were planning this thing out.
This isn't your standard check your saves and account dash anymore. This is a huge step forward in home console design.
