Xbox Founder Tears Into 360 Design

[FFP2]

I noticed it before then to be honest.

Yeah but it seems to be happening more often ever since the announcement.

 

[grigjd3]

Well, I would say that the 360 got where it is largely by the bumbling over at Sony. It feels like every time I turn on my PS3, I have another update to download off of their incredibly slow servers. Whatever happened to popping in a game and playing?

 

[Rad Party God]

I like what this guy said, that's pretty much the reason why I ended up selling the 360 after being a PC gamer for so many years, it didn't offer anything new or better that I could already do in my PC, also, it didn't offer anything better than the simplicity of older consoles (pop-in a disc and start playing right away).

From an interface point of view, I'd definitely say that yes, this generation was a complete and utter failure.

I've already maked up my mind for a while that I'm not interested on the new generation of consoles.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Except for the launch dashboard(which was so, so) , every single update has flung more crap on the screen that I don't care about and move things around so I have to spend 10 min searching around. I now loathe turning it on. I bought this device primarily to play games. I don't want to flip through dozens of items to get to what I want to do. And, I hate getting these stupid advertisements for crap I am in no way interested in taking up a third to half of my tv. I stopped paying for live partially for that reason a year ago and have barely played anything on it since. Maybe someone at Microsoft will listen to this man and rethink some designs on the nextbox, because I don't need another mutlimedia paperweight with design flaws up the wazoo with almost no exclusives I might check out when I have a decent pc that plays games, dvds, netflix, hulu, etc right next to my tv. Why spend my money on that, Microsoft?

 

[Zeckt]

On my third 360 and had to shell out the cash to buy the entire console all over again. On my 4th wireless controller, my third a limited gears of war one that went fubar after 2 months. I have been gaming all my life, and the 360 is the ONLY console I have ever had to buy more then once. Upon realizing just how awful microsoft really is I am forever boycotting any of their products for life. I suggest everyone else here to do the same as they will make their next console's durability crap just so you have to buy it more then once and make them richer. They have proved that once on top they will do anything and everything to gouge more money out of you including rebuying their faulty products.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

Right after they added Kinect support to the dashboard, it turned to crap. And I freaking called it. No one seemed to suspect that the Kinect would just be another gimmick. Everyone just got starstruck and soon we're stuck with a device that's incredibly annoying.

The first NXE was good but then it went downhill after that.

 

[Steve the Pocket]

The 360 was always supposed to be a multimedia machine, he insists, but a fragmented marketplace and inconsistent selection hamstrung it. "Microsoft has jumped its own shark and is out stomping through the weeds planning and talking about far-flung future strategies in interactive television and original programming partnerships with big dying media companies when their core product, their home town is on fire."

I'm sensing some self-contradiction here. Was the 360 supposed to do a better job of making non-game content available and convenient, or was it supposed to avoid it because Old Media Is Dead? It sounds like he's trying to claim both are true.

I am feeling him about the fragmented marketplace, though. It's incredibly stupid that TV shows and movies aren't just all available through a uniform but decentralized service not unlike the pre-Netflix video rental infrastructure was. Instead of bullshit where some stuff is only available through Netflix, other stuff is only available through Hulu, other stuff is only on iTunes, and Starz refuses to make their shows available at all, but there's enough overlap that you feel like you're being ripped off by being expected to pay for all of them.

Not unlike the console market itself, actually. Except you have to put up with it within a single console's interface. And so far, no one - not Microsoft, not Apple, not Sony - has been able to put an end to it, no matter how much they want to.

Upon realizing just how awful microsoft really is I am forever boycotting any of their products for life. I suggest everyone else here to do the same as they will make their next console's durability crap just so you have to buy it more then once and make them richer.

The consoles were sold at a loss. As far as I know, they still are. At the very least, they're sold at a virtually insignificant profit margin. Their real money comes from the license fees they charge publishers. If anything, the lack of reliability hurts them in the long term, and that's even before their tendency to break while still under warranty comes into play.

 

[Ryan Hughes]

I would like to hear his thoughts on the next-generation machine as well when it comes out. On the other hand, one thing that was intentional on Microsoft's part was the transition towards the shooter genre early in the console generation. Looking at what little success the original had, Microsoft saw that aside from Morrowind, it was Halo and GTA that sold on their machine, and the 360 was built to those strengths.

Still, if rumors are to be believed, the next-gen Xbox will still have separated CPU and GPU, outdated DDR3 RAM, and will force users to have Kinect 2.0 plugged in at all times. So, yeah, I can certainly see how he feels the way he does, and I think it is likely MS will continue its arrogant ways with the next-gen.

 

[Dumbfish1]

That cat looks like it's gonna murder him.

When he says they didn't capitalize, he dosn't mean they didn't try ramming it down our throats.

Or he could mean that they simply didn't market it viably, but I do often make the mistake of speaking reasonably in the face of blind rage.

Sorry, I don't really understand your post. Am I the one in blind rage, or the guy I was quoting?

 

[Jfswift]

The new interface would work fine with a better way to control it or a touch screen. Something like a remote or pointer device built into the controller or a faster Kinect would be great. I guess I'm one of the few that disliked the previous interface. Also, its still faster at loading a game than my PS3 or PC. Obviously results will vary with other peoples PC builds/ ps3 experiences though. I can only give my perspective on this after all.

 

[Programmed_For_Damage]

I love my 360, but I have to say that the last few dashboard updates have been getting worse and worse. Now if I want to play Skyrim it takes me about two minutes before I can actually play the game. Half of that time is waiting for the Xbox to suss out that my profile is not an Xbox live one, the other half is Skyrim trying to get it's shit in order (man that has horrendous load times).
I know it's a case of "first world problems" and I used to happily sit through two minute load times on consoles past, but I swear the 360 interface was not as slow as it is now.

 

[Roander]

The new interface would work fine with a better way to control it or a touch screen. Something like a remote or pointer device built into the controller or a faster Kinect would be great..

That's my biggest problem with it. It feels like it was designed for a device other than the device it's being run on; like I should be running it on a smartphone or something, but there is no Xbox smartphone so I can't imagine any reasonable way that they might have come to these design decisions.

 

[Vivi22]

When he says they didn't capitalize, he dosn't mean they didn't try ramming it down our throats.

Actually, that's exactly what they did. What they didn't do was make any worth while software that utilized it though, which is more likely what he's referring to.

 

[Strazdas]

It looks like he tore into his cat as well. poor kitty.

But yeah what he sais is true, Xbox succeeded because of luck, blind fanboyism and others failing to do better.

 

[Dumbfish1]

When he says they didn't capitalize, he dosn't mean they didn't try ramming it down our throats.

Actually, that's exactly what they did. What they didn't do was make any worth while software that utilized it though, which is more likely what he's referring to.

Then we're agreeing with each other.

(I put the double negatives in bold for you.)

 

[Vivi22]

Then we're agreeing with each other.

(I put the double negatives in bold for you.)

I must learn to stop posting while sleepy.

 

[loa]

If I want to play a game on my 360, I press the x button on the controller, press A and seconds later I'm playing the game so I don't understand what he's on about when saying this process takes minutes over minutes.

 

[Winnosh]

I agree with the talk about the Kinect. It's an amazing piece of hardware that Microsoft does nothing but put crappy games on. In the hands of any moderatly competent modder or PC user the device becomes a great. I really feel they would do better selling a PC only version of the device.

 

[Treblaine]

I know it's a case of "first world problems" and I used to happily sit through two minute load times on consoles past, but I swear the 360 interface was not as slow as it is now.

Seriously, we don't have to put things like this in the context of first-world/third-world problems.

A bank embezzling your college fund so you can't get a higher education is a "First world problem" because people in the "third world" never had much of a prospect of that opportunity, but such a thing is hardly insignificant.

I bet the top 1% of the wealthy in First World countries are damn skippy to hear phrases like "First world problems" used, the top 1% who have as much as half of all the wealth. That's the problem with measuring the wealth of first world countries, it doesn't recognise how all those riches can be held by an extreme minority.

I say you have every right to get mad.

People in First World countries have a right to get mad, having their limited disposable income mishandled by investing it in Microsoft. This is not the super rich complaining their $1 million Bughatti Veyron doesn't have a velvet lined cup-holder. This is people who can't afford to throw away $60 getting ripped off.

The point is if we don't care about and seek to fix first world problems you will eventually find yourself in the third world

 

[Mortuorum]

...or does Microsoft still have a ways to go in the interface and usability departments?

So, is the Xbox 360 dashboard a clusterfuck? Anyone who's used it recently knows it's an absolute disaster from a design and usability standpoint.

I can't imagine "less bad than our competitors" is going to be a strong selling point much longer, particularly if Apple throws its hat into the ring.