Thoughts on the 360 Summer Update

Thoughts on the 360 Summer Update

The 360 Dashboard Update on Tuesday added several new features to the interface. After a few days with it, here are my initial impressions, in convenient bulleted-list form.

The Good

* Party Watch: My friend and I watched some Classic Doctor Who on what translates proportionally to an approximately 378-inch television. There is no universe in which that is not badass. And all the while we were chatting over our headsets, making jokes, and offering comments. The opportunities for MST3K-style antics are inspiring.

* It is incredibly easy and fast to add things to the Netflix Instant Queue from the Dashboard.

The Bad

* Avatar Marketplace: To be fair, I don't think I'm the target audience for this, as I'm either too old or too cheap. My avatar hasn't changed since I made it; it looks and dresses like me. I am that boring. Still, I can kind of see the appeal of giving him a lightsaber to further prove to the world what a giant fucking nerd I am. But I can't see the appeal of paying 5 bucks for it. These Geek Taxes gotta end.

* It is incredibly easy and fast to add things to the Netflix Instant Queue from the Dashboard. My Queue runneth over as it is, and I just added entire seasons of "Californication" and "Man vs. Food". Heaven help me when they add the ability to browse everything on Netflix.


The Ambivalent

* When a person is about to get booted from XBox Live while in a Party Watch session, their avatar will actually get up and leave the room. This is actually pretty cool, as far as visual representations of tech problems go, but it also led to me screaming, "No! Sit down! Please don't leave me!" at my television. It was like watching the last episode of "Cheers" all over again.

* I don't have a lot of friends on XBox Live, so I don't know how useful the extra sort options are. I can see the benefits of alphabetizing, though, if someone has a hundred people on that list; it's just never occurred to me that the Friends List view needed any updating.

* Still waiting to see how Avatar Awards works out, since I have yet to earn any. Of course, given my history with achievements, this could go into the "Bad" category real fast.


The "Whuh?"

* Richard Linklater's Slacker appears under the "Classics" heading of Netflix browsing, right between Hitchcock's Dial 'M' For Murder and Peter Medak's The Ruling Class. I have no comments here; that just struck me as odd.