The New Xbox Wiiperience
Xbox Wiive
Okay, that might be one too many Wii knocks already but no one is hiding it, not even Microsoft so let’s just enjoy talking about the giant pink elephant sitting in your living room.
The real question though?
Why you should be excited about this update. Let me tell you…
There are quite a number of new features being added to Xbox Live that many people are really going to like and are actually useful at the same time! The update might push some hardware sales in the form of larger hard drives but that’s totally up to the gamers. I’m probably going to miss a bunch of features but let me highlight some that I’m excited about and that means you should be too!
Netflix
I have not rented a movie in about 5 years but I just might start. The Netflix integration is a natural addition to the Xbox Live Marketplace and I think it will be very popular. This could be, however, the time when your ISP starts bitching about your bandwidth depending on how much you watch. I would not sweat it though.
Cost? - Don’t quote me but it looks like just a $9/month Netflix subscription. Yumtastic!
Rip Games to Hard Drive
This is the feature I’m most excited about. The drives in the 360’s make more noise than a pair of 757’s taking off while on fire, filled with fireworks, and exploding. They, also, are not the fastest drives out there. It would be useful to have a 120 GB hard drive for this and I will be showing you in the future how to upgrade your drive without the MS tax. This should significantly reduce disk errors, load times, and your ability to cheat your way out of a loss with an online opponent, loser. “Oh, disk read error.” “Like Hell, fucking liar!” Then a pirate eats them!
Live Party Chat
Chat it up bitches! I can’t tell you how much I hated playing Halo with 4 or so friends and having to listen to every 12 year old kid who thought they were bad or the Mom’s Basement Dwelling Halo n3rd. Now you can chat with up to 8 people. Not only can you chat but you can share a slideshow or watch streaming Netflix. Great new feature a lot of people wanted.
Avatars
Look at Mii… I’m just an Avatar! Seriously, if you haven’t seen the “Mii’s” then you probably are not a gamer and can just go to www.boringandstupid.com. Avatars are pretty much the same thing as the Wii’s Mii’s but I think you can disable this or at least that’s what I read awhile ago.
Live Marketplace on the Web
Now your browser can spend your money on Xbox Live too! Browse and purchase content through the web at Xbox.com. About all there is to that one.
Some other quick features:
- Additional display support so now you can do 16×10 VGA or HDMI and 1440×900 or 1680×1050
- Dashboard built into Xbox Guide makes it easy to get around
- Live Primetime will feature game broadcasts, events, tournaments, prizes etc. Keep an eye on this.
That about wraps it up. Microsoft has one broke ass console but one bad ass online system and we like that here.
Technorati 
Del.icio.us 
StumbleUpon 
Digg 
Facebook 
Mixx 
Reddit
Tags: Online Gaming, Xbox 360, Xbox Live
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
One Response to “The New Xbox Wiiperience”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
October 10th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
I’m looking forward to the update, but I think MS is misguided about why the Wii is still leading the console market. Even though the Wii interface is awesome, XBOX live has always been the superior experience. Of course, this isn’t just a move to mimic Wii. This is MS’s continued move to make their product a one stop media shop for the home and it’s a good start. I have some issues with the reliability of the 360 hardware, but beyond that, it’s about the best thing to come out of the Microsoft corporation.
I’ll tell you, if the Netflix subscription piece allowed access to the movies in HD (which I understand it won’t on launch) I might just be tempted to buy a second 360 instead of a BluRay this Christmas since right now my 360 isn’t on my main HD bigscreen.