but does anyone feel that microsoft lacks at innovation? they completely play it safe by using other peoples ideas that worked? its beyond obvious the avatars are a hash between mii's and home. and the new dash UI while maybe effective is just a hash of Apple TV from what i gather. sure alot of people will be happy, but it would be nice one day to see microsoft come up with something that is not a mesh of other ideas that work. the blades were not a bad idea, and were contracted design by a 3rd party. I think alot of fans of the original xbox would entertain for them to contact someone such as project mayhem for ideas. the XBMC dash still to me is supreme... but i guess with management shifts comes different focus.
It looks pretty cool regardless. It'll probably work really well too. Even if they didn't make the entire thing up themselves it looks like they'll pull it off the best. They've done plenty of original stuff though. There first system had a hard drive, they had the first wireless controllers, they had the first real online network, they were the first ones to do HD and 5.1 in game...etc. They might not have made all that stuff themselves but they were the first to pull it off.
It is just further conversion from video game console to media center. Some people will love it if that is what they truly use the box for, but for those like me, who ONLY use it as a game console, it is a waste and a hassle.
I read about it yesterday at kotaku, what a fucking ripoff... But you know whats the worst part? that Mii's and coverflow werent that awesome to begin with, just extra filling. However, had MS released a wiimote-like controller, or some short of multitouch screen they would've come up with a reallly useful accesory that isnt such a blatant copy of the original (everybody is doing multitouch, and the wiimote wasnt the first of its kind). Instead they go the easy way and copy the look, pathetic... Not really, the pre-release PS2 had a HDD, wireless controllers have been on the market since like forever and consoles like the Playdia had them by standard, and the original Xbox could do HD sometimes. 5.1 sound, well, it was already the norm in PC like HD graphics, so it was coming to consoles sooner or later.
I dont see why you are all complaining about originality. Sometimes theres only so many ways you can do something at its best. I would much rather prefer something that works great than something original that doesnt work as well.
I don't like it really :/ I think it looks horrible personally but oh well I hope theres an option to keep the classic look
Agreed but rather than play it safe, I would have much greater respect to an entity/company that takes a risk and pulls something new off. The rewards are definitely accounted for, such as the direction of the Wii console. Just think if they made another gamecube instead and followed everyone elses idea of the current state of video games (HD). And I agree above, Mii's are really nothing spectacular... cool idea, but not important.
I was talking about the old Xbox for the most part. I did totally forget about the Wavebird, I meant first party wireless. PC isn't a console either. I think they've contributed a pretty good amount. If the 360 rips off other consoles, what the fuck are trophys etc on PS3?
Not that keen on the new dash, but providing they keep the promise to not loose functionality it will be OK. Sucks for those that bought themes though...:-( I can't see refunds being likely.
The problem is how obvious they were: sure, SEGA took the 4-way Pad from Nintendo and made it circular, and Nintendo replaced the thumb-stick from the N64 and replaced it with the thumb-pad from the Saturn in the GC (Sony too in the D-S) but in all cases there was some modifications and improvements that made those designs stand against eachother. MS on the other hand just took the Mii's and the coverflow from Apple and did a mashup, which makes me wonder if MS is run by chinese "designers". The wavebird was first party, you mean "as standard", and the Playdia had those. Consoles were always tightly close to computers, some like the Amiga were originally consoles but were modified for computer use after the crash. And since the last generation consoles have become more and more like PCs, having OS kernels (Xbox and X360) and official optional OS (Linux in PS2 and PS3) plus parts that two generations ago were unthinkable of in a console, such as HDDs and modems (be phone, ethernet or wifi)
I m happy with the new interface for one reason. The blades were functional, but visually shit compared to the sleek XMB and the simple (but boring) Wii Channels. This does seem to address the styling issues the blades were plagued with but functionality improvement remains to be seen. Still my biggest issue with the 360 is - as usual- the overall noise factor. the DVD drive on mine is just too damn loud, console noises aside. If I could I d swap my 360 for a newer (white) model (HDMI would be nice too). Makes early adopters with consoles still running feel like they got a bad deal. A really noisy bad deal.
^ more reason again why the 360 console to me just seems confused it does not ever know what it wants to be... at first it was 'oh no need for HDMI it's way ahead of its time' to then integrating ever console with it. i personally dont care, but i feel for the kids that really love the 360 and save money only to be trolled by Microsoft. I know it strays away from the conversation at hand but i like a solid system, you cant argue the hard drive skus with the ps3 either, as they are completely upgradable, the hardware now remains the same.
the only reason I m happy with my 40GB PS3 is that it uses less electricity compared to the original PS2-compatible models. Non other.
Me too. Is this their way of saying either "We're too lazy to fix the current dash so screw it and do another one" or "We can't fix the current dash (finding things in the marketplace is the biggest issue mentioned by many) so screw it and do another one"? I'm also waiting to see if this update will slow down the bootup (and making it seem, to me anyways, sluggish to respond to things in-dash) of the 360 any more than the Fall '07 update did.
I still don't get it. In the fall update one of the biggest improvements was speed of using the dash and in game guide. It was a huge improvement in speed. Maybe yours is just wierd?
No, the problem is that not everyone saw a speed increase due to the update. Personally, it is considerably slower for the box to cold boot and connect to Live after the update was applied.
Really? That is kind of stupid. Mine boots and connects almost immediatly. Guess I'm lucky. The old dash was a lot slower for me.
