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Technology Lifestyle Xbox 360 gets a stack of great spring updates
Technology Lifestyle Xbox 360 gets a stack of great spring updates | Xbox 360 gets a stack of great spring updates |
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| by Alex Zaharov-Reutt | |
| Thursday, 10 May 2007 | |
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While Sony and Nintendo also have been issuing updates to their respective games consoles, Microsoft has been adding much more functionality with each update, seemingly showing users that they are listening to their feedback. From the point of view of messaging, you’re now able to talk to Windows Live Messenger users no matter what type of device they’re using – be it a PC or notebook, a Windows Mobile phone with Messenger or one of the many 3G phones from Nokia or others where the cell phone company has integrated Messenger into their offerings – all while on your Xbox 360, through your TV screen. While Xbox 360 owners can’t add new users to their Messenger list from the Xbox 360 itself, which appears to be somewhat of an oversight that could easily be fixed in a future update if Microsoft so desired, the fact that “20 billion relationships” are at your disposal. Jerry Johnson, product unit manager of Xbox LIVE at Microsoft said that “Bringing the largest IM community in the world, Windows Live Messenger, to Xbox 360 makes sense, as Xbox LIVE has really become the largest social network on television. For our growing community of six million on Xbox LIVE, using Xbox 360 is a very social, connected experience. They are using Xbox 360 to play games, music, and movies while simultaneously communicating with one another through video, voice, and text chat. With this announcement we are simultaneously expanding the access of Xbox LIVE users to existing friends and family while introducing Windows Live Messenger users to the benefits of Xbox 360." It’s also a threat to the instant messaging capabilities of IPTV player Joost – Microsoft has clearly positioned the Xbox 360 to have the same kind of capabilities. To make typing messages easier, a USB keyboard can be plugged into the Xbox 360, and a thumb-board QWERTY keyboard that fits in between the handles of the standard Xbox 360 controller is coming in the northern ‘summer’, too. You can chat with up to six people while using Messenger on your Xbox, and you can do it while playing games, watching movies (and presumably other video) or listening to music. It’s in addition to the voice and video chat that Microsoft has made available to Xbox 360 users for some time now. A range of other additions have been included. One is the ability to instantly know which achievement you have accomplished, instead of needing to leave the game you’re playing, go into the relevant section and click the button to find out. One noteworthy update is for users who connect their Xbox 360 to VGA screens (or projectors). VGA users have complained that the vision appears washed out compared with when the Xbox 360 is connected to a regular SD or HDTV, and this is because of different brightness levels between TVs and monitors. The update now lets VGA users select a much darker level for black colors, bringing VGA screens back into line with the vision users receive when connected to televisions using regular AV connections. Updates to the Xbox 360 blades, new family settings, updates to see which friends are playing what Xbox LIVE Arcade games, new ‘Tell a Friend’ capabilities, faster downloads of free and trial version Xbox LIVE arcade games, new progressive controls for video clips, better background downloading and a stack more which we’ve listed on the next page: |
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