Mike Bantick
Thursday, 22 October 2009 10:41
Entertainment
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iTWire has had a chance to play with the soon-to-be-released LIVE update for Xbox 360. Featuring optimised Facebook and Twitter along with insta-play Zune Marketplace based HD Movie rental, with party invite mode. iTWire also spoke to the Australian/New Zealand Xbox product manager Andrew Jenkins about the update.
In November Microsoft will be rolling out a dashboard update for the millions of Xbox 360 game consoles connected to Xbox LIVE. iTWire has had a chance to play with the new features and chat with the local Xbox product manager Andrew Jenkins along the way.
After the update loads, it is a quick process to start both the Facebook or Twitter applications to get logged on.
Facebook, having been optimised for viewing through a TV, looks particularly good. An uncluttered interface utilising the windowed Xbox dashboard feel with familiar Facebook options This is most evident during photo viewing, with a nifty and clean looking slideshow option for both you and your friend’s profile snapshots.
“You log in once, and tick the box to remember you, and if you wish, each time you connect to Xbox LIVE it can automatically log into Facebook.” Jenkins said. “We have this cool feature called Facebook Connect, which will take a look at all your friends on Facebook, and say these are also your friends on Xbox LIVE as well”
“The impetus for that was when you get someone hooked into your Xbox family, there are really cool features. For instance, not only is there multiplayer gaming, video chat, instant messenger but also Party Mode. With Party Mode, I can get with seven of my friends and go from experience to experience, and not hunt in packs.”
There are currently no published plans, but Jenkins was quick to point out that the current 100 friend cap limit within Xbox LIVE may well be reviewed in light of this new Facebook Connect integration.
Joining the 30 million current Twitter users will be Xbox LIVE users, and again, like the Facebook optimisation, the LIVE integration of Twitter is a crisp clean interface, with your Avatar accompanying the feed screen space.
Some extra options available for Twitter users includes a quick ‘hot topics’ button, iTWire’s experience with this option was fruitless with this Beta version of the code not returning any topics of note. Searching for topics and posting an update worked fine, though again pointed out the need to get hold of the Microsoft Messenger Kit, a keyboard to add to the Xbox 360 controller, or some other mechanism for imputing text in a speedy fashion.
For both Facebook and Twitter, it is pretty obvious that the optimisation is a great leap forward in usage of these apps via the family TV, so much better than simply using the Opera browser through the Nintendo Wii for example.
CONTINUED on PAGE 2 – Including experiences with insta-on HD movie downloads.
