Dashboard imporvements. Play games from the HDD

[SamUK]

· Play from hard drive. Copy your games from the game disc and play directly from the hard drive. Not only will the drive not spin, but load times are quicker, as well. Of course, you will still need the disc in the tray to prove you own the game.

· Access Xbox LIVE Marketplace on the Web. Browse and purchase Marketplace content whenever you want from Xbox.com and it downloads automatically to your console. Purchase that new map, television episode, the latest Xbox LIVE Arcade game or set up a movie to watch when you get home from work.

· Dashboard built into the new Xbox Guide. For everyone who loves the blades interface, it’s not going away; they are now built directly in to the new Xbox guide. Every feature and option is available right from the guide. You can even access your full games library at all times. No matter where you are (in dash or in game), immediately call up your games played list and directly launch a game.

· LIVE Party system. Create a party of up to eight friends, and stay with them from one game to another, or watch a Netflix movie together, or share a slideshow of your personal photos. It works with all Xbox 360 titles, not just upcoming games. LIVE Party allows up to eight people to chat in the dashboard, so you can meet up before playing.

· Xbox LIVE Primetime. This whole new category of games is going to give you more reasons to get online with your friends. Games will support everything you’d expect, like Achievements and leader boards, but many of these games will include real prizes. You can invite your friends, and even set a reminder for an upcoming show. Each game is broadcast simultaneously, so everyone is answering the same questions. Many events will have a live host, calling the shots as they happen.

· Avatars. Your online identity started as a Gamertag - it then grew into a personalized Gamercard. Now, it has evolved even further into avatars. You can express your style, check out new outfits and share this with the community. Avatars will also be integrated into Xbox LIVE Arcade games, LIVE Party, as well as retail games.

· New display support. Because you asked for it, we are adding 16X10 over VGA or HDMI, and support for 1440x900 or 1680x1050.

This is only the beginning. Over the next few months, we will share more details on the upcoming changes.

i like the idea of live games with a real host.. sounds pretty mad.

i guess loading games onto the HDD will make the 360 alot quieter too.


edited -

a video of the new dashboard.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=H59WNr1Lpdg

[Rogue]

· New display support. Because you asked for it, we are adding 16X10 over VGA or HDMI, and support for 1440x900 or 1680x1050.

Score!

[SamUK]

yea i know alot of people have been waiting a while for that!

[Goto10]

Playing direct from hard drive is great, I did that with my PS2 (Using HDloader), load times and in game cut scenes were *so* much faster.
(Although Thai reckons preloading games on the Hard Drive first is a rubbish idea, I wonder if he'll change his tune now? )
Resolution change is also nice.

[SamUK]

im waiting for the PS3 crew to jump on that one lol.

the only argument i have is it is optional....

[matt_mr2t]

Damn, I was hoping I could load all my games on to my HDD so I can play what ever I want without having to change games.

[goaferboy]

AVATARS! How sad am I....


Plus I always found that it was strange that playing "dodgy" games off of the hard drive on the orignal Xbox was actually better than the retail copies since they ran faster. Now I have a decent reason to get the bigger HD.

[SamUK]

you can start downloads from xbox.com and they will auto download to your xbox.

thats well sweet, means all the demos and vids released will be waiting for me when i get home from work or where ever i am when they come out...


some people were asking what MS would do aboout the latest PS update..

think this answers the question.


oh and some new dashboard pics.

[Ekona]

you can start downloads from xbox.com and they will auto download to your xbox.

thats well sweet, means all the demos and vids released will be waiting for me when i get home from work or where ever i am when they come out...

You do realise you can do that already, don't you?

[Lauren]

im waiting for the PS3 crew to jump on that one lol.

the only argument i have is it is optional....

It doesn't need to be optional because all PS3s have hard drives.

[SamUK]

im waiting for the PS3 crew to jump on that one lol.

the only argument i have is it is optional....

It doesn't need to be optional because all PS3s have hard drives.

wrong. its not optional because it cant be.

you can start downloads from xbox.com and they will auto download to your xbox.

thats well sweet, means all the demos and vids released will be waiting for me when i get home from work or where ever i am when they come out...

You do realise you can do that already, don't you?

you can? how?

[Lauren]

wrong. its not optional because it cant be.

The point is that the Xbox can't do it. So i think you are seeing it from the wrong angle.

Utilising a HDD speeds up games, it makes good sense to use it. No doubt if all XCox's had a HDD they'd use it to. But, unfortunately thats a limitation of the XCox rather than an advantage.

[SamUK]

im seeing it from the wrong angle?

ps3 bluray drive = epic fail when it comes to playing games.

if every ps3 didn't have HDD then they would be screwed! maybe they knew that.


Sonys conference should be about over now i think. unless Nintendo was before them.

anyway, im interested to see if they have anything else up there sleeves after the 2.41 update.

[Lauren]

im seeing it from the wrong angle?
ps3 bluray drive = epic fail when it comes to playing games.
if every ps3 didn't have HDD then they would be screwed! maybe they knew that.

Don't you see it was designed as an integral part of the system from the outset. Why not utilise basic peripherals like HDDs?

Bill et al. didn't use it to keep the price down with the core system. But in that respect its an obvious limitation as it requires that no games can use the HDD to help speed things up. We've seen the benefits of using the HDD in games such as GTAIV when it comes to loading times.

Can't believe you think you have an argument with this in all honesty.

[SamUK]

i cant believe you do. your talking about a few seconds difference lol.

xbox games play fine with no need for a HDD what so ever.

Sony built the ps3 so it needed a HDD.

MS made the "Xcox" so it can utilize it if it needs to. which it still doesn't, its just an option.


where exactly is your argument?

[Lauren]

i cant believe you do. your talking about a few seconds difference lol.

xbox games play fine with no need for a HDD what so ever.

Sony built the ps3 so it needed a HDD.

MS made the "Xcox" so it can utilize it if it needs to. which it still doesn't, its just an option.


where exactly is your argument?

Arrghh. I'm close to serious CBA.

Of course Sony built the PS3 to use the HDD because its an integral part of the system.

Bill et al. meanwhile wanted to ship the Xcox without a HDD to appeal to a wider audience, this in turn meant that developers could not utilise the HDD as an integral part of game loading as a result.

Yes a few seconds difference, but it does make gameplay more fluid.

The argument is that the XCox has to have all games able to run direct from the DVD without utilising a HDD. So there is a compromise as a result. I don't see how you can criticise Sony for designing and shipping all PS3s with an HDD as an integral part of the system.

[goaferboy]

The argument is that the XCox has to have all games able to run direct from the DVD without utilising a HDD.

Not strictly true IIRC, Final Fantasy 11 had to install to the hard drive to allow it to communicate with PC/Playstation 2 servers. There was no single player, so you had to install the software if you wanted to play the game.

That said, it was crap.


I prefer having the option to install to the hard drive, rather than being forced to . What happens if you run out of space? Can't be ar$ed with deleting games all the time to make room for others. Or is it automatic? Even then, what if it deletes a game that I want to play the next day? I've never played a PS3 so I don't know how it works. Will get one eventually I imagine.

[Goto10]

Not strictly true IIRC, Final Fantasy 11 had to install to the hard drive to allow it to communicate with PC/Playstation 2 servers. There was no single player, so you had to install the software if you wanted to play the game.

It had nothing to do with communicating with the servers!
Ultimately, optical drives are pretty poor for data transfer rates, FF was very intensive on data transfer and it would not run satisfactorily from the DVD drive.
BluRay's data transfer rate isn't a thousand miles away from the 12x drive in the Xbox and the user experience is fine, the slightly lower speed has just been jumped on by fanbois, it really isn't an issue. As far as game installs go, it doesn't bung the entire disk to HDD, it may just put the texture files there, or map data, anything that it needs to access quickly. It will never delete data without asking - I've got plenty of disk space left and have a good little collection of games building.

[Goto10]

i cant believe you do. your talking about a few seconds difference lol.

xbox games play fine with no need for a HDD what so ever.

Sony built the ps3 so it needed a HDD.

MS made the "Xcox" so it can utilize it if it needs to. which it still doesn't, its just an option.


where exactly is your argument?

Arrghh. I'm close to serious CBA.

Of course Sony built the PS3 to use the HDD because its an integral part of the system.

Bill et al. meanwhile wanted to ship the Xcox without a HDD to appeal to a wider audience, this in turn meant that developers could not utilise the HDD as an integral part of game loading as a result.

Yes a few seconds difference, but it does make gameplay more fluid.

The argument is that the XCox has to have all games able to run direct from the DVD without utilising a HDD. So there is a compromise as a result. I don't see how you can criticise Sony for designing and shipping all PS3s with an HDD as an integral part of the system.

Yup, making a base console without a HDD was a mistake, even a 10gb one would've been sensible - ultimately everyone wants the premium console anyway, but they're all at the mercy of the 'base' restriction of not having an HDD. As Rockstar said, making GTA work solely on an optical drive was a tight squeeze-

"On PS3, you've got a guarantee that every machine is going to have a hard-drive and, with Blu-ray, you've got plenty of storage," said Rockstar creative VP Dan Houser. "Whereas on Xbox 360 there's no guarantee of a hard-drive and you're working with the DVD format."

"Does that create limitations?" he asked himself. "Yep."

Also - how does the 'base' Xbox handle patches without a HDD? E.g. Rockstar released patches for GTA, do you have to have an HDD to get the patch?

[pcp]

i cant believe you do. your talking about a few seconds difference lol.

xbox games play fine with no need for a HDD what so ever.

Sony built the ps3 so it needed a HDD.

MS made the "Xcox" so it can utilize it if it needs to. which it still doesn't, its just an option.


where exactly is your argument?

Arrghh. I'm close to serious CBA.

Of course Sony built the PS3 to use the HDD because its an integral part of the system.

Bill et al. meanwhile wanted to ship the Xcox without a HDD to appeal to a wider audience, this in turn meant that developers could not utilise the HDD as an integral part of game loading as a result.

Yes a few seconds difference, but it does make gameplay more fluid.

The argument is that the XCox has to have all games able to run direct from the DVD without utilising a HDD. So there is a compromise as a result. I don't see how you can criticise Sony for designing and shipping all PS3s with an HDD as an integral part of the system.

Yup, making a base console without a HDD was a mistake, even a 10gb one would've been sensible - ultimately everyone wants the premium console anyway, but they're all at the mercy of the 'base' restriction of not having an HDD. As Rockstar said, making GTA work solely on an optical drive was a tight squeeze-

"On PS3, you've got a guarantee that every machine is going to have a hard-drive and, with Blu-ray, you've got plenty of storage," said Rockstar creative VP Dan Houser. "Whereas on Xbox 360 there's no guarantee of a hard-drive and you're working with the DVD format."

"Does that create limitations?" he asked himself. "Yep."

Also - how does the 'base' Xbox handle patches without a HDD? E.g. Rockstar released patches for GTA, do you have to have an HDD to get the patch?

Think you would need the memorycard for the patches, you need it for online play for your profile anyways.

The HDD is essential for the ps3, sony wanted to use BD, but it'd be impossible to run any big game off it, data reads waaaaaaaaaaay too slow, catch 22.