Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming: You have a PC pipe to Xbox Live MarketPlace; but I'd wait ...

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Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming (Subscribe)

Thursday, October 12, 2006

You have a PC pipe to Xbox Live MarketPlace; but I'd wait ...

Microsoft today launched a new Web site called "Xbox Live Pipeline", which lets you browse the Xbox 360 Xbox Live Marketplace from any (Flash-enabled) browser.

But I'd wait.

Sure, the thing's got potential, but allow me to be a bit pragmatic (or negative) for a bit.

Since I manage software, I'm going to go out on a limb and say this thing came to life as a skunk works project that some marketing person saw and loved, and it's not ready for primetime.

Why would I say this?

First, there's no reason for this thing to be. It wasn't promised, there's no event of which it can take advantage (or for which it can be used to take advantage), and as implemented, it feels like a solution in search of a problem. And because there are bugs -- Like the number of "Undefined" errors and empty content:

And Flash? Badly implemented Flash at that -- it's behaving inconsistently on the different boxes on which I'm trying it, and killing a Win2K box with IE6).

Again, the thing's got potential, but here's what it needs to be useful (in no particular order):

Fewer bugs
Better Flash implementation -- or do away with the Flash and AJAX the thing
Clean up "Demos" -- "Demos" should not include Xbox Live Arcade demos (Xbox Live Arcade should be a sub-menu under this)
"What's New" section -- C'Mon, the Xbox Dashboard has this, so this should, too
Sorting and sorting options -- alphabetical, by genre, by date, by event (X06, TGS, Bringing it Home, etc.)
Fix the sound -- It's cute that it's got the Xbox Dashboard sound, but there's a caching or codec problem, and there's an irritating beginning-of-file buzz at times
Search -- This is a limited amount of info, so add search so I can type in "Dead Rising" and get all of the trailers, demo, themes, and gamer picts; Simple Search would be fine
Integration with Xbox.com -- This thing touts itself as "Your One-Stop Guide to Xbox Live MarketPlace"; not so much, and it seems to be in competition with a lot of the MyXbox.com stuff
Integration with Windows Live ID -- I should be able to log in to Xbox.com, and move between the two
My Xbox Live MarketPlace -- Add a view (or functionality throughout) that shows what I've downloaded before, and what I haven't; get really fancy, and show me what I've downloaded, and what I currently have on my hard drive (at last login)
Set up downloads from the Web -- I want to be able to queue as many downloads as I want from the Web, and When I log in to my Xbox Live Dashboard, the first 6 items should start downloading, and the queue refresh whenever "[PendingDownloads] <>Alerts -- Tell me when there's new stuff, and let me tell you what kind I want -- Per Item? All? Just Demos? Frequency (Per entry? Daily/Weekly summary?)? I like Major Nelson's Xbox Live MarketPlace updates, but this should arguably be the source
Friends List -- Sure, it's a bit redundant with other sites, but why not? At the least, a little box that says "2 Friends online" (which pretty much represents my world of friends)

They do now seem to have the survey working (it was listed as "no longer active when the site first launched), so there's an opportunity there to give feedback. As is the Xbox.com "whishlist" forum.

Yes, this blog ended up on both ...

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SOURCES: Gamespot.com, joystiq.com, kotaku.com, Xbox.com, IGN, GameInformer, Official XBox Magazine, CNN, gamesindustry.biz, and others.

Adam Creighton, Computer and Video Gaming (Subscribe)

Thursday, October 12, 2006

You have a PC pipe to Xbox Live MarketPlace; but I'd wait ...

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