Here are ten things I dislike about it.
10. It’s a forced update for anyone playing on Live. Self explanatory, no need for discussion.
9. Why does it have to load up to the spotlight section? As far as I am concerned, it should take me directly to the “My Xbox” channel or just boot up my game. The user should get the choice if they want to look at the ads or not.
8. Do we really need to see our own motto? It serves no purpose other than to block out a bit of the screen for no reason.
7. What is the point of ripping a game to the hard drive if you still need the disc to play it? Load times during the game seem sufficient to me, and I doubt many people would download games in order to cut back load times during multiplayer matches.
6. The Marketplace screen seems cluttered and confusing. It took me ten minutes to figure out where to redeem a code for Gears of War 2 with the free map pack upgrade! This may have just been because I am new to the system, but you would expect to find code redemption under the game marketplace and instead it’s in the guide.
5. The Events menu is being used like a marketing tool. It’s cool that it automatically shows what events are about to occur, but wouldn’t it make more sense if it only showed events that are related to games you have in your library? It just seems like a silent trick to motivate people to go buy more games.
4. Why does it lag when I am scrolling through my friends list? I only have six friends who are currently on Xbox LIVE, but what happens when I have 60 friends and want to flip through them randomly? It will take forever!
3. The interface is not customizable. If you have a few channels that you always use, it would be nice to be able to design your own menu of preferred channels. This would significantly cut down on browsing time.
2. How many different menus can there be? Turn on the Xbox and it can take you ten minutes to find something you are looking for. It even bears a striking resemblance to the latest version of iTunes, which I was not a fan of either.
1. The thing that irritates me the most is the avatar creator. When my cousin and I first fired up The New Xbox Experience, we were surprised to see that the avatars bear a striking resemblance to Miis from Nintendo’s popular Wii system. Why don’t they just label them as the Xbox Miis? They are far more realistic, almost Sim like, but the idea of creating a character that looks similar to you seems very Wii centric.
Don’t get me wrong. The new interface has some nice things about it, but changing something that wasn’t really broken to begin with makes little sense to me. Plus, it would have also been nice to have had some sort of internet browser in the newest revision. Microsoft wants to be the king of computing, and yet their flagship system doesn’t even support something that is present in both of the competing consoles. If they can manage to equip the Nintendo Wii with a browser, one can only assume that it would probably be easy to add to your Xbox 360.
What are your thoughts? Do you like the new system, or do you have dislikes that I managed to miss?