thoughthead

In Part 2 I talked about the community and social connectivity related dashboard features MS should consider implementing into the Xbox 360 dashboard. Today I’m going to discuss the next five features in my list, these features are all related to the organization and management of content in the marketplace through your console.

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11. Content Ownership Transfer
Just a few days ago I saw a cry for help on one of the forums. Someone had the misfortune of having their Xbox 360 die on them. It was still under warranty so they sent it back to Microsoft for repair. The got a different console back, it worked but they were completely unable to access any of their Xbox Live Arcade games.

The thing is, whenever you purchase content from the marketplace it grabs an identification number from the console used to purchase it and it embeds that number into the content. It also takes your Gamertag and it adds it to a list on the Xbox Live servers as an owner of that content. Whenever you go to use that content it first checks to see if it contains the code that matches the Xbox, if it fails that check it goes to the Xbox Live servers to see if your Gamertag is authorized to use it. When you get a new console, be it a repair unit, maybe you’re upgrading to the Elite, or maybe you bought something on a friends console and want to transfer it back to your own, etc. In these scenarios you must be logged into Xbox Live to use the content you own. Obviously this isn’t optimal. If you’re a parent you’ll probably purchase content with your account that your children can use, you don’t want them on your profile because then they would be able to make purchases without your consent or have access to M rated games. Maybe you don’t have an internet hookup but you’re able to bring your console to a friends house every so often to download updates and some new XBLA games. In these situations you’re literally screwed.

What I’d like to propose is the ability to delete content off of your console and have Xbox Live understand that the content is no longer associated with that console. Then you could download it onto a new console and have it become associated with the new console. Obviously you would have to be logged into Xbox live for the disassociation and re-association of the content allowing the servers to validate that you, the owner of the content are moving it from one machine to another. When you send a console in for repair MS would then be able to disassociate everything on the console. I might be a pain to re-download everything but it sure beats the alternative of being locked out of your own content. Also this would be beneficial if you were selling a console, I’m sure MS wouldn’t really like it if the content you owned was accessible to someone else who didn’t actually pay for it, just because it happens to be associated with the used console they purchased.

The only reason this is a problem is because of the DRM placed on content downloaded from the marketplace. I don’t exactly like DRM, at all, in any capacity, but I think the above changes to the system would at least allow MS to keep their current DRM scheme with the current privileges, and even go a little further to ensure that the actual content owner stays as the sole owner of the content even if the console is sold to someone else.

12. Trials for Themes
Merchandising meets software customization; nearly every Xbox 360 game has a theme, or two or three, or more. Sometimes they’ll offer themes for free, if its a movie promotion or maybe they’re just feeling generous (yeah right). When you do pay for a theme it’s usually a few dollars worth of points and while that’s not exactly expensive in the grand scheme of things you’re pretty much required to make the purchase blind. Considering all you’re really purchasing is a collection of images and a color pallet choosing to purchase something based on a generic name and a terribly vague description can be difficult. Sure the price might be low but if you’d like to shop around for a new theme you might end up buying a whole lot of them before you find one you actually like.

MS has added the ability to view themes through Xbox.com, there are also sites like Achieve360points.com which catalog all of the content in the marketplace. It’s nice having that option but it’s not exactly convenient. If my computer is in a different room from my Xbox 360, why would I want to leave the room just to browse the internet to see what I’m buying on my console. Not to mention that neither online resource is complete. A360P depends on it’s membership to send in pictures of the themes meaning their catalog is very much incomplete and Xbox.com usually lags behind what is actually on the marketplace by a month or two, and even then it’s still missing content. With all the console’s power and integration with Xbox Live it boggles my mind why they’re somehow unable to let gamers test drive themes right on their own console.

It’d be nice to download a theme and get to try it out for 5 minutes in your actual dashboard. At the end of 5 minutes maybe a message slides in from the right asking if you’d like to purchase and keep using the theme or end the trial and delete it. As it is right now I refuse to buy any themes. When I’m in the dashboard and decide I want a new theme I’ll find a few free ones to download, I simply refuse to spend any money on something I can’t see before I buy it, and I can’t be bothered to go to another room to view tiny screen shots of someone else’s dashboard. That’s too much of a hassle; let me try it out first and you might get my cash.

13. Gamerpic Visibility and Better Organization
Similarly it would also be nice to have the ability to actually view GamerPics before I purchase them. There’s no reason they can’t show me an image of my Gamercard with the pic I’m considering purchasing. Once again I’ll use free ones but I’m not going to buy one unless I can see it before I buy it; and seeing it on a website instead of my console isn’t an option.

It would also be enormously beneficial to offer some form of organization on the console. I literally have hundreds of Gamerpics on my console and I have no idea which ones belong to which game or movie. Not to mention that browsing the pics I have on my console is painfully slow; scrolling one line at a time and waiting for a small handful of pics to load each time. Not to mention when I get new pics they’re typically placed near the bottom, meaning I have to scroll through almost all of the pics I have to find it. If that wasn’t bad enough there doesn’t seem to be any apparent metric by which the pics are sorted, as a result it’s like a scavenger hunt to find the pic your looking for, but you can only take baby steps during your search. Some simple categorization and user selectable sorting features would be nice. There’s no reason finding the Gamerpic on your console can’t be at least as organized as finding it in the marketplace. And there’s no reason the marketplace can’t show you what the gamerpic looks like in the same way you can view the pick while browsing the dashboard.

14. A More User Friendly Marketplace
Part of what makes viewing content for a particular game so painful is the fact that they make you do it through the guide. I understand the reason is to make game updates accessible from inside the game. It’s good for that but the problem is most content isn’t game content, if you’re downloading a demo, Gamerpic, dashboard theme, movie or game trailer, TV show, full length movie, featured artist, video strategy, etc. You’re most likely doing that though the dashboard, so trying to shop for content though a menu designed for in game use doesn’t do the interface any favors in terms of usability.

I say keep the current system how it is and leave it for browsing and buying content IN GAME, but make a second more user friendly interface for the marketplace when used on the dashboard. I’d like to see something like a web page setup for each game. Similar to the catalog on Xbox.com the theme would be swapped out with one specifically designed for that particular game. Then you could view a nice detailed description, with a few screen shots, general data about the number of supported players, ESRB rating etc. Then you could browse the available content right on this page in an organized fashion. This would be as beneficial to seeing what games are available for the system as browsing Amazon.com or EBGames online. As it is right now you basically have to go out of your way to find content for a game; you have to have a game in mind and actively check to see if it has content. TV shows on the video marketplace could also have pages like this, I could see a South Park page where I can view a nice synopsis of an episode with some screen shots and a South Park theme in the background instead of reading a truncated description in a crappy little auto scrolling text block in the guide.

I want the marketplace to feel like a marketplace I want to “browse, and be inspired”. They could probably take it a step further and let me make purchases direct from the comfort of my console. How cool would it be checkout the demo or trailer for GRAW2 decide you like it and with the push of a few buttons it’s been charged to your card and being shipped to your house 2-day air (I’m assuming the money MS saves from not having retailer costs could be put towards expedited shipping… maybe I’m dreaming). At very least the content on the Marketplace TODAY should have that feeling that you’re actually shopping. The marketplace should be a destination in the console space, not a painful means to an end.

The Video Marketplace is about half way there now, though it’s still a bit clunky. The Spring update will supposedly give the marketplace it’s own blade and include some improved organization. If I were a betting man I’d say they’re still going to miss the mark, though I hope I’m wrong.

15. New Content Notification and Auto-downloads
Personally I thought what MS did for the Xbox Live Arcade was pretty cool. Allowing gamers to set automatic downloads of new content when it becomes available. I might actually use it if I was more interested in XBLA games. I’d like to see them take it a step further. As a Forza Motorsports fan why can’t I set it to automatically download any new Forza trailers themes or Gamerpics that pop up on the market? Maybe if some of the content is pay content it will send me a notification via the message system letting me know that new content is available. More control over what I automatically download or get notified about would be cool. I’d love to setup a system that automatically downloads any new free Gamerpics and themes. I’d love a system where I get alerted via a message about any new game content that appears for any of the games on my gamercard, or maybe just select games.

This would really be beneficial to me as a gamer because I could spend more time gaming and less time browsing through the horribly clunky marketplace interface. It also works to Microsoft’s benefit as well because now I know when new content comes out and if I know about it I’m much more likely to buy it. A good example is the Shivering Isles expansion pack that just came out for Oblivion. I haven’t played Oblivion in months, it’s not exactly on my mind. I had heard about the Shivering Isles expansion pack but didn’t really know when it was coming out or anything else about it, I forgot about it after a few news posts passed memory. Just a few days ago I saw someone commenting in a forum that they were playing it. I had no idea it had been released, maybe if I got a notification I would have purchased it and started playing Oblivion again. Instead I had forgotten about it again the next time I went to use the 360 and it seems I only think to buy it when I’m doing something else. If this keeps up I might just forget about it completely and not only will I have missed out on some great content for a game I love but MS is missing out on a potential sale.

With the new 120GB hard drive on the way auto downloading demos and trailers wont be a big deal, though for those who only have a Memory Unit or 20GB hard drive the option for auto notification would be quite handy as well. Nether is very useful unless we have discrete control though. The last thing I want is 100s of notifications for content I don’t care about, or wasted drive space for content I don’t want. It has the potential to be useful tool for everyone involved, but only if it’s executed properly.

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That concludes part 3 of this 4 part series. Check back tomorrow for the final five features dealing with user customization and streamlined control.