So I made it into the preview for the upcoming update for Xbox Live. You can’t honestly call it a Beta, because you’re not really testing anything. I’m curious as to why they’d make a preview available instead of launching the full event, as they allowed over 100,000 people in.
If you’re looking for change, you’re not going to find much of anything. They rearranged some of the sub-menus into different boxes, and added some more intuitive audio selection features that don’t really apply yet. There’s an option for WMA Pro, which only applies for audio files with Windows Media Centre. I use Windows Media Centre frequently, but on their end of things, WMA Pro doesn’t exist. It’s resolving a compatibility issue with a program that doesn’t exist yet, and considering how little Windows Media Centre gets update (I think it’s only been updated once since it’s launch), I doubt this will be a problem.
A lot of the changes are still rumours and hearsay, like downloading games onto your hard drive now takes up less space. I haven’t tried it for myself but it appears as if I’m using less disk space already.
There’s supposed to be a change with Netflix, but this is Canada, and for frustrating reasons we don’t get Netflix up here. I would gladly subscribe to this service, but instead I have to illegally download movies.
The big change is with the Avatar system, and by, “big,” I mean you now have the option of buying clothes and props for your Avatars. You can also unlock new items through game Achievements, but this hasn’t been implemented yet. You may ask who’d spend money on fake clothes for a fake person, and my answer would be, “You’re new to the 21st Century, aren’t you?” Have you honestly stopped and looked at the things people waste money on? Look at Second-Life. It’s a game completely revolving around the trade of real currency for fake items. What about WoW, where people spend fifteen hours of their lives just to get an item that will be marginally useful for the next two levels. If your let people buy that stuff instead of earning it, the entire U.S. economy would collapse (further) in days. People DO spend real money on these items, as there’s an underground black market inside of the game.
The clothing available right now revolves around three games: The Secret of Monkey Island, Fable II, and of course, Halo. Out of these three, only The Secret of Monkey Island has it right. You can buy costume pieces from the game, as well as hand-held accessories like giant Q-Tips and rubber chickens with a pully in the middle. As for Fable II and Halo, you can buy T-shirts you wouldn’t buy in real life. 99% of the clothing already available in the Avatar system looks like it came from the bargain bin at Zellers. These game-related clothes look just as bad. In the case of Halo: even worse. You’d think that for Halo they would have a Master Chief armour set available, but no. You should be able to trick out your Avatar the same way you can can trick out your Halo III multiplayer character. In fact: you should be able to use that as your Avatar. Screw all this cutesy kid’s stuff. Xbox isn’t a kid friendly system to begin with. Try finding a game for a kid seven and under. There’s about four. The other hundred titles are all graphic shooters. For props, instead of a BS rifle or a energy sword, you have a remote control Warthog… Why?
As for Fable II, they have the sole option for a costume piece is buying a Spire Guard shirt which bears little resemblance to the Spire Guard shit in the game itself. For a game that’s 80% dress-up, you’d think they’d have more options. I’ve spent hours in Fable II trying to find just the right outfit for my character. There’s some good choices, and there’s some very, very bad ones. The clothes they have in their Avatar system are all very bad.
There’s two independent clothing lines available as well. I can’t remember the name of the first, but it’s filled with old-man chic clothing. Respectable and attractive. Like something you’d wear in real life if you gave a damn about your appearance and had money to waste on clothes. You play Xbox, however, so you’re not in the category for people who’d wear this. It’s an interesting concept, though. Imagine if real retailers and designers put copies of their clothes into the Avatar system. It could help sales both ways. You could try out clothes on a virtual version of yourself before buying them in real life. These ideas are too sane for today’s market, however, so they will fail.
The second option is Steampunk. You can trick out your Avatar to look like he’s out of that terrible, terrible Wild, Wild West movie with Will Smith. Sadly, I did this. I bought a complete outfit of combat boots, breeches, shirt vest and gloves, cap with goggles, and mechanical glasses. I was quite pleased with the results. I wasn’t so pleased when I tried to play 1 vs. 100 to show off my new look and saw dead-pixels on my outfit. The look of the fabric changes as you go from game to game.
My suggestion for a new clothing line, considering the market Xbox caters to, is of course: Wigger. Go into Fiddy Cents’s wardrobe, take a picture, sell that to kids. They’ll steal their mom’s credit cards to buy it.
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