Xbox 360's new Zune, Last.fm, Facebook and Twitter features detailed on video
By Paul Miller 
posted Oct 7th 2009 2:19PM
posted Oct 7th 2009 2:19PM
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HOW DO I GET THIS DELICIOUSNESS IN MY MOUTH?!
Buy a gun.
lol
That's what she said!
Whoah!
You can't do anything else while listening to Last.fm?
Yikes.
Otherwise, I'm as excited about these new features as I was when they were first announced, but that one....man, that sucks.
Still, it's a step forward. I'm loving the new Netflix expansion.
Pretty big deal that you can now purchase HD movies on Xbox 360, in my opinion. Also you can finally use their video store with all Xbox 360's since it doesn't require hard drive space anymore. People with Core/Arcade/20GB systems couldn't really use the video store previously. Now that they've moved to streaming video it opens up the service to everyone.
Great news! Congratulations to all.
When I saw her gamertag I read it as filthybatteries.
When I saw her gamertag, I saw fiftybatteries and thought well there's somebody using the controller and a warthog for an unintended purpose. Be a bit more environmentally friendly, get a 'Play and Charge' kit.
It would be kinda nice if they let you listen to the radio while playing on Live.
They said "not currently" so it could be in the works.
Why would you need a radio just get a 4GB flash drive throw on a crap load of singles and press play easy fix.
why bother when the crazy noise of the machine drowns out anything except the sound of (in-game) explosions.
@zioncat
Half the reason services like Pandora and Last.FM are so popular is because it's like listening to radio but everything you want to listen to. So you'll hear new artists and songs but it'll be things that you want to hear. A 4gig drive with music you listened to before can't do that.
@ScooterDe
That's why there's a volume control...
I think MS is starting to get that anti-multitasking bug from Apple. I bet we won't see 3rd party apps either....
why bother with a 4gb thumb drive when you could just pull up your entire music library off your network... ????
Don't understand why they chose to support Last.FM users, but not Zune music. Weird.
Zune 4.0 software has pretty much identical functionality to Last.FM. This move sort of rips out the rug from under the Zune team. Last.FM has a similar artist screensaver and music preferences system to Zune. Xbox 360 functionality could have sold a lot of music and Zune Passes.
Two words: portable radio. Or do the network thing, but I couldn't get it to stream on 64-bit Windows 7, even with all kinds of different media servers.
Cool8man: Amazing point, you'd think Microsoft would be into integration or something, right?
Wow. I cannot wait for this. When is it coming?
On one of the promotional things for the 360 Elite Rebate which pimped the update as benefits, November was listed as the release month in the fine print.
Kotaku says before Christmas this year.
But when will it arrive! We have had most of this info for over a year. I want Zune Marketplace! You lucky people in the US have Netflix, but here in Europe they havnt released that!
Please MS, give us a release date!
lmao at the trolling on uncharted 2
It was a pretty relevant point. As soon as I heard someone say, "That's cool," I was hoping someone would speak up for how lame it actually is to have twitter flooded with gaming posts. The only thing that would make sense is to tweet that you're starting a multiplayer game so friends can join you.
Any particular reason they didn't show you the live TV streaming service that is coming later this month?
I think that is only in the UK with SkyTV.
And that means they don't demo it because...
(It is also in France with Canal+)
I WOULD LOVE A FEATURE WHERE I CAN TWEET EVERY BUTTON I PRESS, SIMULTANEOUSLY LISTENING TO LAST.FM AND GENERATING A NEW STRIPPER NAME ON FACEBOOK WHILE I DECIMATE CRITTERS ON VIVA PINATA.
say it dont spray it
This please.
Or, better yet, don't say it at all.
I had a feeling you can't stream music while playing games since sometimes it stops downloading your items when connecting online...
how about make a web browser like the one in ps3?
So we can have yet another device with a browser? I have one on my computer, cellphone and mp3 player, do I really need another one on my game console?
Because you might use it to go to http://www.apple.com
@Mark
Yes
@Mark I'm not fan of facebook nor twitter and i'm not familiar of last.fm, i like going to other websites like youtube, engadget in my consoles and i'm currently using my ps3 to comment on this website right now
"Mad Men is a show about people in their early sixties?"
"Um, no, it’s set in the early Sixties."
"Oh, it’s not people in their sixties."
"No, no, no. That’s a different show."
"Yeah, but my, this uh, says about people in their early sixties."
"That just says 'do you like websites?'"
"Do you like websites?"
"Sure. Yeah."
"Yeah, I heard that you like websites."
"Where did you hear that?"
"On a website."
you people just don't want to stfu about browsers on consoles. You are already on a computer. microsoft has already stated ages ago that there will not be a browser. Just imagine the unnecessary stuff like java plugs, cookies, pix, flash ads perhaps even bait sites to hack ur xbox and grab your informations. Theres no way I'm going to risk myself just for a browser that is an open door to a hacker.
Honestly, have you ever actually surfed the web on your PS3? Get a netbook and keep it on the coffee table.
i'm currently in the ps3 surfing the web
"i'm currently in the ps3 surfing the web"
No wonder the damn thing is running hot today!
Microsoft already has a web browser that is as awful as the PS3 browser so I guess it wouldn't be too hard to implement it into the Xbox 360. Now, if they wanted to integrate a GOOD browser that would be much harder. Ironically, they could simply look at how Nintendo did it (Opera). So much about multimedia capabilities, eh?
@ Mark:
You are the biggest MS fanboy I have every seen. You are about as bad as the Apple fanboys. All they ever do is ramble on about how something an Apple product doesn't have is actually a good thing (like flash on the iPhone). That is exactly what you are doing now.
I think most people on this site know that having a browser on the 360 would be a good thing especially considering what could be done with it. For instance, the PS3 has had YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter support for a while now simply because it has a browser. It even had Hulu before it got stopped. Yet you still consider having a browser a bad thing? Oh, wait. You don't. You just can't even think about saying something bad about MS.
PS
Don't call me a fanboy. I own products by Apple, MS, and Sony and I love them all.
boing!!!
Well I guess I need to buy me a chatpad.
...or a USB keyboard, they work just fine as well.
Convenience factor....also, I can get the messenger gold pack and get it with a 13 month card for marginally more than the card on its own
i have a mini usb keyboard with the usb plugged in the back all the time, its pretty great.
I got one about two months ago in anticipation of FB, Twitter, etc being added. It is pretty nifty.
Amazon (did? I haven't checked before posting this) has that bundle with PGR4 (lol) a headset, chatpad, and 12 month card for like 60 bucks.
Great deal if you need any of those things + can use the 12 months.
I was actually looking at that earlier. I need to re-up my gold membership in a couple months anyway, so I might as well.
I hope they fix the 100 friend limit issue soon, because I can see facebook providing me with a great way to add a lot of friends.
Probably not happening... it's restricted to 100 friends because it's keeping backwards compatibility with the original Xbox... they're probably not going break that.
Hmm, wonder if the flash games on Facebook are supported in XBlive-Facebook???
@ jcj2391
I agree, but i dont think the xbox could handle it and would prob crash/freeze all the time.
maybe because of its processors can't handle it
It has 3 3.2GHz processors with Hyperthreading giving it 6 logical cores. I'm fairly sure it has the horsepower to run a simple browser, especially since one of my computers' core 2 duo 1.8GHz doesn't have any problems doing so.
I've never heard of a PPC processor with Hyperthreading. I believe you are mistaken.
3=3 3
@BillG: "Inside, the Xbox 360 uses the triple-core IBM designed Xenon as its CPU, with each core capable of simultaneously processing two threads, and can therefore operate on up to six threads at once." source-wikipedia
Hyperthreading is Intel's term for simultaneous multithreading, which the xbox 360 does. I used that term merely because of its ubiquity, and because the same process is going on in the 360.
I'm sure it could handle it, but Microsoft making a good browser for something? that's the hard part.
@Mark you actually believed in wiki? don't worry i will edit it
@ jcj2391
there is a source: http://www.xbox.com/en-AU/support/xbox360/manuals/xbox360specs.htm
I think Microsoft would know what hardware they are using.
BillG: you ain't heard much then!
PlayStation 3's Cell is also a PowerPC core that runs two simultaneous thread; Nintendo's Wii uses PowerPC core too, but that's single threaded AFAIK.
Xbox 360 = 3x physical cores with 2 threads each = 6 logical cores.
PS3 = 1x physical core with 2 threads = 2 logical cores + 6 SPE.
Wii = 1x physical core with 1 thread = 1 logical core.
IBM Power chips since Power5 in 2004 have offered simultaneous multithreading with two threads per physical core.
The term is only ubiquitous because the processor market is Intel saturated. I'd also like to point out some errors in the Wiki article you reference, Xenon is an Intel product and not a term to describe high performance processors. Wikipedia isn't perfect.. but I did come across an article explaining the processor's specs in very nice detail.
It really doesn't mention or explain MS's claims that each core can perform 2 hardware threads.
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,2845,1877342,00.asp
It'll definitely be able to run a browser, but if it were IE7 or IE8 it would chug regardless.
@jcj2391: As has been said before, wikipedia is perfectly acceptable for such a forum. But since you're being so pushy about it:
"Each of the cores, which I'm going to call a PowerPC Processing Element (PPE) from here on out, has a 64K split L1 cache (32K instructions/32K data) and can handle up two simultaneous threads of execution using simultaneous multithreading (SMT)." -ArsTechnica
"The other interesting thing to note about the Xbox 360 CPU is that each core is capable of processing two threads simultaneously" -howstuffworks
"2 hardware threads per core (6 hardware threads total)" -support.xbox.com
Good enough now?
@BillG: Xenon is also the name of this certain PPC processor, made by IBM. Google search "xbox 360 processor" and you'll see several hundred articles saying as much(from such other sources as arstechnica)
"Xenon is an Intel product and not a term to describe high performance processors"
No, Xenon is a noble gas which is used in my car's headlights and other bright lamps; and you are breathing it in right now as it occurs in the atmosphere in trace amounts.
BillG: "Xenon is an Intel product and not a term to describe high performance processors."
That is incorrect. The name used by Intel is Xeon (http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/products/server/processor)
The processor used in the 360 is named the Xenon - notice the extra N.
Also, BillG, since you refuse to believe Microsoft's claims (you seem to be implying that they are lying - you should talk to the FCC about MS selling a product with false claims) that each core is hyperthreaded, from IBM's own spec sheet at http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/power/library/pa-fpfxbox/:
"The instruction unit is multithreaded, with two simultaneous threads. The instruction cache is 32KB. The core implements a two-issue, in-order execution microarchitecture. This means two instructions are issued at a time but execution within the units is in sequential order. Execution is delayed to cover the load use penalty without stalling the pipeline."
@ MARK, processor don't count much these days, even a netbook with 1 Hyper threaded 1.6Ghz core is reasonable enough for browsing the web, flash and anything a computer would do with the internet. And hell i could bet the 360 web browser will be better than the ps3s simply because it has 256 Mb more memory to use for caching, its just the fact i find m$0FTS unwillingness to put a web browser into it tells me that the xbox is nothing more than a TOY and we all still have to buy REAL computers to do serious stuff.
compare that to $ony who had linux support in their ps3's from day 1 (yes they removed it from the slims....) which sends the message that it wants to eat the HTPC market well before any1 has an idea what an HTPC is
I find it funny that Joystiq showed YOUR OWN VIDEO before you did. Yeah, it was only by 20 minutes, and yeah, you two are like brother and sister, but c'mon! It's your video! Who gave who a swirlie here?
Pandora please.
all i want is a pandora client come on microshaft wtf is the hold up
I don't want to use Last.fm, I want to use my Zune Pass =(
Well, I don't have an Xbox but when I get one I'll want to do it,
LOL THEY HAVE AN IPHONE AND WORK FOR MICROSOFT
PS3 needs to get their act together and bring Netflix and these new features to the table!
oo so my last.fm will finally update with the songs i listen to on my 360?! nice!
Nope.
Only the songs you listen to from Last.fm.
lol at the MS pimp, using an iPhone app (ShakeIt Photo)
wow, some people there need to shut up.
looks very nice, hopefully microsoft doesnt forget about Canada like they did with the zune hd, eh?
Or they could just implement a standards base browser and you can have access to all this stuff and then some
Ummm.... the video doesnt work :(
looks like the movie uses smooth HD technology
Twitter sucks. Some day, you'll all look back and feel the same way about using Twitter as you do about that period when you thought Vanilla Ice was cool.