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Xbox 360 Annoyance #016: Moving
I never thought I'd find myself writing one the Xbox 360 annoyance articles, and yet here we are. I was moving yesterday, and naturally I decided I should take my 360 with me. It's ironic that with the new generation of gaming we have lost some wires, but gained many others. Wires, so you know, are the bane of my existence -- as they are for many technology enthusiasts. If you want to enjoy your 360 properly -- i.e. high definition and surround sound -- you need to configure a lot of wires. Of course you have the video cables, in my case VGA, which requires an audio adapter to work on my TV. You have separate audio cables, optical if you want surround sound. And, of course, if you have surround sound, you have numerous cables to deal with to hook up your sound system, maybe even a separate receiver. Then you have your ethernet cable, which must be hooked into a router, which has its own set of cables to deal with. Even if you use the wireless adapter -- a hardcore gaming no-no -- you'll still have to deal with a router at some point. It's easy enough to overlook these things the first time you pull your 360 out of its box, but it gets tedious when you move to a new place. Here's hoping someone finds a way to make the entire gaming experience wireless before the Xbox 720 arrives.
Xbox 360 headset: "cheap," "painful," "horrible" sounding. Oh yeah, it eats babies too (Xbox 360 annoyance #015)
The Xbox 360 headset has some issues. Some of these issues are clearly related to the software used to send voice back and forth on the Xbox 360. We figure that Microsoft is using some wonderful new compression technology that allocates less bandwidth to voice so that they can squeeze video data from the upcoming camera through the same pipes. Some of the problems with the headset are clearly hardware related, however. That's why Xbox 360 user (PS3 fanboy? We can't verify) George Ogan has created the petition we link to here. The points made are solid, so that's why George's petition is getting the linklove. Matter of fact, this thoughtful petition could very well be one of our Xbox 360 annoyances. Actually, it just became one. Nice work, George.Other Xbox 360 annoyances: 001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007, 008, 009, 010, 011, 012, 013, 014 Xbox 360 delights: 001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007, 008, 009, 010, 011
Still downloading... downloading... downloading... (Xbox 360 annoyance #003.1)
We're all about Xbox Live's game demo service. In theory. Last night, we spent just over 90 minutes waiting to get our sweaty palms on The Outfit demo (and we know we're not alone). The problem for us wasn't that it took so long. We knew that 6 PM (Eastern) wasn't the best time to fetch the file. And we knew that our broadband connection probably wasn't optimized for this function. The point is, we anticipated a long download-and we were okay with that.The real problem is that the Xbox 360 is crippled when it's downloading. We've known about this. We've bitched about it before. But last night's episode warrants another post. It's not like we can't find anything to do for 90 minutes (there is a world of possibilities out there, right?). But, if Microsoft wants to claim that the Xbox 360 is all about choice, then give us that choice. Let us listen to music. Let us watch DVDs. Heck, let us play games! Let us do all of these things while we download a game demo from the Marketplace. Microsoft, are you listening?Other Xbox 360 annoyances: 001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007, 008, 009, 010, 011, 012, 013Xbox 360 delights: 001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007, 008, 009, 010, 011
Nontransferable save game data (Xbox 360 annoyance #013)
With the girlfriend out of town, an old friend-we'll call him, "K BROOKS" (gamertag)-came to visit this past weekend, and while there might have been intentions to explore the great cultural experiences that New York has to offer, our time together quickly devolved into several days of nonstop gaming. Over the past month, we'd been steadily making our way through PDZ's co-op campaign (online) and we were hoping to finish off the final boss first thing Saturday. Since K BROOKS was unsure about packing his 360 for the train ride, I suggested he just bring the detachable HDD-he doesn't have a Memory Unit. I could transfer my profile & PDZ data from my HDD to my Memory Unit, plug his HDD into my console along with my Memory Unit, and then we could continue the campaign old school splitscreen styles. Wrong. PDZ data cannot be transferred between devices.
Red lights, no explanation (Xbox 360 annoyance #012)
During some late night shenanigans this past Friday, the power strip, which the Xbox 360 power supply and a host of other devices are connected to, was inadvertently kicked out of the wall socket. At the time, the Xbox 360 was streaming music from an iPod, while the visualization danced on a monitor. A nasty crackle & pop, followed by silence alerted us to the situation.Once the power strip was reconnected, an attempt to reboot the 360 resulted in the appearance of the dreaded red lights. To make matters worse, it was the flashing three-light pattern (i.e. internal error). I quickly shut the console off and rebooted. To my delight, the welcoming green glow emanated from the circle of light and the startup logo appeared on the monitor. I watched as the Dashboard successfully loaded and then turned the console back off. It was all good-or so I thought...
Failing the boyfriend test (Xbox 360 annoyance #011)
James' tale of a 360 that manages to inveigle its way into a loving relationship is heartwarming, but here's the other side of the story--something you may be more familiar with. Ever since the Xbox 360 arrived in our household it's resolutely failed to win over the attentions of the resident non-gamers. Despite successful outings socially, it's been relegated to a back room while the best TV in the house shows Neighbours and EastEnders rather than PGR3 or Perfect Dark Zero.
Can I have my email address back? (Xbox 360 annoyance #010)
At some point following our gala 48-hour Xbox 360 gamathon, we got the idea to check some funny gamertags to see if they were available. For the sake of this example, let's say we picked "xXDr.UweBollXx" just to have some kicks and play with the free 30-day Xbox Live Gold membership. During the signup process the system requires a Microsoft .NET Passport account to link to the gamertag. The request (though having a slightly Big Brother feel) was understandable, so I entered in my 8-year old Hotmail account (which I've had since it was called HoTMaiL). Recently I undertook the task of transferring my original Xbox gamertag, "persnfrmporlok", to the 360. Here's where it gets ugly.During the transfer process I was again required to link my gamertag to a .NET Passport account, so I naturally punched in my trusty Hotmail address. I was informed that the account already had a gamertag linked to it and only one was allowed. No red flags yet; surely this could be solved simply. I would only need to switch the .NET Passport for "Uwe Boll" to a newly created address (let's call it uweiswonderful@hotmail.com) thus freeing my original Hotmail account to be linked to "persnfrmporlok." Now if only I could figure out how to do it...Right about now you should see where this story is going: I could not change the email address and needed to open a new .NET Passport account for my "persnfrmporlok" gamertag. After several calls to 1-800-4MY-XBOX I was told by a very helpful representative that the linking was "permanent." You see, Microsoft was "cracking down" on people switching email addresses, a practice that was previously allowed on the original Xbox. Cracking down? What does that mean? How could this be abused? The functionality is for our convenience, not for billing; they already have my credit card number, address, and real name! I can assure them that's a much better way of commucating with subscribers than a easily forgotten free webmail account. The sad truth is, despite my long history with that Hotmail account, the increasingly irrelevant Hotmail service is still the slowest, ugliest, and most spammed webmail account I have. For a console that trumpets loud and wide, "It's all about choice" the decision to remove this choice is inscrutable.Xbox 360 annoyances: 001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007, 008, 009Other Xbox 360 delights: 001, 002, 003, 004
Painful Xbox 360 texting needs work (Xbox 360 annoyance #009)
For most gamers setting up their Xbox 360s over the last several weeks, the biggest difficulty wasn't fighting off rabid dust bunnies in order to perform a cabling reach-around. The biggest annoyance was entering information into the Xbox 360 via the primitive text interface. It should be at least as easy as entering text on the Sony PSP. Here are the issues with entering text into the 360: When entering addresses, it should accept zipcode first and allow me to select my city from a drop-down There's no predictive text input. Not a big deal when entering address information, but it would definitely simplify text-messages sent to other players. It's so much slower than web-commerce with a keyboard, mouse and browser that it's simply aggravating. It's just primitive. If you've ever tried to conduct e-commerce over a cell phone, you know what it feels like. It's insecure. In setting up a password or entering it, for instance, users must select each letter of the password with the controller. Anybody that watches this process can easily steal your password, and they're not just getting your Xbox Live password, they're getting your Hotmail password too. If Xbox Live and Passport weren't integrated, however, a more natural and more secure password comprised of controller buttons could be used (e.g., x, b, a, a, RT, LT, x, b). Joystiq reader Douggy writes, "Where this gets really annoying is ripping burnt CDs onto the hard drive. If you want to name your albums, genre, etc. the controller really sucks!" Where's that rumored qwerty keyboard, already? And please, can we have biometric identification in the next-next generation of consoles? It's already standard on Lenovo laptops. PS: Yes, we know that a USB keyboard can be plugged in to the Xbox 360. But this is our living room. Keyboards and other PC clutter do not belong here. That was our big beef with the so-called wireless controllers (see annoyance #002, below). We do not want USB hubs, wires, keyboards, and other crap cluttering the living room. Other Xbox 360 annoyances: 001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007, 008 (more to come) Xbox 360 delights: 001 (more to come)
Ring of disc death (Xbox 360 annoyance #008)
Since our first experience with the Xbox 360 disc-scratching issue, numerous anecdotal reports from around the game-o-sphere have given us a better feel for the conditions under which the issue occurs. This is a wrap-up of those issues and of the annoyance: vertical orientation alone does not scratch DVDs horizontal orientation alone does not scratch DVDs movement of the Xbox 360 during play scratches DVDs movement could be someone running through the house and sending shocks to the system through your floorboards movement is often done on purpose when friends try to show friends the cool way in which the ring of light reorients itself with its fancy mercury switch movement is often accidental, as when annoying controller cables are tripped over in the dark, jarring the Xbox 360 sometimes, people just get sick of poorly designed boss fights, and kick their Xbox 360s in frustration and sometimes, customers are committing fraud by purposefully destroying games that have been played to completion so that they can be exchanged for store credit that is used to purchase new games This annoyance falls into the "so annoying we want to kick the family pet" category. I have moved various home electronics devices while they were spinning DVDs and audio CDs and not once have I hosed a media disc so thoroughly. I regularly move my laptop while its hard disk and DVD drives are spinning, and no damage has occurred yet. Sure, a console is meant to be stationary, but if fault tolerance is the norm amongst home consumer electronics devices, it should be the norm for the Xbox 360 as well because customers have come to expect that base level of fault tolerance.
Digital lifestyle from a dumb terminal? Not likely. (Xbox 360 annoyance #007)
This annoyance comes to us via reader ChicagoOne, who sent us the following tip: "Come on Microsoft, you design the "standard" media format, but now the only way we can watch our WMV-HD flicks is to use a media center pc? My guess is the software is in the box, but we will have to pay for the right to pop in a disc later..." ChicagoOne has pinpointed a very annoying aspect of the Xbox 360. We know that Microsoft needs to encourage people to buy Windows Media Center PCs. Someone, somewhere inside Microsoft is rewarded based on sales of this flavor of the Windows XP operating system and that certain someone successfully convinced or forced the Xbox 360 product team to cripple the functionality of the Xbox 360 to limit the threat to his product. We hate it when companies let internal politics compromise product design. That's precisely the problem with Sony's insistence with using UMD and Memory Sticks in the PSP when a standard technology would be far more customer-friendly (but simultaneously more threatening to Sony's non-gaming business units). In essence, the Xbox 360 is a crippled digital media receiver (DMR) and as such, it's hardly the magical hub of the so-called "digital home" (a term that The Economist has called "marketing claptrap"). Instead of accepting a variety of streams from the full array of Windows-based devices, the Xbox 360 is only allowed to receive streams of music and photos from the laptop used to write this post because Windows XP Pro falls to the wrong manager's profit and loss statement.
Xbox 360 power supply dunked in water to prove it's damned big (Xbox 360 annoyance #006)
Tonight we conducted an experiment. Inspired by the picture of an Xbox 360 power brick displayed next to a GameCube, we submersed both an Xbox 360 power brick and a GameCube in water to conduct a volume test. Don't worry. Each was safely wrapped in plastic. Method: Fill a small trash bin with water Take note of the water level (indicated by a millimeter rule taped to the inside of the bin) Put electronic object into waterproof plastic bag, submerge in water Take new reading of water level Remove object from water, replenish water to pre-submersion level Measure how much water is required to bring water to post-submersion level Convert liters to cubic meters (using this tool) Results:
Plastic doesn't taste nearly as good as chocolate (Xbox 360 annoyance #005)
The clock chimes once, snapping you out of your gamer's haze as your fingers continue to instinctively manipulate the controller. It's 1:00 AM on a Sunday, and you're at the turn of a nonstop 48-hour gaming marathon. Your stomach growls-you haven't eaten since Thursday. The fridge has been empty since your wife left you, and your kids have all since run away to join the Peace Corps. Eating them is out of the question. You wince as the pangs of hunger rack your intestines, but you can't stop now. You're pwning n00bs on Xbox Live like never before-one wrong move and your unheralded winning streak will come screeching to a halt. If only there were something nearby to satisfy your craving, something succulent and delicious, something right below the television and just a little to the left... the Xbox, of course! Eyes glued to your 50" high-def display, you drop to your knees and shuffle over to the console, fans humming peaceably, blissfully unaware of its fate. You lean over the console, jaws spread wide, and... WHOA! Just hold on there a second, Sonny Jim. Microsoft, in their infinite wisdom, neglected to plan for such a contigency as yours. This here Xbox 360 is constructed of plastic; a strong, durable, lightweight material which nonetheless tastes like crap. Depending on whom you ask, this here games machine might not even be edible. Good going, Microsoft, now Sonny Jim is lying dead on the floor, his fingers continuing to manipulate his controller, pwning posthumously. If only he'd bought a Dreamcast.
Xbox 360 can't fast forward trailers (Xbox 360 annoyance #004)
This first image shows the media controls when playing a trailer downloaded from the Xbox 360 marketplace. Note the extremely simple controls. The widget is lacking fast forward and rewind, not to mention step forward, and other functions that are included on even $50 DVD players. This second image shows the controls available when playing a DVD on the Xbox 360. Why are the controls so much more limited for downloaded content? Why is this feature crippled for downloaded content? This is annoying. Previous Xbox 360 annoyances: 001, 002, 003.
Stupid download screen limbo (Xbox 360 annoyance #003)
File this one under bad UI design. When downloading content in the Xbox 360 Marketplace, a small dialog box shows your download progress. While this dialog box is in place, you can access no other content on the Xbox 360 if you want your download to finish. Surely the system can multitask, but perhaps the designers of the system wanted to make sure that the hard drive and Internet connection on the Xbox 360 wasn't busy with any other task when gamers were playing a game. In this way, the system would appear to be speedy and there would be no risk of the sluggishness that tends to plague any computer that is tasked with too many jobs. And yet, we still think it dumb. The download feature should allow users to select content, add it to a download queue (see the playlist feature of the music player-this functionality should be extended to downloads), and then do other stuff on the system. Previous Xbox 360 annoyances: 001, 002.
Xbox 360 wireless controllers aren't (Xbox 360 annoyance #002)
Before we get all nitpicky it should be noted out of fairness that the Xbox 360's designers had no easy task. They wanted to give gamers the beauty and convenience of a wireless controller, but they also needed to make sure that help is near when batteries run low in the middle of a critical Xbox Live competitive experience. Hot-swapping of batteries isn't an option in high-stakes scenarios (those of you who are in league 1 of Project Gotham Racing 3 know what we mean). The only solution to these conflicting concerns is to create a controller that accepts a power cord for charging at any time. Unfortunately, Microsoft's designers underestimated gamer laziness. Rather than use the play-and-charge kit only when the controllers need to be charged, we find ourselves just leaving them plugged in all the time because it's too much trouble to neatly wrap up then put away the play-and-charge kit. Once we started leaving it in the system, we were able to recharge the controllers more conveniently, but now our living room looks messy! The core wireless design aesthetic has been ruined. Like us, most gamers are going to leave their play-and-charge cables plugged in to the Xbox 360 so that when their controller runs out of juice they can charge it up conveniently. At that point, it doesn't matter if you disengage from the play-and-charge for wireless gaming because you've still got a spaghetti monster's worth of wires spilling out from your Xbox 360. Essentially, we're now back to wired controllers. Even if Microsoft were to release the mysteriously absent battery charger, we'd be subject to the fundamental risk of play interruption. But at this point, anything's better than these damned wires. The solution? See photo. In sum: a beautiful controller is marred by a jumble of wires. It's still the best controller to ever grace a game system, but that doesn't mean it's perfect. Previous Xbox 360 annoyances: 001.
Project Gotham Racism (Xbox 360 annoyance #001)
Justin Nolan over at 360insider blogs about one of our key annoyances with Project Gotham Racing 3 and Call of Duty 2. When in a multiplayer match, smack talk is expected. But some people who play on Xbox Live are sometimes very foul, probably in part because they feel immune from punishment. The issue is that PGR3 and other games lack an on-screen indicator showing who is talking. If you want to leave negative feedback for the jerk who thinks that black people should not be allowed to play video games, you can't, because you don't know which of the people you're playing with spouted the hate in the first place. It needs to be fixed. This is not an optional feature in an online game with voice.
