25 replies to this topic

[Smacktalks]

I was happy with the old dashboard, the new one seems to have been so heavily focused on making it easy for people with Kinect that Microsoft have overlooked the majority of Xbox owners who use a controller. I think the old dashboard would have worked just as well with Kinect.

[Aero]

i can't help but feel in 6 months time we will again have another new dashboard

[Chillalex]

Smacktalks, on 10 December 2011 - 07:46 PM, said:

I was happy with the old dashboard, the new one seems to have been so heavily focused on making it easy for people with Kinect that Microsoft have overlooked the majority of Xbox owners who use a controller. I think the old dashboard would have worked just as well with Kinect.

I have a kinect and it's still no better for it, so I don't know how they arrived at this (and yes, you are right imo)
yeah this time next year, another dashboard. I think it's all down to how they want the console to be perceived when the holiday seasons roll around, so if there's more of a push for casual base that mirrors other bits of technology your moms got, then that's better for them.
its still cack.

[Strum la Frantique]

I understand why they wanted to change it, the old scrollable ads were...scrollable and therefore missable. Why would a company pay for an ad when a user had to scroll to get to it? Now all ads are instantly presented. So it's more ad revenue for Microsoft, they've got a lot of console in homes and if they can sell ads as "All online users will definitely be presented with this ad" they can sell that ad space for a lot more.

The fact that ads are mixed in with actual features, is both ingenious from a marketing perspective and and infuriating from user perspective. What's ad and what's not? The lines are blurred meaning your click through rates are going to be much higher, especially from children. Why they made the game marketplace such a chore to navigate is beyond any sort of reasoning. I want to buy product, yet they've made them all near impossible to find. A lot of screen real estate isn't used either which is puzzling, everything is crammed in the middle, I have a large plasma widesreen begging to be filled. You get the feeling it's an update or two away from being what was originally envisioned. This is a dashboard released before it's time.

[ALL STAR]

I thought the new dashboard was alright when I first used it but when I you actually want to use it to find content on the marketplace it is far to clunky. A problem that carries over from the previous dashboard is the new releases for add ons, you have to scroll through a ton of Rock Band DLC to find what you want, it would be so much easier if they split the music games into a different section because it just clogs things up.

The new youtube app is functional but ultimately useless for the time it takes to find anything it is quicker for me to boot up my laptop, it was a nice idea but the design does'nt lend itself well at all.

One thing I don't understand is the push towards a Kinect friendly interface yet it takes more clicks to get to the content you want.

[Smacktalks]

The Youtube app would be a lot better if it had voice support but even then it's much easier to just use the PC.

There's a new app up for music videos but I dunno if its part of the preview or its been officially released which I though was quite good, muzu.tv.