Rumored Xbox 360 Spring 2008 update features

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merphle's picture
Location: Boston

QJ.net offers a list of Spring 2008 update features that look fairly realistic, considering the direction Microsoft seems to be taking XBL. Sadly, no mention of bona fide clan support.

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merphle's picture
Location: Boston

Looks like Kotaku has a very similar list up (plus picture). Interestingly, Kotaku's list of features under "Dashboard/Miscellaneous" has skipped numbers 15 and 17, though it has the same number of features as QJ.net's list. Is it time to start speculation on what was redacted?

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Danjo Olivaw's picture
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Quote:
Support for titles to store installation data on Storage Device for faster loading.

Option to hold LT and RT for rewinding/fast-forwarding video content.

The first is already a feature, and I thought the second was as well. It's a nice list, but it seems fake.

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I think the significant thing is holding the LT/RT, currently when you press it video continues to zoom past until you deliberately stop it.

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4dSwissCheese's picture
Location: Toronto, ON

I didn't think permanent hard drive installs were an available option. I mean, there's part of the hard drive reserved for use as a cache, but that's limited in size and not permanent in nature like what PS3 games do.

Generally, it looks like a pretty good list. The feature that jumps out at me as immediately useful is 4-person voice chat. I remember trying to co-ordinate getting into ranked matches of Gears, and this would have greatly simplified it. Granted, games are more and more implementing proper party systems, so maybe it's too late to be relevant.

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doogiemac's picture
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Kotaku wrote:
"Option to delete titles from gamercard with 0 gamerscore and 0 achievements"

Yay.

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MaxShrek's picture
Location: Fragville Junction, NY

doogiemac wrote:
Kotaku wrote:
"Option to delete titles from gamercard with 0 gamerscore and 0 achievements"

Yay.

Gives me a chub.
I'm more interested in getting my DLC working under a new serial number with the DRM, so I can play offline, and the 5 titles I have that don't work at all for some reason start to be playable again.

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HaciendaSquish's picture
Location: Denver, Colorado

Kotaku wrote:
Long descriptions of items on Marketplace can be scrolled using right stick.

Oh, thank God.

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Yellow5's picture
Location: NYC

Quote:
Support for titles to store installation data on Storage Device for faster loading.

Assuming this is real, I wonder if "support" means that a game can have it as a requirement and still get certification. If it needs to be optional, it's not a very big deal, as developers would still need to shoot for the arcade units with no hard drive as their streaming benchmark.

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Irongut's picture

You guys test that "Delete games with 0 achievements and 0 gamerscore from your profile" feature enhancement for me first, k?

I'd like that ability. I used to hate how the trial games would leave 0 score achievements on my profile. Also, this will be a good method for decreasing a bit of backlog shame

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LobsterMobster's picture
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MaxShrek wrote:
doogiemac wrote:
Kotaku wrote:
"Option to delete titles from gamercard with 0 gamerscore and 0 achievements"

Yay.

Gives me a chub.
I'm more interested in getting my DLC working under a new serial number with the DRM, so I can play offline, and the 5 titles I have that don't work at all for some reason start to be playable again.

What, you don't want people knowing you tried Barbie Horse Adventure?

Quote:
Mandatory option to delete duplicate titles from gamercard (excludes Games for Windows - LIVE). User disconnected from Xbox LIVE when booting any title until action complete.

What's a Mandatory option?

NOTE: This is not a doodle bug.

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Botswana's picture
Location: Serenity Valley

Quote:
Option to delete titles from gamercard with 0 gamerscore and 0 achievements

Actually, this will be good even though I try to get 1 achievement for any game before I toss it (sort of a forced "Try it before you give up on it" philosophy). I accidentally logged in as my 6 year old (non-Live account) while playing Saint's Row. I gave them their own accounts so I could keep track of what they are playing, but having that in his profile makes me a little uncomfortable, especially since I did it!

Quote:
Long descriptions of items on Marketplace can be scrolled using right stick.

What took them so long? Seriously, what moron thought it would be beneficial to make users wait for what seems like an hour to figure out what the download is supposed to be?

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Irongut's picture

LobsterMobster wrote:

Quote:
Mandatory option to delete duplicate titles from gamercard (excludes Games for Windows - LIVE). User disconnected from Xbox LIVE when booting any title until action complete.

What's a Mandatory option?

I don't know either, but I remember reading that one and thinking huh? too.

What scenario does this apply to? I guess if someone got 1000GS in Gears of War US and another 1000 GS in Gears Asian (region free), you remove one of the entries. I thought though that folks who get very competitive about wracking up achievement points like this scenario because it allows them to stack the same game completion multiple times on their gamerscore without having to relearn another title.

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4dSwissCheese wrote:
I didn't think permanent hard drive installs were an available option. I mean, there's part of the hard drive reserved for use as a cache, but that's limited in size and not permanent in nature like what PS3 games do.

I sure hope this isn't what it sounds like. I don't want to have to juggle around which installs to keep and which installs to delete. I just want throw in any game in my library and play it at any time without waiting. Picking which games to uninstall from my computer to free up HD space is a tough enough job . I hate picking favorites.

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4dSwissCheese's picture
Location: Toronto, ON

EvilDead wrote:
I sure hope this isn't what it sounds like. I don't want to have to juggle around which installs to keep and which installs to delete. I just want throw in any game in my library and play it at any time without waiting. Picking which games to uninstall from my computer to free up HD space is a tough enough job . I hate picking favorites.

I don't think you have to worry. Games should still have to work without the hard drive, so any installation should have to be optional, right?

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Parallax Abstraction's picture
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

q[Option to see what items will not work offline due to DRM license changing from Memory.]q

Well at least now they're telling you what paid content you're getting screwed out of.

q[Option to automatically associate new DRM to items downloaded for free.]q

I'm not sure what this means. I'm hoping this has something to do with being able to reassign where the DRM goes. Microsoft has made a big step by now making it easier (though cumbersome) to reauthorize content after repair but you still can't get it reauthorized if you choose to replace your console with a new one or have it replaced under a store warranty.

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LobsterMobster's picture
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Parallax wrote:
Option to automatically associate new DRM to items downloaded for free.

e and Major Nelson talk about this in detail on the last two podcasts. Basically what it means is if you get a new console and put an old harddrive into it (as is the case when your box breaks down and they have to send you a new one) you can go into your download history and re-associate all your new content with the new box. There seem to be some restrictions associated, like I'm not sure you could just go buy a new XBox and move all your DRM over to it, or move your DRM back and forth repeatedly between two separate boxes or whatever, but it was put in to help people with RRODs get everything they've paid for.

NOTE: This is not a doodle bug.

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nsmike's picture
Location: Pennsylvania

Parallax Abstraction wrote:
q[Option to automatically associate new DRM to items downloaded for free.]q

I'm not sure what this means. I'm hoping this has something to do with being able to reassign where the DRM goes. Microsoft has made a big step by now making it easier (though cumbersome) to reauthorize content after repair but you still can't get it reauthorized if you choose to replace your console with a new one or have it replaced under a store warranty.

I took it to mean that if you got a free content download (there are many, like video previews), your console red-rings and you get a refurb, put your old hard drive on, and the DRM makes it unplayable while offline, you can restore the DRM to a free item without having to delete and re-download it.

This list seems largely fake to me, though. There's too much there that I would actually want, and lord knows that never happens. Plus, I like Microsoft's quote at the end of the Kotaku list: "We don't comment on rumors or speculation, but we can say that we've never seen that list before." That seems like a... comment on the list to me, no?

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UCRC's picture
Location: Duckland, EU

I'll trade all these for simple 16:10 support.

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Q's picture

All of the small tweaks are welcome but I really want some clan support.

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wonderpug's picture
Location: Boston

From what I've read on other forums, that list is completely fake.

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SommerMatt's picture
Location: Racine, WI

wonderpug wrote:
From what I've read on other forums, that list is completely fake.

Hurray for gaming "journalism!"

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nsmike's picture
Location: Pennsylvania

SommerMatt wrote:
wonderpug wrote:
From what I've read on other forums, that list is completely fake.

Hurray for gaming "journalism!"

You count Kotaku as journalists? I would call them bloggers, and not even good ones at that.

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HaciendaSquish wrote:
Kotaku wrote:
Long descriptions of items on Marketplace can be scrolled using right stick.

Oh, thank God.


I'd been assuming I was just dumb in not knowing how to do that. I hadn't realized it was actually missing.

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SommerMatt's picture
Location: Racine, WI

nsmike wrote:
SommerMatt wrote:
wonderpug wrote:
From what I've read on other forums, that list is completely fake.

Hurray for gaming "journalism!"

You count Kotaku as journalists?

No... that's why I put the word in quotations.

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Parallax Abstraction's picture
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

LobsterMobster wrote:
e and Major Nelson talk about this in detail on the last two podcasts. Basically what it means is if you get a new console and put an old harddrive into it (as is the case when your box breaks down and they have to send you a new one) you can go into your download history and re-associate all your new content with the new box. There seem to be some restrictions associated, like I'm not sure you could just go buy a new XBox and move all your DRM over to it, or move your DRM back and forth repeatedly between two separate boxes or whatever, but it was put in to help people with RRODs get everything they've paid for.

Well, if they've come up with a solution to allow you to replace your 360 out of warranty with a new one and get back your content, that's fantastic. My 360's DVD drive is on its way out I think and I may eventually have to buy another one. I know they had a solution to let you redownload your content and have it automatically reauthorize but they claim that's only if Microsoft serviced the console. This will allow actual replacement?

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MaxShrek's picture
Location: Fragville Junction, NY

LobsterMobster wrote:
MaxShrek wrote:
doogiemac wrote:
Kotaku wrote:
"Option to delete titles from gamercard with 0 gamerscore and 0 achievements"

Yay.

Gives me a chub.
I'm more interested in getting my DLC working under a new serial number with the DRM, so I can play offline, and the 5 titles I have that don't work at all for some reason start to be playable again.

What, you don't want people knowing you tried Barbie Horse Adventure?

Personally I wouldn't mind people knowing I played any game on the 360.

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doogiemac's picture
Location: Arizona

Via Major Nelson is an interview on Next Generation about the update. Apparently the update is even more boring than I had hoped.

I can't imagine a good reason why there isn't group support yet. It's been an obvious feature since the launch of the service, and they seem to have no timeline or even plans for implementation.

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Q's picture

I often find non-existent updates to be boring too.

A single DRM fix does not a Spring Dashboard update make. I'm glad they are working on “building the proper infrastructure and scale for the service” but shouldn't they be doing that year round, and why would it prohibit the expected update?

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ARG. Still no 16x10 support.

I think they'll keep big stuff like real clan support and whatnot for the next iteration of Live, that comes with the next Xbox in 2010/11, or whenever.

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Parallax Abstraction's picture
Location: Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Or they'll release it when Sony finally gets around to getting in-game XMB and invites and the like. That way, Microsoft can launch it as a new way why Live is better than PSN.

"Just because something's popular, that sure doesn't make it right." -Penn Gilette
"You can't fix stupid." -Ron White
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