The Xbox 360 Dashboard could be the thing that I like most about the new Xbox 360 gaming console. For those of you that do not know, the dashboard is a menu that is accessible by pushing the Xbox 360 Guide button on your game controller or media remote. Upon depressing the button, the Dashboard slides out from the left side of the screen. From the dashboard, many basic options and settings are accessible. Some of the more notable options are: private chat, personalization settings, and music.
This may not sound too groundbreaking, and maybe the novelty is lost on many. But, the reason why I like this feature so much is that it is almost always available. Let me illustrate with some examples:
You are watching The Twins Effect 2 on DVD. After watching a crazy kung fu battle between two super-cute girls, you notice your friend signs into Xbox Live. You would love to get your game on, but don’t want to stop the movie in case he isn’t interested in gaming with you. So, you just plug the Xbox Live headset into your wireless controller, bring up the dashboard and invite him to chat. Moments later you two are discussing what game you will be playing… all the while, more kung fu goodness is on your TV screen.
Ok. Say you are playing Call of Duty 2, doing your best to lay the smack down on some nazi bastards. All of a sudden, you receive a chat invite from someone on your friends list. Its your buddy, and even though he is watching some crazy kung fu movie on DVD, he wants to know if you want to race in Project Gotham Racing 3. You chat and contemplate his request, all the while, tossing a grenade into some nazi scumbag’s bunker.
So, you and your buddy are racing a custom racetrack in the streets of New York City. Although Project Gotham has a wide variety of music available to play, you feel like listening to something from your personal music library. So, you bring up the dashboard and choose some Candiria and tear up the 7-1-8, all the while, never leaving the game and talking some serious smack.
As you can see, having the dashboard always available is quite handy. And, maybe you now see why it is one of my favorite features of the Xbox 360.
so…jealous…
Very nice — but I’m still not paying 400.00 USD for one. Still, if I were Sony of America, I’d be very, very worried about how my forthcoming console will fair in a market where the Xbox 360 has a 6 - 8 month head start.
No question. Especially when their “network story” (sorry for the use of marketing speak) is “well, we’ve got an ethernet adapter in it…”
now, what they really need is a way to send messages to your 360 from the web, maybe over msn messenger. it’s be nice to be able to send you a message while you’re playing xbox, or watching a movie, even if i don’t have a 360.
That would be cool… and could possibly be in the future. I believe messenger service is going to be integrated in MS’s live.com… and, do we really think that their use of the term ‘live’ for all these services is coincidental?
ooh, hey, another question. i know you can use the wired controller with your pc. can you do the same with the wireless one? and will the live headset work as well?
I don’t believe the wireless controller will work with the pc, unless MS releases some sort of receiver for it (as the Xbox 360 has the receiver built-in). But even then, probably a bad idea as it has a decent range and might get thoroughly confused when the PC and Xbox 360 are in rooms that aren’t that far apart (and if both are turned on).
As far as the headset, we should have carl try the wired controllers on his PC with the headset, and maybe use it with some voice-chat client or something.
i thought the wireless controllers were just bluetooth?
and yeah, have him leave you a skype voicemail.
I think MS dropped the idea of using bluetooth in favor of their own wireless protocol.
I don’t understand why they wouldn’t use Bluetooth (or better yet, wireless USB) — my impression of the situation is that using off-the-shelf ICs for those protocols can save in terms of development costs. Perhaps the idea is to make it harder for 3rd-party manufacturers to create their own wireless components for the 360?
Even if they were simply using Bluetooth, there shouldn’t be any problems with using a wireless controller when the 360 and a bluetooth equipped PC are in close proximity. Bluetooth devices have to be associated with a computer before they can be used, so you could simply have two wireless controllers, with the PC configured to connect with one and the 360 configured to connect with the other.
Sure, if they were using bluetooth it could be configured such that the PC would pair with particular controller and the Xbox with another. But, that would require some sort of configuration step, and that is currently lacking. Currently, you just hold the guide button on the controller and it turns on (and communicates with the 360 to determine whether it is controller 1, 2, 3, or 4. There currently doesn’t seem to be a facility for determining which device the controller pairs with. So, I am not sure what would happen if you had two Xbox 360s side by side and tapped the guide button on a controller.
As far as 3rd party wireless devices, I believe you are right. I think I had read somewhere (but can’t locate the article) that there are no 3rd party wireless controllers for this very reason. I also thought I read (but I am not sure I buy it) that MS chose to drop the idea of using bluetooth because they were runing into problems with lag. Weird, since Sony will be allowing 6 bluetooth controllers, presumable with no lag.
I think there are no third-party controllers, period, for the 360, was what I’d read.
Mad Catz 360 Controller
Microsoft seems to have installed some generic input device drivers on the 360, as I was even able to plug my Apple keyboard into the 360 and use it to type a message.
Ah, here’s the Endgadget article I was misremembering so badly. Which, in turn, links to this news.com article I never bothered to read.
Any case, looks like they have to give MS a cut of the gross in order to ship anything the 360 will recognize as being valid.
Ahh… so the truth lies somewhere in between: