Ranting Kenya

Just a list of things that bugs me about the current Xbox. Some of these things obviously wouldn’t even be possible until the next generation, some would however.

1. Bigger hard drive.
   I know this has been said a million times, but it is necessary for the rest of the post. Put a real hard drive in the console. And don’t make it optional (like the core version of the X360). If your justification for a $200 removable external 120GB drive for the Elite console is “that’s how much those drive cost”, then why on earth would you just that form factor. Go internal like the original Xbox. I was in Costco last night and saw a 500Gb Western Digital for $179. That’s Canadian Dollars too. By the time the next Xbox console comes, if that thing doesn’t have a 2 terabyte internal drive, something is seriously wrong.
2. I don’t want to get up to change game discs.
   Wireless controllers are one of the best advances console gaming made this generation. It’s nice to be a few feet away from the tv. And since I have a dog, to cable is a life saver.
   However, I still have to get up to change game discs. I play so many arcade titles just so I don’t have to get up. The next-gen console should not require game discs all the time. Imagine this scenario. You go to the store, buy Halo 5. Go home, put the disc in the new Xbox, and start playing the game. Meanwhile in the background, the game is also installing onto the hard drive of the console. Next time you go to play Halo 5, you just select it from your dashboard like an arcade title. That would be ideal. In the meantime, I’m going to hire a circus midget to pop out of my couch and change the discs for me.
3. Stream everything from my computer.
   This is another one of those no brainers. Let me stream DivX files from my computer. Yes I know pirated movies come in DivX format, but so do sweet, crazy Halo 2 jump videos created by users.
4. User section of Marketplace
   And how can you distribute those crazy Halo 2 jump videos? Why can’t we have a user section of Marketplace. Even Halo 3 has some form of video playback after a game, why not upload those. If you really want to build a community and empower users, then let users create and share their homebrew content.
5. How about that sweet TV episode downloading and IPTV options in Canada
   I know there are different deals to be made, and different content owners, and different rules and restrictions etc. Point is, I would pay for those features. You want my money or not?
6. Better UI
   I think the dashboard is pretty good. But I really think it could be better. Some stuff is still just too deep in the menu structure. The new marketplace blade was a good change. To me this means that blades are faster and better than menus. I can click the right and left shoulder buttons so much faster than manipulating the focus on a page with an analog stick (and have two columns of choices on one page is really really really laborious). What if once you were on the marketplace blade, you then basically had sub-blades (they could be Games, Game videos, Other Videos, Themes etc…). I could totally get there faster than with those than going up and down all the time.
   Also, the new “Y” button functionality in the marketplace is sweet. No matter how deep in the menu I go, hit Y and I’m back at the top level. That’s smart. Use it elsewhere if possible.
   In fact, breakdown the other blades too. I want a marketplace blade, friends/community, game demos, arcade games, video, music etc. I feel like I’m getting carried away.
   And those slideouts for approving deleting/downloading content need to speed up big time.

Well, this spun out of control. Anybody else with some ideas?