Xbox Live chief: Marketplace design 'not our smartest moment'

Microsoft said today that the changes coming to Xbox Live are not mandatory, but they put their best foot forward trying to sell gamers on the features anyway.

The current Xbox 360 dashboard is a mess, said Live head honcho Marc Whitten today, and it was never clear to owners that the service had other content available from the beginning beyond games.

"When we designed our Marketplace we expected 100-200 items to be in there," Whitten told Xbox 360: The Official Magazine. "That was not our smartest moment ever, but today we're sitting with about 20,000 items in the system and that number is growing really fast. We found out from our customers that it's too hard to find content and people get lost in the user interface."

So, in that vein, there's a much reported on redesign coming to Xbox owners this fall, complete with more upfront multimedia features and avatars.

Hate avatars? Want to keep your console "casual free"? No worries, Witten said.

"The new Xbox 360 experience isn't about removing anything. It's about adding new functionality and making it clear exactly what the box does," he said.

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Comments [30]

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greensabre

It was an acquired taste for me, but I don't mind the dashboard. There is certainly room for improvement.

AANTHUNDER

That's cool. You don't have to change your dashboard and have people think your are on the Wii.

tigobitties

I think it is fine just the way it is. It's easy to use as long as you have an IQ larger than 3. Now if they totally change it, it will be a mess because it will be so different and it will take a little bit for people to get used to.

themave

I like the new interface, just not the avatar, moving between the menus is a nice new structure, it is pretty similar to the media center pc,

themave

Hey reading a little more, maybe avatars will be ok

"I was talking to Todd Howard [Bethesda exec producer]," says The Major, "and he was like, 'hey, I want to talk about Avatars - do you think there's a little hazmat suit for Fallout 3 we could make?"
this is a quote from another site. now that could be interesting, unlock a cog uniform in GOW2,

JDizzleNO1

im borrowing my friends 360 (he's borrowing my ps3 to play mgs4)...i dont see the problem with it actually

Sire

at least they are smart enough to give us the option. [p] Many of us don't like change, and for those of us that are perfectly content with the old blade system we can still use it which is great, but I have a funny feeling that many of us that are hesitant about the new layout are gonna end up really liking the new one.[p] It's less cluttered and much more clear. The blade system that's laid out now, there is just too much information on the page sometimes, like a website.[p] I'm still use to it and like it more than the other 2 consoles stores and offerings. I just can't wait to get my hands on Netflix. Now all they need is HARDCORE adult content and we're set.

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