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XBox (Games) Input Devices

Crafting The 360 Interface 36

Posted by Zonk from the shiny-interactions dept.
MaxConsole writes "Over at Designinteract they have a very interesting feature running on how the Microsoft interface design manager (Russ Glaser) completed the Xbox 360 user interface. The feature goes into depths on the whole two year project for the Xbox 360, the problems they encountered, the testing phase, requirements for the interface as well as the animation and experience design. The feature concludes 'the Xbox 360 interface came in under 3MB. It is slick and fast and, its designers hope, successful.'"
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Crafting The 360 Interface More

Crafting The 360 Interface

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  • Take a close look at the graphic of the interface. See the name? "Hiro Protagonist".
    Somebody is a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash [slashdot.org]">Snow Crash fan...
  • I bet it won't be anywhere near as good as Xbox Media Center. Every time XBMC is updated I'm floored at the attention to detail in terms of usability -- it almost makes Tivo look like rocket science. Too bad my grandma would have to be a rocket scientist and/or break the "law" to get it.
    • it almost makes Tivo look like rocket science.

      Erm, if I said "he makes [insert name of known stupid person here] look like a rocket scientist" -- which is the usual manner in which this comparison is constructed -- the implication would be that "he" was very stupid indeed.

      Are you implying that Xbox Media Center is stupid, or that it is suitable for someone who is?
      • Rocket science is considered difficult. If XMC makes Tivo look like rocket science, then XMC is significantly less difficult than TiVo. Considering TiVo is usually praised on its user friendliness, that's saying a lot.

  • What Microsoft can actually do (Score:4, Insightful)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Thursday July 28, 2005 @01:49PM (#13187803)
    It's nice to see a little dose of careful planning and good execution from the people at Microsoft. I'll take things with a grain of salt until I can actually see and use the interface for myself, but it sounds like they put some thought and effort into it.

    Microsoft is generally better known for (what most would call) the pile of crap OS known as Windows. Given how most of their products turn out, MS has gained a largely negative reputation. However it's nice to see the people working on the Xbox obviously don't suffer the same shortcomings as everyone else at the company does.

    Considering that more and more people will likely begin to switch to Linux or Apple in the coming years, it's interesting to think that Microsoft will rely on the Xbox more and more in the future. In any event it's nice to see that there are a few competent people working there still.

    • You must be new. M$ only "begin" to care when they are in jeopardy of losing #1 or stuck at #2.

      Examples of stuck at #2:
      - PS2 sales always higher than xbox.
      - Google more used than MSN.

      Examples of losing #1:
      - Firefox closing in on IE.
      - Linux closing in on windows.

      When M$ sit on top of the world by themselves, they really don't give 2 shits about quality or you as a customer.

    • t's nice to see a little dose of careful planning and good execution from the people at Microsoft.

      Am I the only one that sees this as a collossal waste of time, money and effort? Am I the only one that just wants a game console to play games? Why do I need an interface with three years and millions of dollars put into it?

      I want to turn the machine on, have it be instantly accessible, put a game in and be playing within ten seconds. That's all I need, that's probably all 90% of the world needs out of a g
      • Also, whenever you see an interface described as "fast", that's code for "slow, but faster than we thought it'd be given all the crap we've loaded on." Ideally an interface for a game console is so fast that its speed doesn't need describing one way or another. You just don't even think about it. It should be assumed that a game console interface is fast enough to not even be noticed - why would it be otherwise? So this is really not encouraging - it's the opposite, in fact.

        You haven't yet seen it in action
      • "Am I the only one that sees this as a collossal waste of time, money and effort? Am I the only one that just wants a game console to play games? Why do I need an interface with three years and millions of dollars put into it?"

        "I want to turn the machine on, have it be instantly accessible, put a game in and be playing within ten seconds. That's all I need, that's probably all 90% of the world needs out of a game console. In fact, anything more than that is just clutter."

        Am I the only one that sees th

        • Hell, from what I read you don't even have to get your ass off the couch and turn the thing on nor put in a game disk if you don't want to. Hit the power up on your remote, load the game from the included HD and go at it.

          If you have some reliable info on that, please share it. As far as I know X360 games are NOT going to be installed directly to the hard drive (apart, perhaps, from Final Fantasy XI but I don't even know the details on that one for sure). Being able to install to the hard drive with no s

          • Considering EVERY Xbox 360 comes with a basic Live account, It wouldn't be hard to link the drive to the Xbox and tell if it's been moved.

            You could simply never hook the thing up to a network, but with the strong focus on online functionality, you'll be severely limited.
          • MS has already said certain games will be included on the hard drive so there's already functionality to where games can play just off the HD. Does that mean that all games can be played without the disk, probably not but maybe. They've said you can rip music the HD. Why can't you copy the game data? Think they will run a cd check on game execution? I suppose.

            So just for the record you haven't heard anything about disc-required play either. But we do know some games will run without one. Evidence le

  • Very pretty but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by It doesn't come easy ( 695416 ) * on Thursday July 28, 2005 @02:03PM (#13187982) Journal
    It's just a tabbed dialog box revisited, moving the tabs to the side of the window and stretching them out to the height of the page. Looks nice but they will still have a problem if there are too many tabs needed...
    • TFA says there are four.

      You can read more about the interface by Paul Thurrott at http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/xbox360_insid e.asp [winsupersite.com]

      There's also a much nicer pic of the UI there. He says that it can instantly overlay any existing screen on the 360 which is pretty cool since it will interface over any game you're playing, visualization you're running during music or stuff like that. That seems relatively mundane but to incorporate an overlay system over third party developed graphics is no small

  • I have a PS2 and therefore have an upgrade path to the PS2 but this is the first non-hype article I've read on XBOX and it does get me interested in it. If the interface *is* really well thought out it might make for a usable media centre to view pictures, playback music etc., and serve a real need to consolodate the functionality multiple existing devices in a potentially elegant interface.
    • Based on the hype at the Game Developer Conference, this is exactly the direction they are going: Built in interface into MSN Music (or whatever it will be called), sync to your iPod, play your playlist inside any game, and chat with other XBox Live friends regards of whether either of you are playing a game, let alone the same game. I'm surprised they aren't going the DVR direction (as a hard drive / video input adapter combo package).

      It is a cool concept, and a huge problem for Sony to compete with. Wi

  • Interface? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Bellum Aeternus ( 891584 ) on Thursday July 28, 2005 @02:46PM (#13188466)
    For an article about an interface on a web site about interfaces, the interface sucked!

    Screenshots that cannot be enlarged, but are too small to see
    The screenshot on page 1 links to page 2
    The screenshots on other pages are not linkable.
    And the damn ad at the top kept trying to talk to me; I'm at work! O_o

    Otherwise, the 360's interface looks cool. Gotta play [no pun] with it a bit before I have any real comments.

    • Why can't these articles be placed on fewer pages? Or hey, use CSS or something to flip pages rather than requiring that I load a new document each time.

      Probably just a ploy for more advertising dollars, or maybe out of touch design people think this is a good idea. The latter would also have another example: the page doesn't take the whole width of my browser window. I browse at a high resolution, this is a waste of a lot of screen space.
  • Bob, Microsoft Engineer: "Our design was influenced around our environment when creating the controllers." Behind the Scenes - Microsoft Engineers have their hands full with dozens of donuts, realized the circular shape... walla! New Xbox Controller Born.
  • I can t wait till the xbox 360 comes out I know it will no doubt be the best gaming systme on the market and congrats to microsoft for bringing it out this year instead of next. I have always been fasinated with the the new hardware the xbox 360 utilizes and hope this console is everything it has been talked up to be.

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