Renowned games analyst Michael Pachter has shared his views on the over-looked highlights of this year’s E3 and has called out the Xbox 360’s upcoming addition of Facebook, Last.fm and Twitter tools to the Xbox 360 dashboard as the “most important” announcement of the show.
“Admittedly, the selection is limited to these [...] sites, but it’s a start, and is a glimpse into the future of the Xbox 360 as a home media/internet hub,” Pachter wrote in Gamasutra post-event analysis.
Yet it strikes us that these additions aren’t really something for Microsoft to crow about. Any Sony PS3 or Nintendo Wii user can already access these same social networking sites, and almost everything else the internet has to offer, through their own proper web browsers. If anything, dashboard interfaces specific to those sites alone is a half-hearted gesture.
Michael would no doubt wish to point out that his analysis is not about comparing the three warring consoles, but Microsoft’s grander strategy for the Xbox 360. “Ultimately, Microsoft appears intent on positioning the Xbox 360 as a functioning computer that happens to be located in the living room and is connected to the television,” he writes.
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Even so, the social networking tools of the hour tend to come and go – Last.fm is (in our opinion, mind) now playing second fiddle to Spotify and Facebook is probably destined to take on MySpace’s role against some future site.
Then again, maybe the future of internet on consoles is in specific widget-like tools rather than giving you unspecific access to everything on the internet. What do you think? Would you rather just have full internet access, or would prefer a handful of streamlined sites? Let us know in the comments.
