The Xbox Live “Collectives” update we’ve all been waiting for since the Summer has finally arrived, bringing streaming HD movies, social network nattering via Twitter and Facebook, and Last.fm music slinging straight in to your front room. Want to see how it works? Check out our gallery filled preview right here.
Fire up the updated Xbox Live and you’ll stumble across a few new channels and changes aimed at making the Xbox 360 an entertainment hub as well as a games console. First up is the Movie Marketplace, now sporting shiny new Zune branding.
It still works as before, letting you download standard or high def movies, but the new addition is 1080p streaming, which can adjust to dipping broadband speeds in realtime and reduce resolution as needed. In our tests at a Microsoft showcase, it worked flawlessly, kicking in within seconds (Microsoft didn’t know what the broadband connection speed was, but recommends a 4Mbps connection for no hiccups).
You’ll also find the Music Marketplace on the new look Xbox Live, which is the home for music downloads for games such as Lips and Guitar Hero, as well as the new addition, Last.fm. This is actually our favourite of the new features: it scrobbles, of course, and when playing an artist station, will show hi-res pictures of the band in a slideshow, which is a nice touch.
Xbox Live to get Twitter, Facebook and Last.fm
Finally, there are the two big social networking additions to Xbox Live, Facebook and Twitter, both of which loaded almost seamlessly. Facebook’s real benefit is in chucking up photo albums onto the big screen, so you can gawp at them in glorious high definition. However, we’re still not sold on Twitter. You have to scroll down repeatedly to see new tweets, and yet it feels instinctively like you should be able to roll down them with the thumbpad to pick out your friends’ avatars in between all the spammers.
Add to that the painstaking amount of time it takes to tap anything out on the Xbox controller, even one with a QWERTY pad on the bottom, and the incentive to use it for posting new tweets begins to wane. But at least the option is there to use it if you like, and Xbox Live’s UK marketing manager James Houlton told us the possibilities of future updates and extensions for both services are “there for us to look at”.
There is a catch unfortunately. As expected, you’ll have to be a paid up Xbox Live gold member to get access to Facebook and Twitter – silver users can get a free trial – which is odd when Facebook and Twitter’s core services are free on any other platform.
Houlton defended the decision when we quizzed him, stressing the benefits of Facebook on the big screen, such as viewing photos, and saying “it’s about adding value to the Gold subscription”, but it seems like milking Xbox owners for all they’re worth to us.
Still, from our first play, the Xbox Live update hasn’t taken anything away, only added. It’s kept the UI exactly the same while squeezing in new features, and they all work fluidly with no sign of lag.
The Xbox Live Collectives update will go live today worldwide, so keep an eye out for it, and get a close look at what to expect right here in our gallery.
Out Today | £free | Xbox
