Xbox.com Website re-design

I noticed today that the Xbox.com website got a make-over. Its definitely a lot easier to navigate now with drop down menus instead of that horizontal submenu below each category. It’s a really big improvement in terms of just being user friendly.

But Denny, damn it, what we really need is a re-haul of the Games Catalog page. So many times you’ll see here questions from people about which games have multiplayer, which games have Coop, which games allow multiple people per box, which games allow Coop on Xbox Live.

That information is kind of available already with their labeling system. For example the Green “Players 1-2” box indicates that one or two people can play on the same box. The orange “Players 2-8” means that two to eight people can play together over Xbox Live. But you have to go to each individual page to look up this information. This should be sortable using their games catalog search engine.

And their dates are screwy.

Awesome.

Wait wait wait…since when did they drop the word “Premium” from the $400 360?

Has it been this way since the Elite launched?

MS never branded it as “Premium,” they just used “Core” for the tard pack.

Thanks for the feedback, Rock8Man. This was more of a visual/navigation update. Updating the games catalog requires way more back-end programming work, which so stuff like that tends to fall into the Fall/Spring major update cycle. But I’ll definitely pass your feedback on to the programming team – it’s a darn good suggestion.

Ex-S Woo,

Yep, the “Premium” branding came from retailers and the media. The official names have always been “Xbox 360 Core” and “Xbox 360.”

What I would really like is the ability to listen to xbox live voice messages on xbox.com

Me too. When I send someone a quick message from the PC, obviously it’s easier for them to bark a quick response into the mic if they’re in the middle of a game than to type something with the on-screen keyboard, but then we’ve completely ruined the convenience of sending the message from the PC because I have to go fire up my Xbox to hear what they said.

See, this is the reason I give people multiple choice answers when I’m typing on the PC, sending to the Xbox.

A) Shadowrun autoupdate finally worked, and you’re just watching something to pass the time.
B) Shadowrun update still won’t work. Fucking wankers.
C) Bugger off, I’ll call you later and talk about it.

The “listen to voice messages on Xbox.com” request is a very common one. (Including from me. ;) Hopefully we’ll see that down the road.

It’s always a balancing act due to developer time concerns… More web integration, or more cool features that interact between LIVE and the console? I have all kinds of things that I’d love to see us do on the site (“Show me all Halo 3 players on my friends list who suck as bad as I do”), but it’s a tough call between “neat to have” and “we should prioritize this.”

Dumb question: I have the page that shows current online friends bookmarked. Used to be, from some of those wacky horizontal menus of old, I could go straight to my Xbox Live messages from that screen. Now I don’t see that option, and I need to go back to my main profile page and from there to the messages. Am I missing a link somewhere on the friends list page, or is that going to be a two-click operation from now on?

The ‘My Xbox’ in the upper-right corner should be a pull-down that will let you select the My Messages page. Though that still makes it a two-click operation…

Oh, duh, I was right, it was a dumb question! Thanks, I looked right past that. I don’t actually mind the clicks, saving me an extra page load is just as good.