Microsoft Set To Debut Xbox Live Upgrade

Thanks to reader dj_paulgibbs for pointing to this Yahoo story talking about further upgrades to Xbox Live that Microsoft plan to unveil at E3. Yahoo's sources say these include "advanced community features such as voice chat and locater services that operate independently of games in progress", and also mentions a new "Xbox Music Mixer" for audio, as well as the ability to play video transferred from a PC. This is separate to the Xbox Live software upgrade we mentioned last week.

Comments

interesting

[bigbigbison]

I find it interesting that we are getting this news of xbox live updates, but still no news on what the fee structure will be like after the year expires. One has to wonder if there is some serious debate going on over this up at redmond.

Re:interesting

[toddhunter]

I doubt we will hear about fees long after they are decided upon (probably a long time ago). Best to build up the hype first. If they said it was going to be some rediculous amount (my bet) then it would become another thing for gamers to tune out about.

Re:interesting

[nexex]

from what ive heard, it charges you $50 extending your subscription for a year, once your first year expires...but i would love to see something in writing on what exactly the costs are...

Re:interesting

[mrpuffypants]

Hell, call Microsoft for yourself and ask them...I talked to the Xbox tech support people once a while back and asked them that exact same question.

The tech told me that it was one of their most asked questions, and that the debate about the fees was pretty tight-lipped around Microsoft.

Think about it though: if the new services are part of Xbox live, then that can be how they will justify the increased rates, i.e. "Pay more and now get voice chat world wide included in your monthly fee!" Could be a nice point if two people has xboxes to just use those to talk over state lines rather than get mired in long-distance fee structures

Re:interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

the monthly fee can not be that much more than the price of getting a new starter kit / 12.

because otherwise you just buy a new starter kit, get another year of service, another headset, and the current demos for $50 (or about $4 month).

of course you would lose your gamertag, but really now... so what?

Price structure

[Ransom342]

As long as I get a good service for my money Im not too worried. If they give me those services and some more titles with no monthlys I would gladly pay $10 a month. Thats what I would have to pay for most MMORPG. if they gave me Live and Galaxies for $10/Month I would be happy.

New Xbox Live

[jptechnical]

would that be XBOX LIVER sounds good to me.

more on 'Xbox Music Mixer' via Reuters.

[simoniker]

This Reuters story via Yahoo has essentially the same content, but a little more about the music/video upgrades:

The upcoming upgrade will have a new feature tentatively dubbed "Xbox Music Mixer." It allows users to pull the music files off their computers and onto the Xbox's 8-gigabyte hard drive, then use the Xbox as a media center with on-screen displays and auto-identification of songs, sources said.

With the new upgrade, Xbox users would also be able to transfer properly encoded video from their personal computers to the Xbox and view that video on a television screen.

Re:more on 'Xbox Music Mixer' via Reuters.

[mrpuffypants]

properly encoded video

that's the kicker...what's "properly encoded?" For microsoft it probably means WMA and ASF or WMV, but I have a large part of my music collection in mp3 (like 90% of the world), ogg people will be left out in the rain as usual probably, and all these nifty new music purchases that I've made with iTune's Music Store are totally DOA.

If this service sees that light of day (and it prolly will), would you consider convertying your collection to WMA just to use the xbox with it? For me it wouldn't be an option because I rip FIRST on my iBook, then xfer to the PC, but what about everybody else?

Re:more on 'Xbox Music Mixer' via Reuters.

[zero_offset]

that's the kicker...what's "properly encoded?" For microsoft it probably means WMA and ASF or WMV, but I have a large part of my music collection in mp3 (like 90% of the world)

Do you have an XBOX? It uses MP3 internally. I'm not saying you aren't making a good point (MS loves to pimp it's formats and we all know they're sucking that DRM tit) but still... it does use MP3 today...

Re:more on 'Xbox Music Mixer' via Reuters.

[Mr804]

Xbox DOES NOT use mp3 internally for anything. It's all WMA files.

Re:more on 'Xbox Music Mixer' via Reuters.

[Anonymous Coward]

Although the new format will allow for use of .mp3 files according to the Official Xbox magazine. It's also touting that you'll be able to insert images to use the Xbox as a sort of Slideshow. They say you'll be able to use your .mp3's or other music formats to play when the slideshows display on your TV monitor.

Good stuff if it's true.

Will it dissuade modders?

[handsomepete]

One of the big selling points for having a modchip (for me at least) is the ability to run the Xbox multimedia apps. Is this Microsoft's answer? A sort of "you can have your music and your video *and* not be banned from Xbox Live" thing? Or is this just a jumping on the do-everything bandwagon (a la Tivo's Home Media)? I'm getting kind of tired of having so many separate things doing so many different things, I'm ready for a little consolidation.. but only if it does each thing reasonably well.

And when will the first of the original Xbox Live subscriptions start expiring anyways?

Re:Will it dissuade modders?

[MBCook]

I got in the late beta and signed up in November, so I'd assume that's when you start to see renewals. That means they'd need to have any new pricing structures (I doubt they'd do this) inplace before that (Oct?).

Re:Will it dissuade modders?

[Nathan Ramella]

Curious question indeed. Microsoft really could hit a home-run with a 'sanctioned' Xbox Media Player, but it's highly unlikely and would probably be feature-bare (SMB? XBMSP? XBMS? Shoutcast Streams?) compared to mod-chip dependent equivalants.
I'd rather use XBMP any day compared to Windows Media Player. I can trust that my viewing habits aren't being monitored and sold off to marketing firms and that software quality will generally go up.

There's an obvious cabal that thwarts unrestricted media management, be it through artifically inflated CD-R/DVD-R costs, MP3 players that don't ship with larger than 128 megs of storage space (Of course, present company excluded...

It just doesn't suprise me nobody has an 'all-in-one' box yet.

Buy a steenkin' 256 MB card

[yerricde]

MP3 players that don't ship with larger than 128 megs of storage space

There exist specific "price points" that hold psychological power in an American or European consumer's mind. Flash storage is relatively expensive. Bundling more than 128 MB of flash with a player would push it into a less attractive price bracket. Let those who want to add more than two hours of music to their pocket compressed audio player buy a larger CF card, or possibly switch to a player with rotating magnetic or optical storage. For example, I have an MP3 player with 650 MB of space. It plays MP3 audio written to a CD-RW disc.

Re:Buy a steenkin' 256 MB card

[Nathan Ramella]

Had you read my post and checked out the FrontierLabs mp3 player, you'd have seen that it supports flash ram up to 1gb. Although I only have a 512 meg card myself.
I suspect that if each of us went for a jog, I'd be the one who'd make it home with functional music. :)

Functional?

[yerricde]

Had you read my post and checked out the FrontierLabs mp3 player

I did.

you'd have seen that it supports flash ram up to 1gb

I was commenting that while quite a few other players support larger cards, they just come bundled with small cards to keep the price of the player down.

functional music

"Functional"? Is that some sort of math rock?

They should fix the problems with their games..

[Anonymous Coward]

They should fix the problems with the X-Box live games before they do anything else. For example Capcom vs SNK 2 EO. It's the first console fighting game since the SNES(x-band) that you can play online. I went out and bought an X-Box just to play this game.

Now the game keeps track of wins, how many matches you have played and gives you a rank, which is great. What sucks is, if you lose you can pull out your network connection and BOTH players get the loss. This is so dumb I can't believe the game made it out of beta testing like this. Pulling (removing the network cable, or turning off the xbox) has been a problem since the x-band (1994?). All they have to try to send a packet to the port the game plays on, to see if they pulled out the network connection or not. If they disconnected then they should either get a loss, or a "network disconnect". Since all of X-Box live is on broadband, there shouldn't be very many "network disconnects" and if you see a player with a insane amount of them you just don't play with them. I can't believe they haven't fixed this. They keep giving excuses to the players like "It's not technically possible to tell if someone disconnected"

The only problem I see with this is skript kiddies getting someones IP and DoSing them just so they get a "network disconnect" in their stats. But that happening is much better than trying to play now, where 9 out of 10 players just pull the network connection out if they lose.

If Microsoft thinks in a year I'm going to pay for service like this they are OUT of their minds.