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Xbox Second Screen Announced
kodiaktau writes "Microsoft has announced a feature called SmartGlass that provides a new set of features when viewing media on mobile or PC devices. Sources say that it will provide context focused advertising/product placement as well as metadata about the media you are currently viewing. Additionally the interface allows you to store viewing data and share between your desktop and mobile devices to continue viewing content between devices. From the article: 'SmartGlass also allows you to view the web on an Xbox 360 using Internet Explorer. The tablet or phone becomes the keyboard and you can easily browse web pages without having a physical keyboard in the living room.'"
No, thanks.
To be fair, the summary is extremely harsh and implies the feature is primarily for advertising. The article gives an example of displaying a map depicting where all the action is happening during a TV show—a little like how the game Supreme Commander delegates additional resources to dedicated tasks (like a monitor just for a strategic view) rather than simply virtualising them all together as one big viewport.
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Because the 360 (and PS3) are "Good Enough"
Just like DVDs vs BluRay, sure BluRays hold more detail, higher res, etc. but DVD is sufficient for most people. Many are even willing to get lower quality for more convenience, like crappy streams/ 'R5' torrents. I would say the main reason DVD's outsold VHS is the lack of Rewinding.
the penetration rate of tablets and smartphones is a lot higher than proprietary x-box keyboards that will just add to clutter around the house
This is why the marketers need to be dragged out in the street and gutted like pigs :)
You know that an engineer came up with the idea of SmartGlass, and it was really cool... in the lab. The awesomeness was then taken as a prototype to a bunch of executives who cooed and went gaga over their new money maker... and then the marketers came in and fucked the whole thing up by "giving" customers exactly what they don't want.
Good Job, Marketers, Hip Hip Hooray! :)
Interesting. If they work only on the XBox 720 and abandon the 360, the typical Slashdot comment will be "OMG THEY WANT TO FORCE YOU TO BUY A NEW CONSOLE THAT YOU DON'T NEED TO GET NEW SOFTWARE FEATURES LIKE A BROWSER".
If you bought a XBox 360, all this is amazing value lasting years (minus RRoD issues which they fixed at their cost) and you can still use all the new features like using your existing iDevice or Android device with the new games.
Why is this a bad thing again, isn't it just more value for your money? They're not even charging the 5, 10 or 20 bucks for the big software upgrades that Apple used to charge for the iPod Touch upgrades.
Why is the summary so lame and talks mostly about ads? I don't even see the "Sources say... ads" line in the article... where did it come from? Now we're going to see that picked up in the comments and without even a proper source.
Again, since when is adding features to something you already bought a bad thing? And no, I am not new here. So I guess it's because we're talking about 'M$' on the Slashdot circle jerk inborn retardation channel. The saner people have left in disgust and the inmates run the asylum, right from the submitters to the commenters to the moderators, perhaps editors too.
Because not everybody is interested in PC gaming?
It's just another machine to buy and keep up to date, and it is probably more effort than most people are willing to invest.
I don't play games often enough to want to do anything other than pop in the disk, play the game a while, and turn off the console.
I'd be willing to bet most people who play on consoles don't want to have a PC gaming rig, or they'd have done so. I for one have no interest in getting into the "which super awesome video card do I need now". A console is more like an appliance, plug it in and go, which is precisely what I want it to be.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Except that nowadays the first guy patents it, and demands shake-down money from everybody else because somehow the patent office granted a patent on either an idea, or something which reads as "something well known, but with a computer".
Somehow, we call this innovation.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Do you honestly believe that the PC gaming companies aren't doing all of this too?
They don't have one time serial numbers? They don't have additional DLC and add-on costs? They don't have DRM that requires an always-on internet connection? They don't cost a fortune?
I'm pretty sure I've seen people complaining about all of these things in PC gaming.
At least on a console I don't have to worry about what other crap they're doing behind the scenes.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
other platform support will be
1) poorly implemented
2) deliberately gimped
3) late
4) all the above