Jeff On Games

So, as promised, I have some NXE first impressions. I think it's pretty important to do these "First Impressions" posts, because I think that the success of failure of an interface can really be determined by its first impressions. Once people get used to an interface, they start to forgive some of its failings, and sometimes even get used to them so much that the failure itself is considered a feature, not a failure. But I digress.

First, the positive about the NXE.

• It's way better than the old blade system. The blades were generally confusing and at some points just unusable. In addition, the blades weren't really extendible. They had limited real estate to offer advertisers. Now, while you may think that's a good thing, it really meant it was hard for you to get information about what had just been released on LIVE, especially if you're not as "plugged in" to the game industry as I'm sure many of my readers are. Despite other failings, the spotlight system actually allows Microsoft (and its advertisers) the opportunity to really get the word out.
  
• Avatars are a nice addition. Make as many jokes about Miis and Microsoft appealing to the "Casual Market" as you want. The only people that I know that haven't made an awesome avatar already are casual gamers. Seriously. Avatars are a nice addition, and a great way for you to personalize your experience on the Xbox. The Xbox has always (at least partially) been about personalization, so having avatars is nice.
  
• New Features. Netflix, Community Games, Party, Avatar integration into games, all excellent additions. Maybe more down the road? Who knows, but I'm happy for now.
  

Now, the negative.

• Sign In is still 3 clicks away. Signing in is normally the first step for most people that have an Xbox that are online. Sure, whatever game you play will immediately ask you to sign in, but if the box has more than one profile, isn't set to sign in automatically, and goes to the dashboard instead of directly into the game (which is a setting), I think there's a 99.9% chance that the person wants to sign in before doing anything else. And honestly, one button to cancel sign in, rather than 3 to confirm (or 4, depending on if you disabled the welcome profile) makes more sense to me.
  
• Spotlight is Occasionally Confusing. I'm a smart guy. I couldn't find the community games library on my first try. And I'm not the only one. Worse, even after I found it, I couldn't find it again. The problem is this: the spotlight for Community Games looks like it's the community games section, but it's not. This carries actually throughout the spotlight interface. The spotlight is an advertisement that explains that something is available, but doesn't take you there. In only a few cases, can you get what you want directly from the spotlight.
  
• Game Marketplace Spotlight is Always Confusing. This is where I wish I had a screenshot or a video. See, when you go into the main "Game Marketplace" portion of the NXE, it brings up its own spotlight. You have to hit a separate button to go into the actual games marketplace. It's weird! Maybe I'll do a post on this in the future and expose this as confusing with a video or something. Not sure how I'll do that, but I want to.
  
• Organization is still an issue. On the marketplace it's still very difficult to find what you want. I'm not sure why this is, as it's 100 times better than it was in the blades, but I can't tell you how many times I still get confused as to where I am, what I'm looking for, and what's available. I wish I could explain better, but really I can't.
  
• Hidden Options, Hidden Friends. On the NXE, you can't see all the options available to you. One or two are dimmed out at the top of the screen. I know why Microsoft did this. First was to prevent too much clutter, which is fine. Second, though this is speculation, I'm sure that list is partially populated by the LIVE servers, so they could now add categories without breaking the current functionality. But, the new friends channel I don't understand. Why take up all of the screen real estate with one friend at a time? Most of which is taken up with a background that the friend can't change anyway? Why can't you show me 4 or 5 avatars at a time, that way I can see most of who's on line at once without scrolling through the channel? Sure, I can still use the blade interface but, let's face it, the channel is way cooler, just not as usable.
  
• Breadcrumbs? For some reason, I always find myself wanting breadcrumbs in the NXE. I'd like to know where I came from to get to where I am, and where I'm going back to when I hit B. Personal preference.
  
• Reports of NXE instability. This is really disconcerting. There have been reports that not only does the NXE crash in the interface itself, but that it causes once stable games to crash more frequently. I didn't believe this until I actually saw some stable games crash on a friend's Xbox. Hopefully this isn't too widespread?
  

Again, the NXE is 100 times better than the blades. There are just a few places where I feel confused by the interface itself, and that's never a good thing. Thankfully, once I get used to it, I'll probably forgive it of its flaws, and maybe even come to depend on them.