Happy Fifth Birthday, Xbox Live! Your creators have turned you into unquestionably the best console platform for online gaming and content. But that’s not to say there isn’t room for improvement. Here are five suggestions for you going forward.
#1: Friend Aliases
My Xbox Live friends list is full, but it’s full of names I don’t really recognize. They’re people I know and talk to all the time, but I still don’t know who MasterChief69 is. I have a bunch of friends that I talk to and hang out with online. In almost every other application I use (email, instant messaging) I can rename my buddies so that I can keep them straight- you should give me that option as well.
#2: Video Marketplace Subscriptions
I was flipping through your Video Marketplace and it’s getting really impressive. There are tons of shows there I’d watch, but I’m not going to buy any the way you’re going about it. I won’t say the prices are too high, but when I do the math I’d pay more to buy each episode of a season of Survivor than if I just waited for the DVDs, and there I actually get a box and physical media.
If you’d offer a $20/month fee to let people watch as much as they wanted, I might think about it if new shows keep appearing in the Marketplace in a timely fashion.
How about a season pass for a show? Instead of paying for each episode, sell a pass for the whole season and offer some kind of discount. I’m not willing to spend more than I’d spend to actually buy the DVDs. This is the age of digital distribution, after all.
#3: Ditch The “Points”
They’re annoying as hell for two reasons.
First, I have to do the conversion in my head or rush off to find an online converter to figure out exactly how much things cost when I’m browsing the Marketplace. 80 points = one dollar stinks. Show us in real dollars.
The other thing I hate is having to buy more points than I need. Right now I have 300 points sitting in my account. That means I have $3.75 floating in limbo. Good for your Microsoft overlords, bad for gamers.
#4: Price Matching
This is rare in the Marketplace right now, but downloadable Xbox Classic games were just announced and coming soon. Just like everything, the big downside is the price. It’ll be nice to hop on the Dashboard and play old school Xbox games, but $15 is way too much. Especially considering that bargain bins at Gamestops and online are overflowing with titles for $5.00.
I have a real issue with downloadable games and content in general that sells online for more than at a brick and mortar (B&M) store, and when downloadable content can’t be priced matched, it’s just ridiculous. It’s insanely cheaper for downloadable content to be delivered compared to discs. Rather than going through manufacturing discs, printing manuals, shipping them out to warehouses, then to distributors, then to stores that finally deliver the goods to their customers, those same customers can just enter their credit card info, click buy and have the game streamed to them in a matter of minutes. So where’s that added cost coming from?
#5: Bigger Hard Drives and Bundles
I’d love to see a bundle where I could pick up a 120GB drive and a year of Xbox Live together at a cheaper price. Asking your customers to buy a bigger hard drive so they can buy more of your goods is kind of ridiculous. Create a bundle so I can buy a 120GB drive, a transfer cable, a year of Xbox Live and a Live Arcade game or two for $100 and I might consider buying it.
#6 BONUS: Halo 3’s Matchmaking in all XBL Titles
We lied about only five suggestions, because this one is too good to pass up. Mandate that game developers attend a seminar hosted by Bungie on how to properly offer multiplayer matchmaking. Everyone could sure learn a thing or two from how Halo 3 does it.
Here’s to another five years!
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