Depending on whose figures you read (and for which continent), the Xbox 360 is either slightly ahead of or slightly behind the PS3 in terms of sale (with both having given up first place this generation to the Wii). That means there’s a lot of satisfied 360 owners out there - the game selection is good, the console itself performs well when it isn’t RRODing - but the console could still do with a few tweaks beyond the Mii-a-like dashboard update coming this autumn. So, in no particular order (other than that in which I thought of them), here we go:
1. Parallel downloads
Come on Microsoft, this isn’t funny any more. I can appreciate the desire to limit downloads to one file at a time when playing games for performance reasons, but why on earth does a 360 that is doing nothing else still have this restriction? My EeePC (which, though I love it to bits, is slightly less powerful than a 360 :P) can download multiple files simultaneously - this is not the 1980s.
2. Support for playing media from network hard drives
OK, so Microsoft has its Media Center Extender thing to push. I don’t think that necessarily precludes allowing the 360 to load media files from a NAS any more than it precludes allowing it to load media files from a USB key. The 360’s status as a media center is precarious enough given the noise. Without the ability to load media from a NAS of some kind the 360 will lose much of the ground it has in this area to the likes of the Netgear EVA8000, which can act as both a Media Center Extender and a network media player in its own right. EDIT: Commenters have told me that MS can’t do this because of some ridiculous legal restriction in the DVD spec. Thanks for clearing that up folks.
3. FLAC support
In a similar vein to the above - home media archives will likely be based on either the FLAC or ALAC formats. The latter is a non-starter since it’s Apple’s format, but FLAC has no such issues and there’s no reason that I can see for the 360 to ignore it.
4. DVD upscaling over component
I’m at a loss to explain why the 360 upscales over VGA and HDMI but not over Component. There are plenty of people out there with pre-HDMI 360s for whom Component is the only HD connection option - at least until the Autumn Update sorts out VGA. Even that won’t be perfect, as VGA is far from being ubiquitous on HDTVs. EDIT: Gary Fleming has said in the comments that this is because legal restrictions by the DVD Forum prohibit upscaling over component. Why this is the case I don’t know, but it’s true. Subtract one demerit from MS then.
5. A confirmation prompt on ingame shutdowns
OK so this is a PBKAC thing, but like point 9 the solution would be trivial. I’ve stopped counting the times where I’ve gone to turn off my controller when going to dinner, and turned off the console instead. A simple ‘Are you sure, Yes/No’ would sort this problem.
6. Play music from iPods like a dock
A more minor gripe than the ones above. The iPod connectivity on the 360 is brilliant, especially since it means I can substitute GTA IV’s poor talk radio stations (why do they have less content than their equivalents in the PS2 era?) for podcast episodes. However, the fact that the 360 essentially plays the files as if the 360 was a USB drive means that if I pause or stop the playback, the iPod won’t remember the place I was at in the 360. If, on the other hand, the 360 acted as a dock (ie with tracks being selected on the iPod itself) then this problem would go away.
7. A web browser
This is linked to points 2 - 4. The one thing that an HDTV with a 360 attached currently lacks is a web connection. Since the 360 is (according to game developers) essentially a PC with a streamlined OS, it surely wouldn’t be too difficult to port IE8 to the console. With the Messenger Kit addon (or of course a USB keyboard) this would give 360 owners access to the web including various ‘cloud applications’. This would allow the 360 to perform many daily computing tasks - email, basic document editing, and so on - potentially giving it a greater share of people’s time. After all, if you can check your Hotmail and Bebo messages from your 360 then why would you turn if off and put on a computer (which might not be a Microsoft device, after all). In fact, if you can check your email and such from your 360 console in your living room then you might not buy one of these potential Windows rivals at all.
8. Clean old demos from achievement profiles
Microsoft recently stopped demos of full and XBLA games from appearing as ‘0G’ listings in profiles. However this doesn’t help those of us who owned 360s in the years prior to that. In fact if you’ve played enough demos, Comparing Games with someone who doesn’t have any in common with you can mean that you never actually get to see what achievements they have - the screeds of 0G demos mean that you hit the maximum display limit for the list!
9. Open the disc drive from the dashboard - when it isn’t empty
This is just a minor convenience point, but i would also be trivial to do. If your 360 has no disc in the drive, you can open the drive tray from the dashboard. If there’s already a disc in the drive, you can’t. Why not? Obviously the A button is needed for the ‘press to run game’, but they could assign another button - L3 maybe? - to opening the drive tray whether or not it has a disc in it?
10. A streamlined MSN Messenger interface
The MSN support on the 360 is good, but it could be better. For example instead of having to have the Xbox Guide open to use it, there could be a small on-screen version. I’m thinking here of watching movies - the MSN interface could fit in the black bars most widescreen DVDs have at the top and bottom (so that the original cinema format can be displayed on a 16:9 screen) and allow people to chat while watching.
1. Parallel downloads - So instead of 1 file downloading fast you want them all downloaded slowly?
2. Support for playing media from network hard drives - It has that, it’s called UPnP
4. DVD upscaling over component - Can’t, it’s illegal
I broadly agree with you on these points, but there are two that I would comment on:
2. The 360 already does supports UPnP AV players out of the box. I know this because my Infrant ReadyNAS NV+ streams to the 360 with no hassle. If you mean broad support for any networked file system, the situation is a little more complex than you indicate. You need to target which set of specs you’ll support and, for better or worse, they’ve picked UPnP. That said, direct NFS support would be nice.
4. This is not actually Microsoft’s fault. The DVD forum (and the spec) specifically prohibits upscaling over component. Their hands are tied.
The rate-limiting step with such things can often be the speed of the download server rather than the speed of the user’s connection. It could always be a toggle-option for those for whom this isn’t the case.