This month (May ’06) you’re gonna get a treat from microsoft if your one of those people that loves Trailers and demo’s but hate waiting. Microsoft has announced that the next Live Dashboard update will include not only 6 stream downloads, so you can download more than 1 thing at a time but it will finally include background downloading! So no more stairing waiting for the download to finish, set the downloads you want and then go ahead and jump into a game and your downloads will continue in the background. The update is expected at the end of May so stay tuned.
While this is great i must say there are still some troubling things missing from the Xbox360 dashboard that i have noticed and find kind of well… stupid on Microsofts part unless they are waiting to unleash it later this year at X06 which is aa possiblity i mean they have to keep some stuff a secret i suppose. The things i wish they would get it over with an add are as follows
- URGE Music Service: This is something i can almost definitly see coming, and utilising the 360 as a gateway to it’s awesome service, for those of you that haven’t heard (where have you been?) it’s Microsoft and MTVs (hehe M&M had to say it) newest offering. It will be integrated into Windows Vista and WMP11 for XP, and will be a fully searchable indexed library of songs, over 2 Million to be a little more precise. With URGE launching soon and the 360 a “entertainment hub” i dont see why not to offer URGE as a Live dashboard component!
- VONAGO or Other VOD services: I dont know about anyone else but the fact Microsoft hasnt added or gone into works to add a Video On Demand service to the 360 is kind of sad to me. I mean they have this media device on everyones PC, they have services for video that are starting to launch so why not tie them together? I’d love to be able to download some of my favorite shows on the 360. I mean House/24/Alias/Stargate SG1(and atlantis) you offer this and it’s sure to hit a niche market and at say 1$ a download that beats out the ipod store as well and its on the 360 directly.
- IE360 and Outlook360!: Now this i just find nuts, Microsoft owns both software, they had stripped down mail and web on the old webtv boxes, so why not finally offer an advanced version of both for the 360. At the moment browsing is only available through some weird hacking in MediaCenter, so an official version and final support for keyboard and mouse would be awesome!
Source: Xbox-Scene and Inhouse and Engadget’s URGE announcement
