To celebrate the looming civil war that will no doubt be the ultimate result of the 2008 election, we’re giving away 10 beta keys for the Tom Clancy’s EndWar VIP beta. Be among the first ten warmongers to comment here, and it’s yours. Just post your Xbox 360 gamertag, and we’ll send the code to you over Xbox Live. Good luck–and paint “Sooch wuz here” on one of your nukes, would ya?

When I came home with my shiny new Xbox 360 waaaaaay back in 2005, one of my favorite features of the console was the dashboard. The blades were an amazing leap from the clumsy interface of the original Xbox, offering all sorts of expanded control, options, and content that I didn’t even imagine in the previous generation’s hardware.

But nothing lasts forever, and after a few years of noble service, the Xbox 360 dashboard is really starting to show its age and, worse, its limitations. You can find hints of these shortcomings in Microsoft’s recent actions. The back-to-back May announcements of no Spring update and the delisting of selected Xbox Live Arcade titles suggested larger issues. Even the comments made by Microsoft executives on the topic were telling—like when Xbox Live GM Marc Whitten said of the decision not to offer a Spring dashboard update that they were instead:

“building the proper infrastructure and scale for the service.”

Or when Aaron Greenberg commented on the delisting of Xbox Live Arcade games:

“I think that we are not, I would say…happy with the ability to find and discover content as easily as we’d like for consumers to be able to do that.”

So, Microsoft acknowledges the problem. Is there a solution? I think so. Lots of them, actually. We’ve spent some time on our recent podcasts talking about the need for a dashboard 2.0. I decided to take it a step further, look at what exists currently, and suggest some ways to improve things—yes, for Microsoft—but primarily for Xbox 360 users.

*note: I’m in no way imagining that what I propose below is the solution, or even necessarily a solution. My point, instead, is that solutions exist—and we need ‘em.*

Examining the 360 dashboard as it looks today

I started by dissecting the current dashboard, breaking it down into four main color-coded components: gold user space (your gamercard, messages, etc.), blue interactive space (menus, buttons, and the like), red advertising space (the real estate Microsoft is using to ply their wares), and purple unused space. Chopping it up that way looked something like this (click any screen below for the 720p version):

Rearranging those fields demonstrates one of the dashboard’s chief problems for an Xbox 360 user:

When I fire up my console, I don’t want to be greeted by the Xbox 360 dashboard. I want to be greeted by my dashboard. So why is my share of the screen the smallest by far? I suppose you could argue that you can buy themes to adorn the blades as well, but they get completely obscured by both the interface and, more egregiously, the advertising. I’d rather not see advertising on my dashboard at all, but I’ll address that later.

The amount of unused space is alarming as well. As a graphic designer, I fully understand the importance and function of white space, but what exists in the current dashboard isn’t really that. It’s just . . . dead. Those pixels could be put to much better use. I’m certain that some measure of this is due to their desire to create an interface that is 4:3 SDTV-friendly—and that’s an admirable concern. But I think it’s a bad idea to hinder the experience of a high-def owner. If anything, the interface should be designed for widescreen HD and scaled down to accommodate those poor, unfortunate 480i souls.

So, what would you do, smartypants?

Acknowledging that I’m not a particularly technical person (I’m sure all this is a real pain to implement in reality), it still occurs to me that there are some relatively simple fixes that could result in a much better user experience from the dashboard. So I pulled the existing dashboard apart and reassembled it—while trying to maintain the look and feel of the 360 dash—to reflect some of the features I think are must-haves in a revised console interface. Here’s a look at a possible redesigned dashboard:

Some of the added features you’ll notice right off the bat include

• a search function—both to search what’s on your console and on the Marketplace. I know it’s a pain to type with the controller, but I’d still wager I can fumble around the d-pad to spell “Precipice” before I can navigate to Penny Arcade Adventures using the blades.
• hot keys—navigating the dashboard uses primarily the A, B, LT, and RT buttons. It would be nice to be able to assign X, Y, LB, and RB to specific functions in the dashboard or Marketplace, like bookmarks in a web browser. For example, if I like to check what’s new in the Marketplace every week, I could map that to the X button and jump right to it. Or if I want to go straight to my XBLA games, I could map that to the Y button and forget about moving through a number of screens to find them. As shown in this example, I’ve just mapped them to the other blades on the main dashboard.
• disc tray detail—the PS3 lets you see a nifty little video icon to show what’s in the system. I’d settle for some box art or one screen, along with some details on my progress in the game.
• reversal of ad and user space—in this example, the dashboard would be dominated by my content with a larger, clearly visible wallpaper or theme, and a bigger gamerpic. I’ll relent and say that there could be some advertising on the dashboard, but I’d limit it to a standard web-size banner ad and the Inside Xbox feature with rolling updated headlines, because I’d hate to miss out on Major Nelson awkwardly staring into the camera.

This division of space makes more sense to me. It feels more like my dashboard and less like an advertising platform I have to wade through to play my games. Mapped out as previously done with the existing dash, it looks like this:

Again, rearranging those fields yields this:

A much better, and more appropriate balance. It’s worth mentioning that this approach also yields basically no wasted space—it’s all been reclaimed for the user. ¡Viva la revolución!

Is that all you got?

Not exactly. I haven’t given extensive thought to every blade (I question my sanity for doing this much mucking about, fer chrissakes), but I did also spend some time thinking about what features the Marketplace needs to serve me better. Here’s a peek:

Some of the added elements here that would make shopping much more handy are

• user ratings—Microsoft has often talked about XBLA (and XNA) becoming “the YouTube of gaming.” Content on YouTube lives or dies based on user ratings. That same law should be applied to XBLA—anyone who has purchased the full game should have the chance to rate it. Frankly, I’d be more comfortable seeing a game get delisted as a result of lousy user ratings than I would as a result of lousy Metacritic scores.
• better sorting—I think a number of sorting options would aid my shopping experience immensely. Let me sort by date, user rating, alphabetically, etc. Also, make it easy for me to see what’s free on the Marketplace.
• show me the money—I want to know what a game costs without clicking to its page to find out. Similarly, I’d like to have my points balance on the screen at all times, not just when I’m preparing to buy something.
• ok, NOW advertise—once I’m in the store, I’m fair game. You wanna load up the Marketplace with a wall of ads? Do your worst. Just keep it away from the other blades.

With E3 only a couple weeks away, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we’ll see a revamped dashboard from Microsoft for the Xbox 360—one that is more focused on me, and less on them. What would you want from “dashboard 2.0″? Drop us a comment and let us know. And if you want to spread the word (and the love), digg it.

Looking to dip your toe into the shark-infested waters of 360 hardware? Already have a 360, but you want to roll, Sooch-style, with a console for every room of the house? Well, here’s your chance to win one in what has to be the easiest contest on the ‘net.

All you have to do is tap out a brief forum post (minimum 100 words) explaining your irrational—but completely platonic—love for Platform Nation. That’s it. All the entries will be judged by head honcho, Steve519, who will base his decision on equal parts creativity and spelling (no comment on grammar, so maybe no have be good long as right spelling make). The winner scores a brand-spankin’-new Xbox 360. And one runner-up will receive a Halo 2 Collector’s Edition, signed by the band Incubus. Plus—The Fanboys will be awarding a very special, as-yet-unnamed prize (but better than Undertow, for fuck’s sake) for outstanding use of the word “defenestration.”

Make your post here.

Good luck!

Anyone who’s played World of Warcraft knows the feeling of fascination—and embarrassment—that comes from typing the /played command to see just how much time you’ve frittered away slaying murlocs. Well, Xbox 360 owners have a similar source to see their shame laid bare.

It’s called The Live Eye and, once you’ve signed up, it tracks everything you play—retail games, arcade games, demos, betas, even the time you’ve spent downloading content from the Marketplace (which can be truly scary). I signed up in April of this year and check out my profile pretty regularly. Sometimes it’s shocking how much time I’ve sunk into games I don’t really even like. Check them out, sign up, and post your profile here if you’re man enough to admit you’ve spent four-and-a-half days soaking in the awesomeness that is Bionicle Heroes.

At long last, Microsoft has revealed the über-secret rationale behind eschewing an HDMI connection for both their forthcoming HD-DVD player and their Fall, 1080p update. Are you ready to hear why?

Because you don’t want it.

Yup. After all the hand-wringing, flame-posting, and general malaise over Microsoft’s decision to allow 1080p only via component or VGA cables, it turns out that, nah, you don’t want that, sport. As my erudite and HDTV-savvy friend put it, “it’s as if he was Obi Wan waving his hand in front of us saying ‘these aren’t the cables you’re looking for.’”

In Microsoft astroturfer, Major Nelson’s latest podcast, he invited his “1080p expert,” Albert, to clarify their 1080p solution. Some of his comments were, to say the least, puzzling (and not just because he declared that 1080i was the same thing as 540p). Albert kicked things off with this one…

…every single 1080p TV we’ve seen has VGA input and supports 1080p through VGA…

I’m not certain how extensive the search was, but it sounds like it started and ended in his own den, considering that my own quick tour through 1080p compatible sets revealed that, while most did in fact have a VGA port, almost none supported 1080p through any connection other than HDMI. My aforementioned friend has about the sweetest TV I’ve ever killed zombies on—and he’s 100% shit out of luck with regard to playing his 360 in 1080p. HDMI only, baby.

Albert had some other gems to explain why there would be no digital cable offered…

…people weren’t really asking for HDMI…what people were pushing for was 1080p…

Jedi mind tricks, indeed.

But, my favorite soundbite had to be the one toward the end of the interview, where he proudly proclaimed…

…there’s nothing that prevents us from doing it…

So, here’s my question: if there’s no reason you couldn’t release an HDMI cable, and there’s a chorus of people clamoring for one—why not fucking release one? It would cost you ten dollars in parts and labor and you could sell it for $69.99 to eager nerds with more cash than brains all day long. Speculation across the interwebs is that the 360 is incapable of outputting a digital signal—thus, the all analog solution.

It’s curious that Microsoft would be releasing a 1080p update at all—given their position that it’s an inferior format for gaming. Back in a February podcast, Major Nelson had Tyler, an “HDTV expert” from Microsoft on to talk all about HDTV formats and why, at least for gaming, 720p was superior to 1080p. His reason? Because, for gaming, “60 frames per second is essential.” According to that expert, since bandwidth issues more or less constrained 1080p to 30 frames per second, you’d be far better off with the silky smooth 60 frames per second you can get playing games on 360 in 720p.

Someone better tell Cliffy B. Because the man tasked with delivering Christmas for Microsoft is on record as stating Gears of War is landing squarely at 30 frames per second—and that’s just where he wants it.

Taking this hard line against HDMI—unless, as I suspect, there’s a technological reason they can’t deliver it—smacks of the same type of corporate hubris Sony is so often accused of. However, when Sony got called to the carpet for removing the HDMI connection from their cheaper model PS3, they responded by putting it back in.

We’ll see if Microsoft can find a similar way to make it up to gamers. One thing’s for sure: whether they can or not, they’ll find an “expert” within their walls that can spin it their way on Major Nelson’s shillcast.

Not content with his cameo appearance in EA’s Fight Night Round 3, The King (Burger King’s masked psychopath-cum-mascot) has made the transition into games of his own. As reported earlier this week, in November Burger King will be offering up a trio of King-themed 360 games at their restaurants for the curiously-cheaper-than-an-XBLA-game price of $3.99 apiece.

This announcement had me interested for a few reasons:

First of all, my wife’s intense fear of the creepy burger monarch is an excellent source of entertainment. On more than one occasion, I’ve entered the room to find her balled up in a chair with her hands over her face—because she’d just seen a Burger King commercial, for God’s sake. With that in mind, the early screens of one of the BK games, Sneak King, appear to hold the promise of more than a few “holy shit” moments when she innocently walks in on me playing it. (presuming it’s palatable enough to play for more than 45 seconds in total—a presumption I’m really not willing to make)

Secondly, I have a checkered history of actually enjoying these kinds of shameless marketing attempts. I spent much too much time in the 16-bit era with the likes of Cool Spot and Mick and Mack: Global Gladiators. You’d think it would be much more difficult to market to someone in marketing, but I’m just that much of a whore. Speaking of which…

The real draw for me, predictably, is the promise of Xbox 360 Achievement Points—for Burger King games. I can think of no better way to demonstrate just how much of a pathetic Gamerscore addict I’ve become than to have, listed in my profile, three sets of points for games I got in a fucking value meal. I’ve not yet seen verification of what the achievements might be, or even if they’re indeed in the game. But, if they are, I’m hoping they look something like this:

In the first year of a console’s release, every game gets a measure of attention that it would not normally enjoy later in that machine’s lifecycle. Even so, a dollop of controversy can’t help but bolster a game’s buzz, right? Case in point, Enchanted Arms—a by-the-numbers, turn-based, Japanese RPG that has increased its profile (at least in cyberspace) by the inclusion of a player-controlled character with a fairly uncommon twist. See, Makoto, a member of your initial party in Enchanted Arms, is unabashedly homosexual and has a thing for one of the other members of your party, Toya.

This isn’t merely speculation or inference. From the Enchanted Arms web site:

Atsuma and Toya’s classmate at Enchant University. Atsuma and Toya are his best friends. Makoto is openly gay and his friends like to call him the “yellow otomegokoro.”

For those that don’t speak Japanese, “yellow otomegokoro” roughly translates to “hairdresser.” OK, that part is speculation.

Now, Makoto is hardly the first gay video game character. In fact, gaygamer.net went so far as to compile a list of the Top 20 Gayest Video Game Characters (a list which has since been amended to add a few new names, including Makoto). It’s just that, back to the original statement of the post, every title to be released on the Xbox 360 right now is going to get an undue amount of attention. A brief trip around the internets is all that’s required to confirm that.

The response to the revelation of this character—aided in no small part by the appearance of this video—was fairly predictable. Trolling around various gaming message boards, it was easy to find threads which all carried the general sentiment, “I was interested in this game . . . until I saw that video.” Disappointing, but predictable nonetheless.

It wasn’t until I listened to the current episode of Cheapassgamer‘s CAGcast, however, that I really started mulling the topic over—especially in relation to some other recent game releases. In the podcast, host and site owner, David Abrams (aka CheapyD), drops a few opinions of that Makoto video:

…the gayest character in the history of media…

and

…why does he have to be so, SO gay?…

and, most interestingly

…I was offended by…the over the top gayness. Nobody is that gay.

I can understand having a strong negative reaction to the depiction of homosexuals as manifested by Makoto. The character is a complete stereotype of a gay man (though I can’t help wondering just how much more outrage there might be if one didn’t discover until the end of the game that an oh-so-straight-acting party mate was really gay all along). What baffles me, however, is how these same discussions—and indeed the discussion on that CAGcast—can shift to another title, Saint’s Row, with nary a mention of the myriad lousy racial stereotypes you encounter in that game.

Within minutes of starting Saint’s Row, you deal with a pink-suited pimp, drinking from a gold chalice, who beseeches you to “bring him back some of them fine bitches.” The dialogue and characterizations are every bit as stereotypical here as in Enchanted Arms. (why do they have to be so, SO black?)

So what gives? What are we to assume based on the different reactions to seemingly the same offenses against political correctness? Are gamers coming to the defense of gays and opposing these archaic, flamboyant stereotypes, while tacitly endorsing the racial stereotypes that are much more pervasive in games? Or are we just used to seeing these portrayals of blacks and hispanics, but only now being confronted with the possibility of a gay protagonist in a game?

In the end, I think video games are still, sadly, worlds apart from the level of sophistication present in other forms of media. All of these characters smack of the types of lazy, thoughtless depictions you’d see in early TV shows and old movies. Perhaps it will just take time before developers take story and characterization in games more seriously—it is a relatively young medium, after all. There are exceptions, and reasons to be hopeful, of course. But for every interesting, three-dimensional character in games (thank you very much for HK-47 and Bastila, BioWare), there are at least a dozen more Makotos. Which makes me wonder if Roger Ebert isn’t right about games after all.

Does that make me gay?

See, even though gamers are, technically, growing up, it seems we’re maintaining the emotional maturity of an average fourteen-year old. (a phenomenon Jon Stewart aptly captured with his proposed new game rating of “CMB: Child in Man’s Body”) Nowhere is that level of maturity more evident than on a stroll through a list of Xbox Live gamertags. I mean, honestly, how else do you explain paying a yearly $70 subscription fee to play video games online with the handle:

It would be different—perhaps even understandable—if these were rare occurences. Unfortunately, I don’t think the odds favor that theory. No, chances are becoming more and more likely that the people we met online in the past week are doctors, investment bankers, or FPS-loving pastors…

No matter. I’m frankly looking forward to the time when I can check my email and see “sent from the Blackberry of…

.”

An executive sits at the head of a rich mahogany table, his bald pate softly reflecting fluorescent light from above. His eyes twitch back and forth across the bright young faces before him–each one so eager to make a difference. His mouth slowly curves into a smile as his hands rise above the wood and move toward each other. He bites his lower lip and inhales through clenched teeth as his fingers interlace. “Convergence,” he says.

In the distance a plaintive moan is heard as a consumer falls to the ground in confusion.

Now Xbox gamers and PC gamers and Cell Phone gamers (WTF?) can finally come together. Live Anywhere is an integral part of the upcoming Windows Vista and, one can only assume, Windows Mobile. So what does this mean to you?

Here’s a handy list:

• If you are a PC gamer you get to destroy players who are stuck using a dual-analog control scheme with your vastly superior mouse/keyboard combo. (This assumes the game in question is a first-person shooter which given the platforms we are dealing with here is almost guaranteed.)
• If you are an Xbox gamer please say hello to the exploits and cheats that are sure to lay waste to what was once a fairly pure walled-garden service.
• A single login now lets you enjoy the Xbox Live community experience on multiple platforms. Have you always wanted to be called a faggot while working on a spreadsheet? Jump in.

The idea only goes downhill from this point.

“Start a game on Xbox, continue it on your phone. There are games that will work that way.”

What kind of terrible game? Could Geometry Wars, the poster child of Xbox Live Arcade, successfully be shoehorned onto a phone? No. But Gears of War could probably work as a text adventure. Get some T9 predictive input in there and all the pieces are in place for one hell of an experience.

Gears of War Mobile X-treme: Touchtone Armageddon (Sponsored by MTV)

You are in a post-apocalyptic room. Multiple portions of the surrounding walls have crumbled and collapsed using deformation maps. The segments that remain standing are covered in blood. It is very dark.

>Turn on light.

Sacktacular has signed in

The ambient light increases slightly as soft shadows fill the room. Volumetric dust swirls amongst the rubble. There is bump-mapping here.

>Look at bump-mapping.

Every surface in the room looks impossibly shiny and wet. You hear a noise.

Sacktacular: U R a 8===D

>Step forward.

It is a monster–possibly a zombie–definitely humanoid. His pronounced cheekbones and hammered gray skin show specular highlights. He is extremely muscular and has no neck.

>Shoot monster with gun

Arcs of blood gush everywhere. The skeletal animation system realistically renders each lifeless limb as your foe falls to the floor.

Sacktacular: That isa penis BTW