Xbox.com and Live Service maintenance over
The horrible, horrible downtime is over. Xbox.com, the Xbox Live service and the forums are back up again as we speak. The only notable changes on your Xbox are that ‘Social Sports’ in the Xbox Live Arcade are now called ‘Bar Sports’. So no update there. What is updated however is the ‘My Xbox’ section and not just a little bit either.
The layout for the ‘My Xbox’ is totally overhauled. They now give a nice overview on what is going on with Xbox and Xbox Live. There are new sections such as “Upcoming Games“, “Community Showcase“, “What’s Happening“, “What’s Hot on Marketplace” and “Xbox Live News“. There’s a new big feature called “Message Center”. The Message Center comes with a few features:
- All My Xbox users (Xbox Live Silver and Gold users as well as those who just signed up here on Xbox.com) can now read text messages in the My Xbox Message Center. So someone can send you a message from their Xbox 360™ console and you can read it on your PC.
- Xbox Live Gold members can compose and send messages in the My Xbox Message Center. The character limit is the same as on the Xbox 360 console: 250 characters.
- Xbox Live Gold members can send messages (up to 200 per day) to gamers who are on their friends list.
- Xbox Live Gold members can send messages (up to 25 per day) to other gamers not on their friends list.
- All My Xbox users can block communications with other gamers. Designate a gamertag as blocked and you won’t get any more messages from them. Change your mind? Unblock a gamer simply by sending them a message.
Note that Xbox Live Silver members cannot send messages to Xbox Live, but only can read them. I guess Microsoft has good reasons not allowing non-paying members to send message via their PC’s but allowing it on their Xbox’s but I can’t come up with any. Let’s hope that the rumored Dashboard update brings as much changes as MS made to the My Xbox thingy. Not that we don’t like the Dashboard, it just that we love big changes. Like Micheal Jackson’s skin color.
Isn’t it just amazing?
Thanks to our forum users at this topic for helping us compile the list of changes.
k00l you can even see your Recent Players on xbox.com now! This is great work!
Yeah, some cool new features. When can we expect this new dashboard update? E3?
No idea. Major Nelson was pretty adamant about it not appearing near this Xbox.com update, and when I spoke to him last week about it I didn’t have the feeling it was ‘nearly finished’. E3 might be too soon for it.
This is nice… I feel like the boy in the bubble every time I go on xbox.com and see a buddy there but can’t do anything to contact them… very frustrating indeed (and pathetic)… this is pretty cool… I’m just impressed with the upgradability (word?) of this whole platform. Truly revolutionary.
Be sure to keep your gold subscription up because MS thinks it makes sense not to allow silver members to send messages ;).
I think it may be more of a regulatory issue. Since silver members arent required to provide any REAL personal information, should they do or say something offensive, there would be no way for MS to repremand them… no consequences… Also, people without a console could even get in on the messaging, which could get out of hand. At least if people have a gold membership, you can almost certainly bet that they also own a console… or are a complete idiot with $$$ to burn
Hmm I guess you’re right
God knows everyone is watching their ass after all the latest MYSPACE flare ups
Hey ARCHA1C, check out my webcam for the hottest feeds of me all alone tonight. I’m all yours, whenever, baby.
Is that what you guys want to receive every 30 mins? Keep it to gold only.
exactly
i appreciate the work but i was hoping some missing features like background downloading and clan support for microsoft servers would show up. oh well. i do lik ethe additions though.
That would be content for a dashboard update, this was an update for Xbox.com
And the Live Service
I suspect that some of the work today was backend upgrades to support the dashboard update.
New XBLA: PACMAN!!
DOWNLOAD!!!
This is not true.
It’s coming, but not yet
My girlfriend is going to freak out… she loves some PAC MAN… and TW 2006… She’s a keeper
I think the reason that they witheld support for sending messages for silver members is that any idiot can go to xbox.com forums and sign up for a free silver account without ever even using live, owning a xbox or 360, and begin spamming users away (cough…sony fanboys and other troublemakers).
Yup it’s obvious but Nino wrote that line in the article and he’s on Silver right now, so he was feeling unfairly left out
I forgot about the part were everybody could get a silver account. I stand corrected.
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Why is it, even though it knows I’m in the UK, do I still get the stupid Yank spelling for everything? Yes it’s petty, but it really bugs me, stamp some English authority down dammit!