Sony Xross-Media Bar
Year: 2003
Features: Memory Management, Multimedia Playback, Online Settings, Basic Options, A/V Settings, Internet, etc. (features depend on where it appears)

Originally conceived on Sony’s ill-fated PSX, the XMB has since become an interface standard that Sony uses across a variety of product lines including televisions and cameras. Of course, it’s most famous for its presence on modern Sony PlayStation products. It’s strong points are many—it’s intuitive to use with a d-pad, sleek and responsive, and although it throws an intimidating number of icons on screen most of the time each one is well-designed, making its purpose easy to discern. For people who can’t stand to look at it, it’s fairly customizable. It was a good enough interface to win a technical Emmy. It was also appealing enough that PS3 owners spent months inexplicably screaming about having an in-game version.



Microsoft Xbox 360 (Blades)
Year: 2005
Features: Memory Management, Multimedia Playback, Online Settings, Online Marketplace, Basic Options, A/V Settings, Community Features, Parental Controls, etc.

Yesterday, the old 360 dashboard felt slow, cluttered, and in desperate need of the overhaul it now has. So it’s easy to forget that, back in 2005, the blade-based design was hailed as an ingenious bit of interface work. The horizontal format made good use of space and color, while the layout of the blades made it surprisingly easy to find almost all of the system’s vast options. That this dashboard wasn’t designed to hold thousands upon thousands of shopping options proved to be its fatal flaw, but that doesn’t change the fact that the original 360 dash was the first console interface to be both a tool for getting to content and a destination in itself.



Nintendo Wii
Year: 2006
Features: Memory Management, Online Settings, Internet, Online Marketplace, A/V Settings, Parental Controls, etc.

Always the rebel, the Wii bucks traditionalism every time it starts up—instead of playing some fanfare like every other console on this list, it boots to a plain, paternal safety warning. The console’s interface itself is about as simply designed as it gets—although presented as “channels,” it’s really just a square grid of huge, colorful buttons. These buttons remain unorganized, leaving their placement to the user. Any and all basic settings settings are hidden deep in a colorless labyrinth of options. It’s a bit of a Fisher-Price approach to the menu problem, which is probably appropriate for a target demographic that just celebrated 30 years of not knowing how to set the VCR clock. Perhaps its best to focus instead on the Wii’s impeccable use of audio—the ambient sound and channel themes of the system will be remembered fondly for decades.