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Sony: XMB Is Here To Stay
PS3 manufacturer Sony has denied rumours of a massive overhaul to its current interface, the XrossMediaBar (XMB).
In an interview with PCWorld.com, the company’s director of network operations Eric Lempel does confirm a firmware update for later this year, but insists that “it’s nothing like what you’re reading about.” Rumours of an overhaul in the style of Microsoft’s NXE are, he says, just that.
“Right now the XMB is an Emmy Award-winning interface and people like it. They're very comfortable with it. So we're not looking to do anything radical. We'll still do some research behind the scenes and see what can we do to make things better, or how can we make it so consumers find content faster, but we're pretty happy with it. No plans right now to do anything like what the competitor has done.”
Asked about the vague similarities between NXE’s axial interface and that of the XMB, Lempel happily entertains the suggestion. “If they’ve found that we’re doing something right and they want to copy that, more power to them,” he says.
Recent problems with PS3 users’ access to the Hulu online video service are also confirmed, Lempel speculating that the content provider may have refined its list of supported browsers. “It’s true, Hulu’s not working right now and I’m not really sure why. The browser’s built on unique code, so it’s not like any of the other browsers out there, and there are some things that are just incompatible.”
Introduced for the PSX digital video recorder in 2003, the XMB appears largely unchanged on Sony's current family of entertainment devices. As well as PS3 and PSP, it also provides setup and content navigation for the latest Bravia TV lines.
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Copyright 2006 - 2009 Future Publishing Limited, Beauford Court 30 Monmouth Street Bath, UK BA1 2BW
England and Wales company registration number 2008885
Looks like I'm the contrarian here, when it comes to Xbox UI. I never liked the original one, but NXE has just the right amount of eye candy. And I don't really find it that clumsy to use. Except that there should be some kind of a short cut to start the game that I have in the DVD drive.
XMB is boring, but on the other hand, it is extremely usable. And, I like how it defaults to whatever you have in the BD drive, when you start the system. With one click you can start watching the movie or playing the game. I can definitely live with what I have at the moment.
I like the XMB. It looks quite refined when compared to the NXE, which looks a bit like an in-game menu from a snes game to me.
It did take me a little while to get used to using it, but I think it's fine.
Good! If it ain't broke....don't fix it!!!
I recently purchased a PS3 last week. There are certain aspects of the NXE I like on my 360. Avatars are cute and party chat is phenominal. However, I can't stand their GUI friends list. I always end up using the guide to see who's on. The XMB works so far for me. It seems to give all the information I need and do it in a timely manner. Being able to add my own wallpaper helps a bit too :)
I seriously hope that the next system update will include that supposed PS2 emulator - the XMB works fine so I'm happy they're not changing that.
Spent some time with a friend's PS3 last weekend and quite liked the XMB. It didn't blow me away with it's usability but I like the understated stylings. Makes the NXE look like a candy carnival of colours, not that I have anything against hte NXE either. As others have mentioned, it has slowness issues. Party chat is nice but suffers from constant connection drops and the main Friends screen loads so slowly you're better off using the mini-guide menu.
Thank God! The XMB is fine as it is; I hope they leave it alone.
I was going to point out that functionally the Xbox interface is just XMB turned 90º but it looks like someone's already done that for me. :)
As for all the other garbage with which Microsoft festoons its XMB ripoff—advertisements, Major Nelson and his moronic "Inside Xbox" cohorts, more advertisements, avatards, even more advertisements, et. al.—they can shove all that crap right back up their collective ass. That garbage benefits Microsoft, publishers, advertisers, but I'll be damned if I can see how it benefits me.
XMB wins.
"That garbage benefits Microsoft, publishers, advertisers, but I'll be damned if I can see how it benefits me."
It just does, learn to accept it like I have. ^^
I actually preferred the 360's dashboard to the NXE. Some of the features of NXE I enjoy, I can look stuff up by letter now that's about it. I just use the media guide button still, I hate scrolling through the it-takes-forever-for-my-friend's-avatars-to-pop-up friends list so I just use the media guide. The NXE is also much slower than the old dashboard. I do find some of the advertisements useful since they can cater to my tastes (found out the new season of Deadliest Catch was starting through the NXE front page (forgot what the front page is called). But in the end, I still prefer the simpler quicker dashboard.
Which brings up an interesting point: when they announced and rolled out the new Xbox dashboard, didn't they make a big fuss about how it was a response to the glut of content available in the marketplace? How it was supposed to make it faster to find and get to the content you want?
Because in practice I find it to be SLOWER THAN DEATH. Whenever I select some DLC package or game or what-have-you from the top menu I have to stare at that stupid animation of the little green rings swarming around the 360 for what seems like 30 seconds before I can view a list and select the content I wanted in the first place.
Seriously, is there any way in which the new dashboard DOESN'T fail? I can't think of a single one. (I don't think hard drive installs count as they could've done that with the old interface.)
XMB wins again!
Yep, I was excited when I heard it was going to be faster since the old dashboard wasn't exactly quick. But once I got it going i found it slow as hell. It's managed to actually get slower over the months as a matter of fact. Lately sometimes I can't even get videos to ever show up after I click on them (watching the swirling green circles go into the xbox and coming out of it) I have to walk away and check back later to see if it's finally up. It'll either be up or I'll get a can't connect to content error message. Even going through the media guide button seems to have slowed down. Oh, halo 3 game invit, let me click on that, I press the media guide button to bring up the response screen, wait 15 seconds, screen pops up, wait for my cursor to be given the magic activation dust, scroll to accept, wait another 15 seconds in a black screen. It used to not be like that and I have a blazing fast internet so it's not that. Either way, the NXE rather sucks in practice. This promise that it'll be sped up again better be kept.
I have no experience with the XMB, but I've heard it's similar to the PSPs UI and in that sense I found it fine (though I never connected to the internet with it so I can't speak on that). NXE works, it's just S-L-O-W.
Owning both consoles, I prefer the XMB UI to the NXE UI any day. I can customize how my media is organized, and the XMB does not subject me to the tons of advertising-oriented crap that I have to wade through on NXE. It ain't broke, so don't fix it. It's kind of like the navigational options on an iphone/touch: it is far quicker to find an artist or album through the text menu than flipping through hundreds of album covers in their fancy "flow" UI.