The blades. Many Xbox 360 early adopters remember the original operating system with fondness and maintain it was the greatest, through simplicity, console headquarters ever made. While I wouldn’t go that far, reminiscing about the blades offers a nice point of reference when talking about the growth and maturation a console experiences within its life cycle. A few weeks ago, we gave Sony kudos for snagging the Limited Edition Batman: Arkham Knight PS4 Bundle saying “Sony’s gamer-first strategy answers the question “which console should I buy?” before consumers even ask it.” Today, we’ll go over Microsoft’s radically different, though equally intriguing, approach to letting gamers know their grass is greener.
This is Xbox, you’re a go for feedback.
Do you think he or she placed their suggestion for the online suggestion box in an actual suggestion box?
Thousands of blogs across countless platforms. Billions of opinions tweeted 140 characters at a time. Social media is still relatively infant and, believe it or not, even the largest organizations still struggle with translating instant communication with a supporter-base into actionable and measurable tactics or strategies. The problem, as acknowledged by Microsoft last summer, is a fundamental one: capturing the internet’s suggestions in a nice little box is difficult. Which led one particularly smart person to think of a box in which suggestions could be placed. A suggestion box. With feedback. For Xbox! The net result: Xbox Feedback.
Let’s talk gamer to gamer. When Microsoft announced the Xbox Feedback program at E3 in 2014, in spite of how ingeniously simple and powerful it appeared to be, my reaction was one of pessimism. I remember thinking how Microsoft was trying to control the conversation in a completely militant yet somehow maternal/paternal kind of way. You know those parents who don’t want their teenagers to drink but realize it’s going to happen anyways? Rather than fight it, they’d probably prefer it happen under their roof than at Billy’s house. At the risk of overextending a (terrific) metaphor, it turns our drunk teenagers over at Microsoft’s house is starting to pay off.
Microsoft Feedback offers the most committed users a forum to channel their constructive criticism in an effort to collectively enhance the experience on Xbox One or Xbox 360. This is organic, grassroots, community building – starting with the most hardcore fans. But I’d be singing from a different song sheet if Phil Spencer and his team over at Xbox treated this new tool like a wasteland, redirecting internet hate-speak to a Microsoft-sponsored vault of nothingness. Instead, Xbox Feedback is both a cultivator of collaboration and clear window of transparency.
No really, we’re listening.
Just ignore the month of January for a moment: Xbox One has added or improved features every single month since launch, back in November 2013. Now, some may look at this as a negative in that so many patches are required to bring the Xbox One up to speed. And I might be inclined to agree but we’ve already been conditioned to expect our consoles to grow. It’s sometimes hard to remember how infant the concept of console operating systems, with a fully functioning user interface, truly is. Before Xbox 360, the expectations we had of our consoles had remained the same since the NES era: pop in the game and turn the system on. In a single generation – perhaps two if you really want to count the original Xbox – Microsoft showed us how gamers could avoid the never-ending upgrade money pit ever-present in PC gaming and enjoy a dynamic experience with, ostensibly, the same hardware for the better part of a decade. So with that said, as console gamers, we have to be okay with these updates.
Xbox Feedback is one part Digital Suggestion Box, one part Update Documentation and Public Awareness, and one part Teaser. Each of these parts are intriguing elements that demand our attention, as Xbox users. The “In-Progress” section pushes the boundaries of what you’ve come to expect from your Xbox. And again, I’d be wary of these potentially empty promises but Microsoft has delivered month after month. The consistency and transparency is made to look easy but it is thanks to calculated decision making and pinpoint tactical execution that Xbox Feedback works at all.
Back to the drawing board. Or wait…what about this?
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. When it comes to Achievements, Microsoft threw this old adage out the window. And unfortunately, the new Achievement system was a step backwards for many early adopters. Thankfully, the Xbox Feedback team did not turn deaf ears on this issue. We haven’t seen a major overhaul, which is likely what many were hoping for and more strongly, expecting, but the April update proved that Microsoft holds another adage very dear: Keep It Simple, Stupid (KISS).
Rather than reverting back to how the Xbox 360 handled Achievements, the smallest of changes radically changes our experience. If you conquered an Achievement on April 5, the charm would appear and notify you that something great just happened. You’d learn how many Achievement points were earned and the ambiguous title associated with the accomplishment. This would likely prompt you to dive into the system we’ve all had enough time to generate a distinct distaste for and launch the Achievements app. Ugh! The game pauses as your system really seems to struggle while switching programs. Not an ideal experience.
This story changed for the better on April 6 as the Achievement description is displayed on the charm without having switch applications. Suddenly, we’ve gone from an inferior Achievement system, relative to the Xbox 360, to a superior one. Microsoft skipped past making things equal and I’m back to enjoying Achievements. This is but a small example of how a change that hardly seems newsworthy, coupled with a few others, can add up to make a notable impact.
Wait ’til you see what’s next.
Party chat, screenshots, suggested friends, and tile transparency are among other improvements that range from dang-near required to “I didn’t even know I wanted that.”When you look at all the changes that have been made and the updates still on the horizon, you can’t help but give the team an Xbox a little credit for such a gamer-centric program. It makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside to know you can count on more great things to come to your Xbox One. Consistently.
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