Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm on Xbox 360 shows promise

We all remember back in June 09 when Microsoft made the big announcement that Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm were coming to the Xbox 360. Most people whooped for joy at the news where as a few asked what’s Friendface?

Well, Microsoft has now started rolling out the update for people who signed up for the preview (if you haven’t signed up it’s too late now and you will have to wait). Find out though what we think of the update below.I have been playing with the latest dash updates and here is the low down.

Facebook – A nice little addition to the Xbox dash. Works really well and allows you to see Facebook friends (that have downloaded the app) who also have Xbox Live, and you can then invite them. Some down sides though, there is no auto-status update. Wouldn’t it be great if when you loaded up Brutal Legend your status was updated to tell your friends you’re rocking with the big JB! The big screen pictures of your friends on holiday or (as most of Niall’s are) in compromising positions look great. But when your friends post news stories and links to Youtube you realise the limitation of the 360 very quickly.

Twitter – Again a good addition to the Xbox dash as now Major Nelson can talk to you directly through your Xbox, FourZeroTwo can provide you all the latest Modern Warfare 2 news and don’t forget Gamecrawler can send you those all important price alerts. But once again it lacks the auto update to let your friends know your burning off the line in a Datsun 510 on Forza 3. Also when posting an update to Twitter you are limited to 140 characters (this is a twitter restriction not Xbox) but whist typing there is no indication of how many you have used.

Last.fm – For those who don’t know, Last.fm is an internet radio station where you choose an artist and then the site plays songs by that artist and similar just for you. Again this lacks (in a much publicised way) the ability to play music once you have exited the application, meaning you are stuck with in game music or whatever you have on you have streaming from a PC/hard drive.

Sky Player – Technically not part of this update (but the way things are going it won’t surprise me if they all come at once!) but promised lots and seemingly delivered little. I have played around with Sky Player on Xbox and the interface is very nice. The only downside is the pricing. For those already with Sky, your package decides what you get but live TV is still limited. If you want Sky 1 etc then you will need to pay a multiroom subscription of £10. Otherwise the prices are similar to standard Sky prices, find out more here.

All in all the dash update provides some great functionality but once again I can’t help but feel Microsoft missed the point. Hopefully the next update will bring the missing items and also a browser so we can click on them links!

4 Responses to "Facebook, Twitter and Last.fm on Xbox 360 shows promise"

1. Paul M says:

   October 30, 2009 at 12:20 pm

   Last.fm integration rocks… its great having a jukebox with thousands of tracks in my living room (the interface is slick too).

   Facebook is ok – photos are integrated nicely but feels limited… hopefully they’ll provide more features (like submitting updates / in game photos etc to Facebook & game requests from Xbox to facebook so you dont have to be logged in to XBL etc.). Twitter is pretty pointless in my opinion – much easier to update your status via a pc.
2. rocko says:

   November 2, 2009 at 11:26 am

   Still not found how to get on Sky Player, it only for you preview guys?
3. Ed says:

   November 2, 2009 at 2:29 pm

   Nope, Sky should be available to everyone but due to technical issues it was pulled.

   Keep an eye out though and hopefully it should be back soon.
4. Carl says:

   November 2, 2009 at 6:12 pm

   To update, I tried it out at the weekend, streaming Sky News, I clicked the promo on the dashboard news promo to download. A friend said it’s available in Video Marketplace.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 11:05 am and is filed under E3, Xbox 360. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.