XBox Update

Here's a video showing what changes are coming in Tuesday's XB Dashboard Update. Nothing too substantial, especially since I don't subscribe to Netflix (I would consider it if they'd put more halfway decent movies online), but the games on demand is a nice feature and probably what I'm most interested in out of this new update. It would be nice if they would discount the games since distribution will be so much cheaper, but my guess is that they'll still be more expensive than used games from Gamestop. Although I know some people see Gamespot's used game reselling as morally dubious (money out of the hands of developers, into the hands of greedy ol' Gamestop), they have found a market able to be exploited, and its hard to fault them for doing so. Personally, I'm looking forward to the day that I get rid of my game DVDs and have everything streamed online, but we're not getting close to that day until Microsoft figures out better storage options than what they've got now. And what are they going to do about games that have more-than-rudimentary instruction manuals?

The development of paid avatar upgrades was never in doubt--I saw that coming from a mile away. Many people will get nickel-and-dimed to death here (a giant Q-tip for $2?!?--watch the video), although I think most of our group just doesn't care that much. We'll see.

Sorting achievements--I think that will help Simon more than the rest of us.