So it looks like MS has launched a new storefront. As always, it seems we are just rearranging the deck chairs for the heck of it. In the meantime, it’s broken. When you go to look at game videos they won’t expand to full screen or play with sound.
How is it possible that MS in 2020 can’t make a storefront work?
This is the Microsoft Store for PC or Xbox One (or both)? I know both were updated recently, though I’ve only gone into the PC’s to check for App updates.
The Xbox One also got a system update two days go, and it’s supposed to add an “Entertainment” Channel (or whatever they’re called), which you can add to your Home Screen. Yet when I go to Suggestions to find it like the Update Notes say, it’s not there.
Xbox One. I know it’s not the end of the world. But how do they launch on OS for Xbox One that doesn’t work? In addition to the baffling design choices. A couple of months ago they switched the order of the menus at the top of the home screen. Why? Just so everyone who was used to finding settings in the left would now be confused. The new layout is not better or worse than the old one, it’s just different. Why?
The storefront is filled with overdesigned noisy menu options and weird backgrounds. And now instead of having the trailer automatically run when I get to a games page I have to scroll down four items on a menu list and then it won’t go full screen or have sound.
How incompetent do they want to look? Do they not have any xboxes to test this on? It’s just mind boggling.
I got my Xbox One X 11 months ago, and that’s the first time I fired the platform up ever. I only got to toy with that Home Screen and Dashboard layout for a bit before they changed it to the current one in, what, February, I think?
Anyway, I agree that the previous one had a better overall layout and design, even though I’ve gotten used to the current one now. I remember when they added the “Metro” styled interface to the Xbox 360 towards the end of it’s run, and I was never, ever a fan of that design.
For the Store, I’ve always found that the trailers in it were a bit buggy, regardless of the store version.
Were you able to find that Entertainment Channel the latest update added, or is that missing for you too?
I didn’t look. My nieces are here now so with four kids total I’m not getting a lot of Xbox time, lol.
Fair enough!
I just played a Halo Wars 2 Multiplayer match with my dad, our first time playing the game in Multiplayer. We did a simple 2v2 Skirmish against two AI opponents, and we won, though it took 45 minutes as we’re completely unfamiliar with the tech trees and multiplayer builds.
Was good fun though!
That’s among my favorite ways to play RTS games - with a coop player against the AI. Tends to be relaxing and a fun way to learn the systems etc.
Turns out you have to turn on auto play sound in the new “quick menu” which has no on screen prompts other than the stupid three lines and “quick actions” in the upper right of the screen. Who is the maniac non-human robot who thinks this is a better way to organize menu prompts. It’s like a course in how to frustrate people. Why do the $&@$ start and select buttons on Xbox no longer have NAMES written on them instead of these inane symbols?! And why would you bury the option to turn on sound behind a menu? When I tell someone “hit the menu button” they look down and have no idea what button to hit. And I have to start describing “it’s the one with the three lines” or “the one with the two boxes.” What the hell was wrong with “start” and “back?” Hell, I would take white and black. Anything. It’s so ridiculous. Someone sat in a conference room and said “you know what will make navigation easier? Taking the names off buttons!”
There is still no way to run preview videos in full screen.
I know this is all very trivial. But it’s baffling that they can ■■■■■ up something so simple.
Yeah, we had fun, and I’m looking forward to our next game,
By auto play sound, do you mean for Trailers in the Store?
For the renaming of “Start” and “Back” buttons to “Menu” and “View,” this is mobile phone design creeping into other things. When designing the Xbox One, they felt that the old names were from an obsolete error of game design, and since everyone had a mobile phone and options in Phone Apps are the three lines or the “hamburger,” they mirrored that for familiarity for a younger generation. I can’t perfectly recall why they calls the “View” button that, but the concept behind it is that it was meant to create extra viewing or camera angles or something that didn’t overly make sense.
Ironically, even Phil Spencer said a few years back people still call it Start and Select or Start and Back.
You see the “Menu” everywhere now; it’s in the top right of my Firefox Browser as I type this.
I do not like mobile phones, I think they’ve done significant harm to society and socializing as a whole. Seeing their design and style incorporate into things that don’t need it makes me sad.
Yeah. That’s what they call the option in the menu. There’s a toggle for “auto play trailer” which runs the trailer in a box that is very small in the upper right corner. My guess is they are doing this as part of an attempt to make the store faster by reducing the size of videos to about 420p. Anyway under “auto play” is “auto sound”. The sound is default to off and if you turn it in the trailer automatically starts with sound on the landing page for the game (but there’s no full screen option). Even more fun, there’s no other way to get sound with the video. If you go down to the dedicated trailers page and run one, it only has sound if “auto sound on” is on. And you can only toggle sound on if “auto play” is on. So in order to ever hear any video with sound you need to toggle the settings to auto play trailers on the landing page. Which makes no sense but okay.
Since I’m typing this on my phone I would be a bit of a hypocrite if I agreed too strenuously, but there’s no question you have a point. And I think mixing design elements across completely different systems it’s not likely to work well.
That really does sound needlessly convoluted!
I’m assuming this redesign is leading into Series X? Problems aside, I appreciate how much faster it is and I don’t miss the clunky top layout of the old game pages that had auto-played trailers hog the screen. They just need to move the all the trailers and video options to the top tab of the game pages like everyone else does, and probably ditch the Quick Action menu and just make playing trailers off the store icons a manual button prompt.
Yeah, I mean design aesthetics are what they are. You can like them or not. But the confusing lack of functionality is more of an issue.