Current Gen User Experience?

[egparadigm]

Hi All,

After being told the horrors of PS3 game updates I wondered what people's user experience was like with the three main consoles' operating systems and and network features?

This is my experience:

Wii:

• Really like the simplicity of the channels – every game or otherwise is available at a single button press.
• The shop channel is extremely slow and in fact all online operations require you to connect to the individual server (not like 360 from my past experience).
• Online play from Goldeneye (the only online one I have) is mostly robust although 1/20 times the connection from the host will be poor and 1/10 times they will quit out on you and you lose all XP from the current match.
• A lot of health and safety checks which means you have to switch over to the Wii channel to start your game proper (I like to load 360 in the background as I'm at my computer).
• I like the calendar which keeps a record of your play time.

360:

• I find it very difficult to find what I'm looking for. Sometimes if I look for a game I've just downloaded I simply cannot find it. The interface is very bloated, meaning there are multiple ways of getting to your content and as someone who doesn't use it frequently I find it very alienating and difficult to navigate.
• Use of the controller makes things like searching very slow.
• The Kinect interface is also rather tedious. Sometimes there's an option I want, like going back to the main menu in Kinect Adventures, and there is no way to do it other than quit the game and load from the dash. Generally very confusing and it is very irritating that it often won't let you do things from a seated position (perhaps the camera needs to move for this?), as I'm usually a bit tired after a session.
• Game/system updates very quick!

There's probably more to add, which I will when I think of it.

What's your user experience with a current gen console?

[Baseley09]

The PS3 user interface is the slickest one, in fact the media features are a dream, animated film chapters etc it all looks great, though now they have clamped down on ripped bluray soundtracks the dream isn't very alive. If you dont fancy the pad, the blutooth remote is decent.

[abigsmurf]

Wii

-Friend codes... this system needs to die in a fire.

-online store is slow and clunk with not enough info on games.

-glowing blue light. Why exactly does new firmware matter so much that you need to constantly tell me about it in a way that suggests my console is either sentient or about to explode?

PS3

-PSN is quite nice to use but games need more info about them and too often sales or reduced prices are hard to know about if you haven't read up about them beforehand. Also, if I'm buying an add and not actually a stand alone product, TELL ME. Nowhere does it tell you with those Zen Pinball tables that you need to buy the main game first and the descriptions make it seem like each table is a stand alone product.

-Let me charge my controllers when the console is turned off.

-Let me turn the console off without holding the power button down for 10 seconds.

-how about downloading firmware updates automatically so I don't have to wait 30 minutes to play my new game?

3DS:

-Why make deleting channels such a long, cumbersome ball ache? Especially when things like trailers create their own channels.

-Online store is nice, easy to navigate, screenshots of games, trailers, generally more you get on other consoles. The categorising of stuff on the store is a pain though, categories change on a weekly basis and are oddly specific.

-I love the little animations they have when downloading.

[Neon Ignition]

Wii:

-Simple interface if overly bland
-Too many pre-game menu's
-Poor browser support
-Poor friends list set up

PS3:

-Best interface
-Suitably customisable
-Poor browser support
-Downloads can be sluggish
-See's the most improvement over time

360:

-Slow to display at times
-No browser support
-Poorly layed out store
-Cross game chat support
-Limited development over time
-Needless subscription
-Quicker downloads

Personally, the PS3 edges but even if you default with the 360 it's shocking at how much MS has allowed Sony to gain ground between the front end and XBL/PSN. At this rate XBL will slip behind for next gen if MS don't sort out the ever declining quality with these silly revisions.

[Skull Commander]

The Xbox 360 seems to get worse with every redesign.

[charlesr]

Agree, the 360 interface updates seem to bring a couple of cool features and then destroy some usability.
I guess it's all to enable advertising, so in that respect it has succeeded - I do sometimes click on film and game trailers.
Otherwise I find the whole interface completely confusing and inconsistent - what works in one place doesn't always work in another, and mostly resort to using the middle button menu. Media center for it was horrible, so back to TVersity.
Fast updates and easy purchases.

[egparadigm]

-Friend codes... this system needs to die in a fire.

-glowing blue light. Why exactly does new firmware matter so much that you need to constantly tell me about it in a way that suggests my console is either sentient or about to explode?

1. Tell me about it!

2. I hate this, too. I am so fearful of Nintendo sentience that I have turned off Wii Connect 24 in the system settings. This means you just hit power once and it's off properly with a red standby light.

-how about downloading firmware updates automatically so I don't have to wait 30 minutes to play my new game?

I finally received my PS3 just now. I see there is a system setting for updating automatically in the system settings on a set schedule, but you have to pay for the pleasure. WTF!?

[charlesr]

My Wii used to get quite hot while on WiiConnect24, so I turned that off fairly swiftly.

[abigsmurf]

It uses something like 20W in standby with no fans active, the heat gradually builds up.

[briareos_kerensky]

My 2 cents.

Wii
+ Lack of constant firmware upgrades.
+ Simple interface, blends extremely well with the Wiimote; though it could have been faster in certain operations, like moving channels between pages.
+ Fast and easy to turn off. Not having to navigate through endless menu to quit the game and turn off the console is a huge plus to me.
- Health safety and "secure your Wiimote and sorroundings" screens.
- No automatic game start when inserting a disc.
- The online shop and browser are slooooooooooow.

PS3
+ The XMB looks nice with the standard theme.
+ Though not perfect, icon groups tend to be well organized and minize XMB scrolling, either vertically or horizontally.
- Certain backgrounds make hard to read menu captions. An option to tweak text color would have been great.
- Too many button presses to get something: turning off the console, for example; or quitting a game, which either requires pressing the PS button to load up the XMB, navigate to the option you want or holding down the PS button until the menu comes up.
- Load and install times.
- Updates. Just too many. And slow. And going through the user agreement every time.

X360
(not a big user of MS' console)
- probably the ugliest and less intuitive interface of all consoles. I bought the console just before the first major redesign and I thought it looked nicer before it. Unfortunately I don't remember much about useability.
- updates follow MS' questionable policy of a smaller initial download and then a "true" patch download; then again, I don't use the X360 much so it might be my fault.
- forced avatar design. It's not like player will create new accounts on daily basis, but really, let me skip it, I don't care.
+ updates are quick to download
+ as well as games from the Marketplace.
+ the best integration with online functionalites.

[Flabio]

Do you guys honestly believe the original 360 blades interface was better for digging through marketplace than the current one is?

Wow.

[egparadigm]

Wii
- No automatic game start when inserting a disc.

+1 on this. I still think the GameCube had this the best. Hold down the A button if you want the menu, do nothing if you want the disc. The 360's quite good on this, but depending on setting you have to use the disc eject button to go to the dash if there's a disc in there.

[Neon Ignition]

Do you guys honestly believe the original 360 blades interface was better for digging through marketplace than the current one is?

Wow.

Yup

The current one is a mess

[abigsmurf]

PS3 and Wii

-you put a finger in the hole of a CD to help you put it in the drive. The consoles sucks in the CD... WHICH THEN CHOPS OFF YOUR FINGER.

This so totally happened to my cousin's friend's nephew!

[dataDave]

I don't have much to add here what others have already touched upon, however I will say that a Wii with CFW is the best thing since sliced bread.