LIVE Launch Team Memories:
Favorites
Published November 8, 2007
On the fifth anniversary of Xbox LIVE, we checked in with some of the original team members for their favorite memories.
What has been your favorite feature update to Xbox LIVE?
Patrick Mendenall: My favorite feature on Xbox LIVE at the moment is Marketplace. Once again, Xbox LIVE is setting industry standards by doing something nobody else has done. The fact that I can get movies and TV shows as well as game add-ons all in one blade in the dash with a great form of payment makes a lot of sense to me and the millions of others who have downloaded content from our store. I believe we deliver more HD digital content than any other provider in the world … that is impressive.
You really get a good feeling for what your circle of LIVE friends is up to. I suspect I'll be seeing a lot of friends with "playing Guitar Hero III" on my list. —Brian Lockhart
Marc Whitten: The feature I'm personally most proud of is the Guide Button. Underneath that button is a powerful concept that has served as the accelerant for our service ambition in this generation. When we first launched Xbox LIVE, the thing we didn't realize was how hard it was going to be to drive consistency and even feature usage with our game devs.
Because there was no concept of an "out of game" client, every game developer had to write their own friends list, had to implement billing, etc. We quickly learned how hard it was to try to describe a friends list implementation in a way that developers all over the world would a) understand and b) use to create the same experience. Beyond consistency, we had two other problems—because the LIVE client code was part of the game, you couldn't upgrade and ensure features would get picked up with the old games. Voice Message is the great example—we had already launched and we decided to add voice messaging to the stack.
But, because many games had already shipped, already had their own implementation of the friends list, and weren't going to title update, the user was forced to do weird mental calculus: "Do I have a game that supports sending voice messages and does my friend have a game that supports listening to voice messages?"
This was a painful limiter on our ability to evolve the service. Finally, because it was bound to the game, there was no depending on LIVE being there always. We started working on this in the Xbox 1 generation. One of the first real steps forward was an application called DOWNLOADER.XBE—you could put this on your game disc and it would take care of downloading content, billing, etc., you could do light skinning to make it look like your game and you were done. It took care of dozens of certification and UI requirements for you. The big step required a generational change—that we would reserve some percentage of the box resources for "concurrent UI". In doing this, we allowed ourselves to create a consistent, evolving, and omnipresent service.
By the way—while I'm super proud for my part in creating this idea, its Ben Kilgore that made it usable by suggesting we add another button to the controller.
Gary Thompson: I am going to selfishly say that the Aftershock release was my favorite feature release. It provided support for game clips, which was the first Xbox LIVE feature I worked on from inception to delivery. I was also able to alpha test PGR2, which was the first title to use game clips, so it was particularly satisfying to get to see how the game developers were going to incorporate it into their titles. Less satisfying was trying to chase Dirty, err, Racer X's ghost car around the track.
I think downloadable demos are a huge win for both partners and gamers—one of those nice win/win scenarios. —Andre Vrignaud
Clinton Fowler: If I had to choose one, it's achievements. Gamerscore is like adrenaline, you can never have enough!
Eric Neustadter: No question, it's out-of-game voice chat. Building up to the launch of Xbox 360 I was excited about this feature, because I thought the potential for talking to a friend who was playing a different game than me was pretty interesting. After we launched I realized that there was another aspect to the feature that I was completely missing—the ability to talk to someone while you're both playing the same single-player game. I played all the way through Kameo over the course of a few days while chatting with a friend who was doing the same thing. Adding that social component to an innately single-player experience was something that made it far more enjoyable for me.
Andre Vrignaud: Favorite feature update probably had to be Xbox LIVE Arcade. It not only helped broaden the appeal of the console to gamers, but it also opened up a huge new profitable ecosystem to partners. The casual business is huge, and console gamers love the flow of fresh content … which also translates to revenue for partners, which then translates to new games, features, technology, etc. It's a great virtuous cycle! Have to add that Marketplace is pretty darn close on the "favorite feature" list, too. I think downloadable demos are a huge win for both partners and gamers—one of those nice win/win scenarios.
Brian Lockhart: I loved it when we added the ability to see what exactly your friends are doing or playing on LIVE (what we call "rich presence state information"). Nowadays in addition to checking your friends list in the console, you can also check xbox.com, LIVE partner sites, widgets, RSS feeds, etc. and you really get a good feeling for what your circle of LIVE friends is up to. I suspect I'll be seeing a lot of friends with "playing Guitar Hero III" on my list in the next few weeks …
Mike Lucero: The existence of Halo 3. Also, I think Achievements is awesome (even though I suck in achievements).
John Smith: Favorite feature of Xbox LIVE … that I didn't know we had … auto download of Arcade and background downloads.
Jim Yagelowich: I think our basic core components of matchmaking, leaderboards, 'presence' (knowing when your friends are online), and voice chat are the ones everyone uses the most and have been with us since Xbox LIVE Launch Day. The achievements feature is probably the best addition we've made, as it's a good way to compare your progress with your friends, but I also like the addition of the Video Marketplace/downloads and the 'background downloads' feature.
We're the first-and-only console to deliver such an outstanding online-delivery system for (high definition and standard definition) video content, and 'background downloads' means my console can download stuff when I'm doing other things (such as watching a DVD video, or sleeping at night with my console 'turned off' so to speak).
Lit Wong: The favorite feature on Xbox LIVE for me has to be the cool Xbox 360 Launch Team water mark. It was a secret feature that no one knew about it on the team except me and a few people. I wanted a special gift for the team's hard work over the couple of years before we launched Xbox 360. What better way than to let the world know than have a special marking our your gamercard so people know that you made Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE happened? So I secretly worked with a Dash developer, an Xbox LIVE developer, an art designer, a test developer, and an operations engineer to put this watermark feature in the Dashboard. No one else knew about it until the launch day (11/22/2005). It was a pleasant surprise for everyone on the team.
Jerry Hook: Marketplace—always fresh content always available.
Interview by TriXie
