The RROD is still happening in part because the console just hit its third year, meaning there are a fair number of people who have pre-Falcon consoles that haven't RROD yet. I'm not saying all pre-Falcon will, but they are certainly at much higher risk. And of course you hear of the RROD around this time of year since folks are playing their consoles more as the big games come out ... and this year has the NXE.

Of all those that I know that have RRODed, all have been 2005 and 2006 consoles.

This game is easily worth $15 dollars. I'm about half-way through and currently feel it is one of my favourite games of all time. It is an extremely engaging puzzler.

If it helps put it into perspective. This is about a 6 hour game. There have been $60 dollars games in and around that play time (some without any multi-player).

Also, can you put pictures out of what it looks like browsing a big list, or demo'ing some form of search interface?

For the more hardcore among us, can we please have, say Master Chief avatars, or our Fable 2 characters as avatars? Like Gamerpics, these could be unlocked.

Thanks NATO, I've been running teams building a ton of software from client apps to mobile and computer web sites. Usability is more important than people think and sometimes you don't know how bad something is until you see the alternative. Part of that is because companies tend to put the emphasis on graphic design instead of usability.

They can redesign the dashboard BUT keep the blades. I don't think the blades are bad, it is just better managing the data within it and easing the ability to find content.

Hey RC

On the PS3, things like having video clips of all the video's is interesting and certainly technically cool, there is just a ton of moving elements competing for your attention.

On top of that, as you select elements, previous menus will escape to the background creating residual noise that looks similar to what you are already looking at that.

Then, in cases where you have options you get this right-side panel that asks questions. The panel doesn't 'feel'/'flow', hard to describe.

On top of that is just the sheer amount of stuff you tend to see on the screen. Having lots of options to configure is great for the exploratory person, or the hardcore, but distracting for more users and that is worsened by seeing all the menu options that have nothing to do with what you are using still on the screen. I know they did it so that you can understand where you came from BUT it is just too much data.

Anyhow, it is the prettiest/sexiest of the UIs.

Hey Obie,

The Wii user inteface is definitely the easiest to grasp right away and navigate through. What may be more limiting is how to scale to lots of channels to easily find what you are looking for.

I'm not a huge fan of their graphical design however. People compare them to Apple, but Apple's graphical designs are more elegant.

Don't mind me ... I deal a lot of the UIs, so tend to be pretty opinionated :).

Sorry to be blunt, but I'm afraid I dont' agree with the design here. While some interesting ideas, on the whole it doesn't work.

First, the UI needs to work on SD and HD screens, which this won't. Even on HD screens the amount you can see is variable. You cannot ignore the SD, they are the majority.

Second, using buttons to choose the tab is cumbersome.

Third, there is too much information, particularly on the blades tab. Related is the excessive use of color for everything (including icons). The dashboard DID have color icons in some areas for awhile but MS took them out in the last dashboard update because it was just too distracting.

Fourth, the blades tabs have too much space, relatively speaking occupied by the non blade information.

Fifth, search is tough and mostly likely wouldn't be used by most people. The header spinner MS used is a fairly good primary solution as long as you have options (including ratings, either globally or friends only). Search is potentially doable BUT only as a secondary measure. Remember too, that the console is international, so doing that well for characters spaces of thousands of characters is needed (ie Japanese).

Sixth, it is generally considered a bad design pattern to have a ton of different flows (up/down vs left/right) for UI.

I think the analysis of space occupation is a good one, and something MS should consider heavily, but generally your designs aren't the direction to go.

It is hard to determine which is worse, the PS3 or 360 dashboard, they both have issues. I find the PS3 interface more distracting than the 360, though it is 'prettier'.

So again, I agree the dashboard could be better, something like this is even more distracting than the PS3's interface. Take a look at Apple's interfaces...while I don't agree with everything Apple does, they don't give UI's that suffer from overload. They are stream-lined and purpose built for a short number of tasks.

Actually I recommend The Orphange. Good film from a good director. Watched it last night (same director that is doing The Hobbit).

I also recommend The Life Aquatic, though not everyone likes that style of humour.