Halo 3, XBox and Technical Communication? (Part 5)

consumer electronics,xbox,xbox live,xbox marketplace,elearning,slingbox,distance learning

Introduction to Xbox Live Marketplace - The eLearning Potential

The Marketplace allows you to purchase points, basically their currency, and downloadable content is sold with these points. You can purchase them over the counter in places such as Target, you can give them to minors who don’t hold credit card accounts as prepaid gift cards.

With those points you can purchase on demand movies (in HD, by the way, allowing XBox to compete with hardware manufacturers like Sony and their Blu-Ray HD dvd), music, (the Zune is the iPod competitor from Microsoft), arcade style / casual games (the leading consumer of online casual games believe it or not are women over 35), and even TV shows without commercials.

Xbox Marketplace: Free Content

I went to see the movie I Am Legend this weekend with a friend. Since I have decided not to get the satellite TV package which is my only choice where I live here in Connectivity Hell (my new apartment), I found out about it through the XBox marketing within XBox Live.I downloaded the trailers, some online flash-based comics (going, holy cow, this looks great!) and went and bought my $10.50 ticket to see it this past Saturday.

OT about Will Smith’s new movie I Am Legend

Here’s the buzz on Legend from an MTV entertainment wrapup:

Faster than the White Witch, more powerful than the One Ring, able to leap King Kong in a single frame — Will Smith officially certified himself as Hollywood’s Superman this past weekend, leading “I Am Legend” to an astounding $76.5 million. The gargantuan haul eclipsed “The Chronicles of Narnia,” “Meet the Fockers,” “King Kong” and all three “Lord of the Rings” movies to become the biggest December opening in history.

I didn’t know this until today, obviously I’m not alone in thinking it’s a phenomenal picture. In looking into the DC comics tie-in (Flash animated downloadable content) I noticed that Jada Pinkett-Smith, his wife and accomplished actress in her own right, was listed as one of the top producers.

Go see it. It’s scary, touching, funny, has an edge and a lot of character.

Distance Learning - Strong Potential with XBox Marketplace

XBox Marketplace is clearly a model that can be used with distance learning and other online courses. Imagine users of the XBox being able to use the same GUI and interface they’ve grown up with to get tutored in basic college level courses, and these courses being a two-way connection where the content is, as Silke now calls it, conceptual simulation.

I think this is an example of another educational framework whose application will either become marketable or not. I’m betting it will, given time and the adoption phase is still moving.

As a parent, I totally dig the value XBox has put onto their product in limiting the profiles to certain hours per day or per week. If I had distance learning or other content on the Xbox, I could lock down the box until homework was done - even if it was homework in advanced Greek, Geometry, etc.

As a consumer, I chose to access my internet connection instead of pipelining mainstream media (commercials are things I hate) through the XBox, obtaining HD content without the added bundle nightmare of yet another set-top box and monthly cost.

You get the drift.

Gaming and eLearning within your home – XBox eLearning?

I finally started using the XBox Christmas 2006 and have an XBox Live account. I’ve done several reviews of games for another blog prior to starting mine, and from time to time I participate in focus groups and user studies which derive significant market data for the major players.

The research company TDG Research did a set-top box study a few years ago in early 2005 which I was able to participate in. Additionally, they also spoke to many technical community leaders such as Macromedia and Microsoft to develop their market research questions.

I was in the rare position of being able to be a fly on the wall and listen to some of these open discussions with the division managers and Michael Greeson, the chief analyst at TDG Research.

The Diffusion Group (where the TDG in TDG Research comes from) has this offering in their current stack of reports from their ‘Place Shifted Media’ study:

By 2012, TDG predicts that there will be 95 million active, configured place shifting servers in broadband households around the world. The most frequently used device for this function will be the PC (with 48 million PS servers) followed by game consoles (with nearly 23 million units), hybrid IP/digital TV set-top boxes (with 13.6 million units), and digital media adapters (with 8.7 million units).

The coolest part was hearing the big player’s operational level (Directors, VPs, strategy guys either those who set it or those who carry it out) talking about their focus for the future. The problems they were trying to solve included how to digitally transport your content.

Your games, your music, your movies. Your stuff on Xbox Live

One big question that stood out in my mind was in how a person replaces that media which is lost, stolen, or destroyed without repurchasing it?

XBox’s Marketplace has gone a far distance in providing this. If your download is corrupted, your profile has shown that you have purchased the file and you’re able to freely download another copy.

The Marketplace allows you to purchase points, basically their currency, and downloadable content is sold with these points. You can purchase them over the counter in places such as Target, you can give them to minors who don’t hold credit card accounts as prepaid gift cards.