Dashboard Light

While I'm not particularly negative regarding the Dash update in general - I think it's a nice visual overhaul, if not exactly a thing of beauty, and the arrival of Lovefilm and promise of iPlayer is very welcome - I do agree with the Marketplace detractors to an extent. I think that there are serious criticisms to be levelled at what's been done in terms of Marketplace and content promotion, and questions to be asked over some of the decisions being made within Microsoft with regard to those aspects of the Dash.

Put bluntly, while I don't think that the new Marketplace is worse than the old Marketplace in any particular way, I also don't think it's much better - and that's a worrying thing, because the old Marketplace was absolutely flat-out dreadful. As the range of content available on Xbox Live has broadened and deepened, the interface has consistently struggled to keep up with it. Things have improved since the early days when you had to scroll past multiple pages of FIFA and Madden gamer icons and themes in order to see content for other games - but not much. The fundamental experience of trying to find new things you're interested in on Xbox Live remains one of scrolling through endless lists.

On Xbox Live, you've got relevant data about individual audience members up to your armpits - and Microsoft isn't using a damn bit of it

Compared with something like the App Store, it's archaic. Compared to the complex and intelligent product discovery and promotion systems used by the likes of Amazon, it's nothing short of primitive. For a Dash update that's meant to be a taste of the future, a delve into the marketplace aspects - arguably the most important part of the Dash after the button which allows you to actually play games - feels disappointingly like the past.

I've been an Xbox Live Gold subscriber for most of the past decade. Microsoft knows more about my gaming habits and preferences than any other company out there - more than Sony or Nintendo, more than Apple, even more than Google. It knows every game I've played, and how long I've played them for. It knows that I'm more likely to complete the story of a game on a normal difficulty mode once and then move on, than I am to stick around on one game for ages unlocking all the challenges. It knows I like shooters and RPGs, and never play sports games. It knows what DLC I've paid for, which games I've played online, which items I've dressed my avatars in, how many friends I've got online and what they play.

Microsoft, in other words, is in the absolutely ideal position to create the best Marketplace experience imaginable for both its consumers and its development partners. The kind of recommendations it could offer would leave Apple's "Genius" system blinking in the dust. Yet instead, when I go to Marketplace, I see the same massive, mind-numbing list of content that everyone else sees - and when I turn on my console, I see the same huge ad for FIFA, a game which I will never, ever buy, that everyone else sees.

This isn't some kind of crazy blue-sky science fiction that we're talking about here. If you deal with the advertising industry much, you know that Google and Amazon's innovations in terms of data mining consumers and targeting promotions and recommendations accordingly are rapidly becoming standard practice. In some environments this is hard; it's tough to figure out how much bang you're getting for your buck on TV, for example. On Xbox Live, you've got relevant data about individual audience members up to your armpits - and Microsoft isn't using a damn bit of it.

None of this detracts from what an essentially brilliant piece of work the evolution of the Dash has been over the past half-decade. Microsoft has understood what its rivals have completely failed to grasp - that software OS updates can turn a five year old console into a new machine, over and over again. Turn on your PS3 today and it's still the same PS3 it was when it launched, with the Cross-Media Bar looking more dated and unfit for purpose than ever. The Xbox, however, is indistinguishable from its former self. It's slick, powerful, clever, all-singing, all-dancing - a triumph resulting from the vital recognition of software and services, not hardware, as the real driver of the console market.

But it could be much better - and if it's to face down the challenges to come, then it must be much better. Gamers may dream of it, but the worst thing that could happen to Xbox is that it becomes relegated to a machine you stick discs into once again. If it's to be a vital platform that gives Microsoft the foothold it needs in the living room, it must be a content platform that's superb at selling - and it's going to face big rivals in that regard. Apple, Amazon and Google all have thinly disguised ambitions in that regard. Even Sony may clamber back onto the wagon, given the right leadership. The Xbox Dash isn't just a few shiny new pixels - it's Microsoft's most powerful weapon in the war for the living room, and even if it's the best in its class right now, it still needs to do much better.