XBOX 360 E User Guide
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The Xbox Live™Blade Xbox Live Gold and Silver members using auto sign-in always arrive at the Xbox Live blade first. This orange blade contains everything needed to take advantage of Xbox Live’s features.Click on your gamer card to edit your profile, view your games or rep, or adjust any of your profile settings, like auto sign-in and account management. The Xbox Live blade is every gamer’s first destination before a game session. Now Paging LordKillsALOT...—Messages Ask anyone, the key to any strong relationship is com- munication. Cheesy, but true. Even on Xbox Live. Communication is the door to gaming sessions with people on your friends list and to developing strategies for online play. To s e n d a m e s sa g e, choose Messages from the Xbox Live blade. From there you can do several things: > Create a new message. > Read through old messages. > Go through your friends list. > Go through a list of the players you’ve played with most recently online. 36 Xbox 360™Han dbook For more on your gamer profile, see chapter 4, “Identify Yourself!” TIP After selecting Messages, move left or right to cycle through the three main tabs at the top of the screen: Community, Friends, and Players. TIP Protected by copyright. Unauthorized or unlawful copying or downloading \ expressly prohibited.
You can reply to a message someone sent you, or create a new message. To reach out and touch some- one, select Create New and then Message. After select- ing Message, you can either enter a new gamertag or select a person from your friends list. After selecting a recipient: 1. Choose Voice, Text, or Add Picture. 2. Create your message, using the chosen method. 3. Edit the recipients list if you need to (you can also do this before creating a message). 4. Hit Send. People Who Frag Together, Stay Together—Friends If you choose the Friends option from the Xbox Live blade, you are automatically taken to your friends list. There you can add a friend or communicate with any who are online. If your friend is offline, you can also send him or her a message. The friends list is clearly labeled on the right-hand side, so that you can stay current with what your buds are up to. Your friend’s status depends on what he or she did last. For example, you might see any of the following statuses: > Away > Busy > Offline (Indicates that a player is not currently on Xbox Live.) > Currently playing > Last online (Indicates how long ago a player was last seen on Xbox Live.) 37 Four Blades, Infinite Possibilities Feeling creative? You can also send messages using all three methods. Write your friend a note, record a 15-second message, and snap a picture. How about that? TIP You can send a picture attachment only if youhave the Xbox Live Vision camera. NOTE From the Create New page you can also send aprivate chat invitation, a game invitation, or a friend request to anyone online. NOTE If you’re sending a picture, check out the array of effects you can add to your snapshot. Choose the Add Effect option and cycle through the selections. It may strike you as a little trippy at first, but with some ingenuity you can create some really cool- looking photos. Did You Know? Protected by copyright. Unauthorized or unlawful copying or downloading \ expressly prohibited.
Shopping Sprees, not Fragging Sprees—Xbox Live Marketplace Aside from chatting and keeping in touch with friends, you can also take advantage of the Xbox Live Marketplace. By choosing either Xbox Live Marketplace or the Xbox Live banner on the Xbox Live blade, you can instantly jump into the marketplace.There you can download all matter of Xbox 360 goodies from themes to entirely new games. Check out chapter 6, “This Little Gamer Went to Market,” for more on the Xbox Live Marketplace. The Games Blade The first destination for Xbox 360 gamers who don’t have an Xbox Live mem- bership is the Games blade. Here you can relish your achievements, remi- nisce about previously played games, and even scout games to tackle next. Of course, you can also come here to playgames, too. If you’ve downloaded games from Xbox Live Arcade, this is where you go to launch them. 38 Xbox 360™Han dbook You can cycle left or right from your friends list to the Messages tab or the Players tab, respectively. NOTE Protected by copyright. Unauthorized or unlawful copying or downloading \ expressly prohibited.
Achievements This is your trophy area. By clicking on Achievements, you can see a list of every single achievement you’ve unlocked. Not bad, eh? Not only that, but the number at the top right of the screen indicates your maximum possible achievement score.The closer your actual gamerscore is to the possible gamerscore, the more dedication to playing you show. For everything you need to know about achievements, flip to chapter 5, “Making Your Mark.” To navigate through your achievements, remember the following tips: > Move up or down to cycle through all games or each game individually. > Move left or right to sift through each individual achievement icon. > Press 1to select an achievement icon and read detailed information on it. Gaming History—Played Games The Played Games option is more of a shortcut list than an entirely new page. When you select Played Games, a list of every game you’ve ever played pops up. From there, you can select any title in your gaming history for more options. They include: > Achievements: Click on this to see all of the game’s possible achievements. > S tored Game Items: Click on this to zip over to the memory storage units and find saved files, down- loaded content, themes, and so forth for your game. > Downloads: Click on this to zoom over to the game’s Xbox Live Marketplace section, where you can down- load more content or just see if anything new has been made available for download. 39 Four Blades, Infinite Possibilities Protected by copyright. Unauthorized or unlawful copying or downloading \ expressly prohibited.
Your Personal Arcade Machine— Xbox Live Arcade Perhaps the most innovative feature of the Xbox 360 is its Xbox Live Arcade. A virtual arcade with a never- ending supply of games? Who can complain?Select Xbox Live Arcade from the Games blade to access your downloaded arcade games. From there you can select any of your downloaded arcade games, download more games, or jump right back into the most recently played arcade title. For more information on the Xbox Live Arcade, skip to chapter 7, “Arcade Action, Zero Quar ters.” Play and Watch—Demos and Game Videos Thanks to Xbox Live Marketplace, you no longer need to hunt down demos and trailers of upcoming games. All that hard work is done for you. All you need to do is take advantage of Xbox Live Marketplace and you’ll have more demos and videos than you can shake a remote at. After downloading them, select either Demos (for demos, of course) or Game Videos (for trailers). That’s it. Select what you want, and all your downloaded content will come up. 40 Xbox 360™Han dbook Don’t forget to delete the demos and trailers after you’ve purchased the game. That way, you clear room for more content on your hard drive. TIP Protected by copyright. Unauthorized or unlawful copying or downloading \ expressly prohibited.
The Media Blade The Media blade is a great place to start when you want to expand your Xbox 360 experience beyond gaming. After successfully linking your Xbox 360 to a Windows Media Center- or Windows XP-enabled PC, go to the Media blade to take advantage of its functionality.This topic is covered in depth in chapter 9, “Lean, Mean, Multimedia Machine.” For now, here is a quick overview. Music Music lovers, rejoice! The Xbox 360 music options are robust enough to create a homemade jukebox, but simple enough to control that you won’t get lost in a sea of band names, album titles, and song statistics. You have plenty of options when listening to music. 41 Four Blades, Infinite Possibilities Protected by copyright. Unauthorized or unlawful copying or downloading \ expressly prohibited.
First, there’s the music player. After you select your music, this is your default control panel. Use the onscreen controls to: > Play, pause, or stop music. > Skip songs. > Adjust the volume. > Edit or save the playlist. > Shuffle songs. > Cycle through the current playlist. > Scroll through the available visualizations. You can also select music by clicking on Hard Drive to access music ripped on to the Xbox 360 hard drive. Select Computer to access music on a Windows Media Center- or Windows XP-enabled PC. Current Disc is for playing music from a CD, and the last option is for streaming music from a portable music device, like a Zune or iPod. 42 Xbox 360™Han dbook Regardless of which source you choose, the music player is still the default control program. NOTE Users familiar with Windows Media Player will recognize the visualization features as well as the song length read- outs. When a song is playing, however, the length readout isreplaced by an equalizer graphic indicating that that song is currently playing.You can get your music from a variety of sources, but it is often best to consolidate your music onto one source. Flipping between your computer, your Xbox 360 hard drive, and your Microsoft® Zune ™ will eventually become a hassle. Instead, why not store all your music on your Zune? Or if you have too much music for that, leave it on your computer’shard drive and free up space on your Xbox 360 hard drive. It’s up to you, but why not make it easy on yourself? NOTE Take advantage ofthe visualization features in the music player. Press 3to make the visu- alization full screen, and then 2to shrink it again. To toggle the visualization on and off, press 4. TIP NOTE Protected by copyright. Unauthorized or unlawful copying or downloading \ expressly prohibited.
43 Four Blades, Infinite Possibilities Once you’ve set up a playlist, you can continue to navigate the XboxDashboard without interrupting the music. You don’t have to stay at the music player screen to listen to music. NOTE If you pop in a CD, the music player options change a bit. The Edit and Save Playlist option is replaced by Rip CD. Press the Rip CD button to select which songs to rip onto your hard drive. Either rip the entire CD by pressing Rip CD, or press 4to deselect every song and then pick and choose which ones you want. Once you’ve chosen, highlight Rip CD and press 1. As the songs are being ripped to the Xbox 360 hard drive, you can highlight a song, press 1and then edit the song’s name, artist name, or genre. Be sure to select Save Changes when you’re done, though, or otherwise the CD you create will retain the original information. Did You Know? Protected by copyright. Unauthorized or unlawful copying or downloading \ expressly prohibited.
44 Xbox 360™Han dbook Pics Just as the Music option of the Media blade lets you hear tunes, the Pictures option enables you to view pictures on your TV. Import them from a digital camera, stream them from your computer, or even read them from a disc.If you have a Zune or image-capable iPod, you can also view pictures from those devices. Simply select a picture source, highlight the photo, and voila! Select Play Slideshow to use the slideshow feature. Videos To view stored videos on your Xbox 360 hard drive, select Video from the Media blade. From the list that pops up of every stored video on your hard drive, select one, and you’re ready to go. All kinds of video—game trailers, movie trailers, game hints, and so forth—show up in the Video option of the Media blade. Media Center The Media Center option is what the Media blade is all about. Here you can take advantage of all of the above-mentioned features from one source, your computer. Watch live or recorded TV, on-demand movies, music and photos, streaming video, and more. And it’s all covered in chapter 9, “Lean, Mean, Multimedia Machine.” Protected by copyright. Unauthorized or unlawful copying or downloading \ expressly prohibited.
The System Blade This may not be the blade used most often, but it is probably one of the most important. You need the System blade to properly set up your console, pro- tect your family, and manage your memory.The number of choices in the System blade is enormous, but all are necessary. The System blade comes into play from initial setup to network settings, and for every- thing in between. Console Settings At first, the Console Setting menu, with its huge number of options, might seem a bit overwhelming. Display: Pick between HDTV or Normal screen formats. For HDTV settings, you can choose from various reso- lutions. Normal Screen format has two settings, Normal or Widescreen. Audio: Choose from Analog Output or Digital Output, and enable or disable Sound Effects while navigating the Xbox Dashboard. Themes: Change your themes. Language: Select which of nine languages to display on the Xbox Dashboard. Clock: View or change the clock on the Xbox Dashboard. Locale: Your locale settings affect things like Family Settings and wireless network configurations. You will want to change locales only if you move from one country to another. Otherwise, it’s probably best to just leave this be. Startup: Want to avoid having to select Play Game or Play DVD after powering up? If so, change the settings to automatically boot whatever disc is in the tray upon startup. 45 Four Blades, Infinite Possibilities If you’re choosing between HDTV screen set- tings, don’t forget to flip the switch to HD on the Xbox 360 AV cables. TIP Protected by copyright. Unauthorized or unlawful copying or downloading \ expressly prohibited.