It’s that time of year again when the prospect of a new dashboard update looms large for 360 owners. As usual specualtion is rife of the features that will be implemeted and, as is now customary, a list of supposed features have appeared in various places.
Amongst these are some interesting tidbids which could bring about some welcomed changes to the way Xbox Live Arcade works.
Achievements - while Microsoft have recently stopped demo’s for Arcade games showing up a big fat 0 points and messing up your gamerscore, if the new list is to be believed then this update will finally allow users to remove any left over games in which no points have been obtained.
Those obsessed with their e-penis unblemished gamescore record have been crying out for this for ages and if it turns out to be true then they’ll probably explode with excitement.
DRM - the rumours suggest that there will also be changes to the Digital Rights Management for Live Arcade games and that it will make it a bit easier to sort things out if you’ve experienced the Red Ring of Death.
Since the 360 doesn’t have the best of reputations for reliability, users have encountered problems in using downloaded content on replacement systems unless they are logged in to Live. It’s possible that the fix could allow you to reset the DRM and attach it your your current console (something that Microsoft, and more recently Gamerscore blog, have tried to say was possible all along but very few people have actually had success with).
Integrated File Sharing - this one’s quite interesting and suggests that it may make it easier for user generated content to be shared over XBLA games. For example user created levels for games like N+.
There’s no way of knowing just yet if these are more than the craftily created ramblings of some internet prankster, but hopefully Microsoft will confirm or deny these quite soon. Fingers crossed they’re not the stuff of make believe.
