Things I Can’t Say In Front Of My ****

So, by now you won’t have been able to avoid the new Xbox Dashboard (at least, you won’t if you have a 360 or any friends who do). There’s plenty of changes to make some of us wonder what magnificent things are coming in the near future, and plenty to make those afraid of change claim it’s the worst update, they can’t find anything, blah blah bitty-blah. Still, I’m all for it. Whilst it may take a while to find your way around, every update ends up being more useful than we thought as new features make our consoles an even bigger part of our lives. But, the largest noticeable difference (other than the image overhaul) has to be the Kinect capability. It is now compulsory for all apps to have some degree of voice or gesture control, even if not everyone has Kinect (I’m seeing this as yet another sign that I’m right about the next gen coming with it as standard). It works very well for menu navigation, and I am still amazed that you can simply say things to Bing! and they’re picked up perfectly 99% of the time (“Pac-Man” may bamboozle it into thinking you said “Packman”, but “pomegranate” causes no problems at all. The things I check for you people!), but it’s also created a new dilemma in my house.

Once upon a time, in a time before Kinect, you could say whatever the hell you wanted in your gaming space without fear of any repercussions (as long as your headset was off anyway – keep it clean people, there’s kids out there). Then came Kinect and we had to learn to say 360, not Xbox when in general conversation otherwise you’d suddenly end up launching something. It was a lesson I never really learnt unfortunately, and now it’s causing chaos. Whereas once it just meant an untimely trip to the Kinect hub (annoying, but hardly the end of the world), it now can lead you anywhere.

When on the phone trying to tell someone the new dashboard had arrived I used the now forbidden X-word, of course this was promptly picked up by the system without me paying attention. I then followed up with the K-word, which my system decided was close enough to count as “next”. I carried on talking about the LoveFilm update and before I knew it, it was selecting an “action” movie for me to play!

There are now soooo many words available to say on your humble dashboard that the word Xbox now needs to be censored. Maybe even outright banned, unless of course you’re intentionally addressing your console. Never again can I utter the word in my lounge. N.B. Additionally, it turns out I can’t say “egg box” as that is heard as close enough. Maybe the equivalent of a swear jar could do the trick. Something needs to work, or before I know it my avatar will be dressed as Santa, my theme will be Twilight, and my music list will be nothing but Jedward. *Shudders* You can’t let this happen people! As I’m sure these are all signs of the apocalypse it is up to you to help me talk less about games… at least when I’m in front of the games. Kinect voice controls may be very cool and futuristic but until I learn to censor myself I guess I’ll have to keep shtum in front of the ****. After all, I’ll learn eventually, right?