The Future of Video Rental!

Update: A kindly person from the Xbox team has (indirectly) pointed out that in the XBLA screen, you can choose to view games that you recently downloaded, which addresses one of my complaints below. I think this was a new feature of the last Dashboard update, because I hadn't seen it before. I notice you can also view your 'Recently Played' games, which is also handy. Yay! (At least, I think that one's a new feature...hmm...)

My Xbox 360 has been dropping heavy hints about the fact that I can now rent movies from Xbox Live Marketplace for a few weeks now, so on a whim I decided to try it out.

I was tempted to watch 300, but that's like £2.99 on DVD now, so I went for Zodiac instead. I plumped for the more expensive HD (720p) version just for the hell of it, even though I probably can't tell the difference from my sofa unless I'm wearing my glasses. It comes to about £4.50 I think, for the HD version.

Zodiac!

Anyway, it was 6.9Gb to download, so I set it going and then left the Xbox 360 on the 'Active Downloads' screen, so I could tell when it had finished easily.

Next day, I check the Xbox 360:

Yay! It's finished downloading.

Cool. Let's watch the movie. Now, will it be under Xbox Live Marketplace, or under my media tab..? I am always amazed that the 360 Dashboard doesn't have a 'show me the stuff I downloaded recently' facility. For instance, I have a 120Gb Elite Xbox 360, so I have about 135 games in my Xbox Live Arcade section. Whenever I try a new one, the 360 always makes me go and find it in that list of 135 games. That always makes for a great UX, let me tell you. (Note: see update above)

Oh, well. Let's try the media tab first...

It ought to be in here somewhere

The 'Video store' option just takes me to the place where I bought the video, so let's try the 'Videos' section:

Oh. Not in there then.

This isn't good. Maybe I am supposed to access it via the Video store after all. Let's go there:

Zodiac. Again.

Ok, so there's the movie. It seems to think I have it already, judging from the 'tick' mark next to the movie. Ok, so let's select it and watch the movie!

Huh?

Er, it thinks I want to rent this movie. Surely it knows I've already rented it? Well, ok, maybe it will notice I already have it later, so let's carry on.

No kidding, professsor!

At this point my Xbox 360 decides to get all existential on my ass, informing me that I 'may' have downloaded this movie before. May? May? From the console's total lack of information about my movie download status, I certainly have no idea whether it worked, but surely the freakin' console has some idea if it worked or not?!

Aside: the same thing happens if you try to download something and the download queue is full (*ahem* CString Downloads[6]; *ahem*) - the download fails, but the 360 still thinks you may have downloaded it. Maybe. Possibly. Look, just get off its fucking back, ok? What do you think it is, some kind of goddamn computer?! Oh, you'd like that, wouldn't you?

I'm sorry, but this really has nothing to do with us

At this point, I try hunting around all the tabs/places I can think of, but I am utterly unable to find the damn movie anywhere.

I decide to call Xbox support for a laugh. The nice lady from the outsourcing office on the Moon tells me to try a few things, culminating in going to the 'System' tab. The System tab? I had honestly never thought of going there to find my downloaded Zodiac movie. So anyway, we go there on a voyage of discovery:

The System tab. For all your movie rental needs.

The Xbot tells me to hit that Memory option, so we go deeper, and see how far the rabbit hole goes:

UI principle #35: Don't make the user choose when there is only one choice.

Er, I guess I'll choose my hard disc unit then. Seems like the most sensible course of action.

Ooh, videos!

I excitedly choose the 'Videos' option:

That doesn't look good.

Now, I'm pretty sure that the icon for the movie 'Zodiac' isn't supposed to be a warning triangle. Let's get some more info:

Incomplete? Incomplete?! Thanks for letting me know!

The nice lady explains that the movie didn't download properly. She is unable to offer me any information as to why this might be, or why the software didn't tell me this, etc. I find I have lost interest in Xbox Live movie rentals, so I ask if the points can be refunded to my account.

This turns out to be a secret time-sink, as I then have to create a customer account with her on the phone (Hello? Don't I already have an account with Xbox Live, ffs?) and faff about waiting on hold while she confirms things, etc.

In all, I'm on the phone for 20 minutes and end up with the promise that the points will be refunded to my account within 72 hours.

It makes going to Blockbuster look convenient.

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