Let me preface this by saying that I love the concept of custom soundtracks on the 360. Their attempt at a standardized system between games is a fantastic idea and long overdue in my opinion. That said, I have some quibbles about it's implementation. Let me also specify that my thoughts are all based upon my experiences using a 3rd gen iPod with an official Apple USB2 adapter in PGR3.
My first complaint has to do with shuffling and playlists. Before getting my 360, I created a playlist on my iPod specifically for racing games. I was able to come up with about 150 songs or so. When I first tried using it though, I got a message from the 360 saying there were too many songs and it would select the first 100. Fine, that's not that big of a deal. I then went through an eliminated enough songs until it would take the whole selection (this ended up being 99 songs). Now, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to make it shuffle the playlist. Sometimes, it will actually do it on its own automatically. Usually, though, it will just play through all the songs alphabetically. I've looked through all the settings on the 360 to find such an option to no avail. Has anyone else had any luck?
My second complaint has to do with how the 360 deals with power when it comes to third party music devices. To put it plainly, it doesn't. There is no power supplied to the device at all. So, if it runs out of power during play, that's it. You're done and you have to recharge. As a bonus, I think the system even locks up if the device runs out of power while you're playing something. My iPod has only run out once but when it did, PGR3 locked up completely. I had to do a hard reset of the system. At the same time, my iPod stays on when I turn the system off. So, unless I remember to get out of my chair, walk to the 360, and manually turn the device off, it will continue to stay on until the battery runs out. This isn't that big of a deal but it does sorta negate the benefits of being able to turn off the console with the controller.
Aside from these problems, I do have to say that I enjoy the 360's custom soundtrack options. Being able to spontaneously open the Xbox Guide and quickly navigate to my music is intuitive The aforementioned complaints to somewhat sour the experience though. I'm hoping it will be possible to correct them through future Live updates but I'm not sure how realistic that is.
My first complaint has to do with shuffling and playlists. Before getting my 360, I created a playlist on my iPod specifically for racing games. I was able to come up with about 150 songs or so. When I first tried using it though, I got a message from the 360 saying there were too many songs and it would select the first 100. Fine, that's not that big of a deal. I then went through an eliminated enough songs until it would take the whole selection (this ended up being 99 songs). Now, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to make it shuffle the playlist. Sometimes, it will actually do it on its own automatically. Usually, though, it will just play through all the songs alphabetically. I've looked through all the settings on the 360 to find such an option to no avail. Has anyone else had any luck?
My second complaint has to do with how the 360 deals with power when it comes to third party music devices. To put it plainly, it doesn't. There is no power supplied to the device at all. So, if it runs out of power during play, that's it. You're done and you have to recharge. As a bonus, I think the system even locks up if the device runs out of power while you're playing something. My iPod has only run out once but when it did, PGR3 locked up completely. I had to do a hard reset of the system. At the same time, my iPod stays on when I turn the system off. So, unless I remember to get out of my chair, walk to the 360, and manually turn the device off, it will continue to stay on until the battery runs out. This isn't that big of a deal but it does sorta negate the benefits of being able to turn off the console with the controller.
Aside from these problems, I do have to say that I enjoy the 360's custom soundtrack options. Being able to spontaneously open the Xbox Guide and quickly navigate to my music is intuitive The aforementioned complaints to somewhat sour the experience though. I'm hoping it will be possible to correct them through future Live updates but I'm not sure how realistic that is.
