40 Days #5: Rip off the Wii's gifting feature and kick it up a notch

I was really disappointed last year that Nintendo - the company that doesn't ever seem to do very much right in the online department - beat Microsoft to the one obvious feature that you'd want to see in an online network that has both users and content to sell: the ability to gift downloadable content to other members. Months later, with just hours until Christmas, Microsoft debuted a lame point-gifting system that was in beta at the time, and seems to be completely deactivated now. How it is that Microsoft - who celebrated the fifth anniversary of its Xbox Live service - still hasn't implemented this sort of thing, is beyond me.

The point-gifting attempt was certainly interesting, and I am not saying that a bank-like point-transfer system between user accounts wouldn't be useful. However, most consumers would much more appreciate the ability to send a piece of downloadable content to another player.

Nintendo's gifting system is actually pretty well thought out. You find a piece of content, choose the option to gift it, pick a lucky recipient, and send the message. The recipient can accept or reject the gift, and any gifts not accepted within a certain timeframe are credited back to the original generous gift giver. So far so good, but it's so bare bones and unimaginative. Microsoft has enough back-end data in its service to make the experience a lot more interesting and personalized.

First of all, there really need to be two ways to start the giving process. One, just like on the Wii, is when you find a piece of content and decide to pay it forward. Pick a recipient, add a text/video/audio message and send it off. Points get deducted from your account at that point. The recipient gets the message, has the option to accept - which initiates the download right then and there - or reject, which credits the points back to the giver. Perhaps ask the recipient to optionally send back a thank you message, and send an automatic conformation to the giver. Again, after some default time period, all unclaimed gifts get credited back.

The interesting stuff begins when the system goes to check if the user already has that particular piece of content and tells you to pick something else. Then you are at the same point as the other initial gifting method - first selecting a recipient and then deciding on what to give them. Given all the back-end purchase-history and game-play data, the Marketplace should start you off with, say, five or so suggestions. These could be determined in a number of ways:

• Based on what you tried to gift in the first place (for example, a map pack), see if there is more content for that title that the user doesn't already have (e.g., another map pack).
• If it is something like an arcade game, perhaps suggest games of the same genre.
• Suggest some items in the same price bracket.
• Add the top items being gifted across the network at that time.
• Take a look at the types of games the benefactor plays a lot (for example, shooters) and suggest content that they don't already have for another game that they have played in that genre.

Another example of using all the back-end data would be a warning that the gift giver receives when they try to gift a piece of content for a game that the recipient has never played. This would the type of situation where I try to send somebody the Shivering Isles expansion for Oblivion, but they have never played that game. Now, either I am making a mistake and need to think about my choice some more, or I know that the other person is getting the retail game soon, and this gift actually does make sense. However, a heads up would be nice, just in case.

This whole suggestion mechanism that closely looks at what the recipient already has and plays would also be useful to "casual givers": people like parents, relatives, or significant others of more hardcore gamers - all those who want to send somebody a nice little something (a feature that should be pretty popular around holidays and birthdays), but have absolutely no idea what the other person likes or wants. After all, making buying and sending content easier for the uninitiated makes a lot of sense for the bottom line of all those involved in digital distribution.

I really hope to see a robust gifting system on Xbox Live at least in time for Christmas.