40 Days #20: Let me insert a game on the sly

Over the course of its dashboard updates the Xbox 360 changed what it can do when it first starts up. Initially it would always start the game in the tray. Later an option was added to go to the Dashboard, and recently another choice to open up the Media Center Extender.

Those are great little improvements that fixed what was once an aggravating issue: if you started the console with a disc in the tray, but you didn't want to play the game right then, you had to manually quit it to get back to the dashboard.

However, something similar still happens when your console is already on and you insert a disc. This may seem strange, but there are times when I want to get a disc ready, but not play it just yet. Maybe I am using the Media Center Extender or watching a video. Maybe the console is just on, I am right there, and want to swap discs. Sometimes I just want to get a game prepared for later. Call it being lazy in advance. Right now, inserting a disc interrupts anything else going on and starts the new game.

Although this may be a feature desired by maybe three people out there, it would probably be a quick and easy fix. Just add an extra option to specify whether discs auto play whenever they are inserted. Nothing fancy, and leaving the default setting as on would not impact the other gamers who probably wouldn't care about it anyway.