RFC: Simple method for generating, saving and/or sharing Xbox 360 screen captures/grabs

Image by Casul Media via Flickr

The problem: We Xbox 360 gamers love to brag and share on our experiences playing the console, but there is simply no easy way to grab a screen capture or video. Some games have implemented this kind of feature and it is extremely popular. For example, Halo 3 let me record a game as pure telemetry, which kept the file size tiny, then use it to generate a video that I could edit for view angle (overkill). Forza 3 allows you to take captures with an in-game camera, and even allows exporting videos.

Proposed solution:

Implement changes to the Xbox 360 dashboard, that allows the user to:

1. Hit the center button in the controller and quickly take a screen grab, which can be:
   1. saved to the Xbox 360 pictures library.
   2. sent to any of the members of the friends list.
   3. send it to the SkyDrive associated with the Live ID associated with the gamer tag.
2. Optional:
   1. same functionality as #1, but as a video.
   2. same functionality as #1.2, but for other social media like Twitter and Facebook.
   3. same functionality as #1.3, but for Flickr, Picasa, etc.

If you are reading this and you know how to reach the powers that be that are actually in a position to suggest this kind of feature, please let me know.

The biggest challenge here is that it can’t be a community project: third party content generated by the community is limited to Arcade games, anything beyond that is usually between Microsoft and some other entity (think Netflix, Last.fm, Twitter, etc.). The only way this can be implemented is by the team that drives the development of the console dashboard.