Xbox Live Pipeline: Interesting, Useless

Microsoft launched the Xbox Live Pipeline today, a web service that allows you to see everything that's available on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Why do I say it's not useful? Because you can't do the one, simple thing that someone using this service would expect: queue a download to start remotely. My immediate expectation is that I could sign in with my Windows Live ID, and since my Xbox 360 is registered to me, queue Dig Dug (released today on Xbox Live Arcade) and the new Prey downloads, and have them start when I fire up my Xbox 360 at home later. No dice. You can't log in to the site at all, in fact.

It's interesting that you can see what's up on the Marketplace over the web (and from a far more user friendly interface than exists on the Xbox 360), but until you can actually DO something on that site, it's useless. Just knowing something is on the Marketplace doesn't help you navigate the terrible UI for the Marketplace on the Xbox 360 any better.