Types of 360 Testing

Play Testing and Function Testing

The most basic types of testing, can be anything from a tester in studio or a at home tester. They check for basic gameplay bugs and glitches, and relays this back to a developer. A play tester analyzes particular parts of the game he or she was assigned and finds anything from walking through a wall to a not working item in the game. You might have to test for giant bugs like freezing and crashing or more particular instances that require constant play to find. Functionality testing is the most sought after sect of testing that Xbox 360 gamers want to get into. It doesn't require you to work in an office and can be done at home. Most of the time you will be told what exactly your testing for after you Sign up and get your first game

TCR and ESRB

Another kind of testing that really doesn't have that many game play elements is satisfying and checking a game for TCR. TCR stands for Technical Certification Requirements and they are a specific set of guidelines that first party developers and people who work along side Microsoft need to follow. Guidelines such as memory card formatting, copyright laws and trademark liabilities.

What this pretty much means is that a person would test for content that needs to be removed due to an conflict of interests and (or) laws. Besides demanding certain quality qualifications there is also the need to test for mature content and rating of a game. In order to specify the rating of a certain game testers take in account gore, sex, blood, language and any other adult content. Besides the actual ESRB testing this material, Microsoft has to make sure it's ready to be rated.

Stress Testing

This particular type of testing doesn't usually require hired testers, and usually applies to online multiplayer games or MMOs. Pretty much developers want to test any bugs in the game by releasing a beta version to the public, this will test compatibility issues with different hardware. It also tests how well the interaction is between online users. People are free to play these betas and send emails to support with any problems that may hinder game functionality. Halo 3 released a beta before the game was released or even done, the purpose of the beta wasn't only to find bugs but also find out what the players liked or didn't like about the game.