Microsoft Details Next Xbox Live Dashboard Update
Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: Microsoft, Live, Xbox, 360, Dashboard | Themes: Digital Entertainment, The Internet
Microsoft continues to make NXE snazzier.
Microsoft detailed at E3 2009 new evolutions to the New Xbox Experience dashboard, and yesterday sent out more detailed information on what to expect from each feature when the update hits later this summer.
The following information comes straight from Microsoft:
Netflix Updates
Now you can watch movies with your friends no matter where they are and manage your queue from the comfort of your couch.
- Movie Parties – Xbox LIVE Gold members can sit together in a virtual theater with up to seven friends no matter where they are while your Avatars watch a movie, flirt or even throw popcorn at each other.
- Manage Your Queue – Browse the Netflix Instant Watch video catalogue, choose from the most popular movies and genres and add to your queue all from the comfort of your couch – no computer required.
- Enhanced Playback Experience – Enjoy a smooth viewing experience when your internet bandwidth fluctuates.
- Friends Info – Richer information is now displayed in the Friends channel and in the Guide showing what you and your friends are doing.
Avatar Marketplace
Express yourself! Deck your Avatar out with the latest clothing and props from the top brands and game franchises. Please note that only limited content is currently available in the preview.
Clothing
Download premium items, including branded apparel from your favorite fashion labels and Xbox 360 games such as "Halo."
- Props – You can now equip your avatar with animated items they can carry around and interact with.
- Awardables – The ability to earn Avatar clothing and props as rewards within games has been added. Please stay tuned for an update on supporting titles.
Games on Demand -- Please note that Games on Demand will be available in the preview beginning early August.
Enjoy 24 x 7 access to a growing online library of popular full game titles on Xbox LIVE whenever you want them, in the comfort of your living room.
- Purchase Options – Browse and download a great selection of full Xbox 360 games using Microsoft Points, direct debit, or credit card.
- Game Manuals – Game manuals for Games on Demand titles can be viewed, downloaded or printed on Xbox.com.
- It's Yours Forever! – As with other Xbox LIVE content, Games on Demand titles are linked to your Xbox LIVE account, so you can delete and re-download anything you have already purchased to the same console or another console.
User Ratings
User ratings help you find games that other people think are awesome!
- Rate it – You can now rate every game on the Xbox LIVE Games Marketplace using a 5-star system.
- Sort and Find it – Now you can easily find the games that everyone's been raving about by visiting the Top Rated games in the Browse All category of Xbox LIVE Games Marketplace.
Xbox LIVE Parties
Everyone loves to Party! Check out the new and improved Xbox LIVE Party features.
- Party Reconnections – If you are accidently disconnected from your party, Xbox LIVE will automatically reconnect you.
- Streamlined Party Invites – Invites are now just one click away! No need to click through multiple screens to get all your friends together.
Video Display Options
We've made it easier for you to see your entertainment in the highest resolution possible on your TV using an HDMI connection.
- Display Discovery – Make sure you can see and hear your entertainment in the highest resolution and sound quality possible with the option to override and select audio and video formats independent of the information your television sends to your Xbox 360 console.
Other Improvements
We're always listening to you for feedback, and this Xbox LIVE update will include numerous dashboard updates.
- Gold Member Veterans – Xbox LIVE Gold members get to show it off with a stamp on your Gamer Card that tells people how long you've been a Gold member.
- Indie Games – Xbox LIVE Community Games has been renamed Xbox LIVE Indie Games. We feel this new name better represents the independent spirit of these titles.
- Achievement Browser – We've revamped the Achievements browser so it's now easier to read through all the achievements while playing a game. You can now also launch a game directly from the browser.
- Achievements Tracking – A new view inside the profile panel which includes a summary of Achievements earned across all the games played, and shows of all your completed games.
- Streamlined Navigation - Streamlined navigation, including new entry points in the dashboard for Active Downloads, redeeming codes, recovering Gamertags and more.
- Voice Messages – No more blank voice messages! When recording a voice message, a warning will pop up if no audio is detected.
- Friends List Sorting – It's now easier to find your friends! Find and sort your friends by activity, Gamertag or online status by pressing the Y button while viewing the friends list in the Guide.
- Memory – Time stamps now appear in the memory area, which particular handy when managing saved games.
Account Management
We've made some changes to make your life easier.
- Subscription Notification – If your Xbox LIVE subscription is about to run out, you will now be notified when you sign into Xbox LIVE.
- Updates for Invalid Windows Live IDs – If the Windows Live ID you provided has expired, you will now be prompted to update it the next time you sign into Xbox LIVE.
- Account recovery – We've enhanced the account recovery process to make it faster and more reliable.
What does this Xbox LIVE Update not include?
The following features will be coming in future Xbox LIVE updates, which we'll be sure to let you know about.
- Zune video and 1080p Instant On
- Last.fm
Check out screenshots at Kotaku.
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The online feature is always the strength of Xbox360 (though we have to pay to use part (if not most)of the cool stuffs).
Good job MS.... now... please spend more time and money to make the hardware part as good and as "reliable" as the Xbox live experience...
well.... nobody is perfect... I guess....
Wow, not a bad way to imporve the XBOX 360 experience. I personally like the party system, although it still has a lot of improvement needed. Flipping through a lot of screens is a downer...but on click invites will work well in the update.
Some really good upgrades (Netflix!!!). A lot of useless upgrades. But no bad upgrades. +1 for MS.
Looks like good stuff.
Now give me an xbox that has better framerates. I want new hardware!
when does this update rollout?
I think almost everyone would rather see a hardware update than a software update. This model is getting pretty old now.....I know they wanna get their mileage out of it, but they didn't exactly cling on to the original xbox for even this long.
Lets see a new model! (and I don't just mean a bigger hard drive)
Ok well here is an issue that will come up for debate... the on demand games are yours to keep, ok how much are they? and if you get banned for any reason and I mean any reason you will loose those games cause you know they will be DRM'd to your tag and can only be played once you connect online. If you are banned from Live you can still play all your cuurent games you have, they cannot block you from local play, but the on demand games will be lost, and I think that is a major ripoff, considering anyone can get anyone banned, just by putting in bogus complaints about them...
Easy solution, Dont get banned.
This is good news. Everyone that complains about the $50.00 a year access fee need to go eat crow.
I don't have a problem paying for this fee since it obviously gets me newer and faster updates.
Sony can't even hold on to HULU!!!
Remember though, you do not have to have XBL gold to get updates. People like me who mostly play single-player RPGs download demos and updates without Gold membership.
What happened to Hulu on Xbox 360?
What happened to Hulu on Xbox-360?
I don't really like the dashboard, its just the thing that gets in the way of me playing a game. You CAN play music when ever you want, so that's cool
Ok well here is an issue that will come up for debate... the on demand games are yours to keep, ok how much are they? and if you get banned for any reason and I mean any reason you will loose those games cause you know they will be DRM'd to your tag and can only be played once you connect online. If you are banned from Live you can still play all your cuurent games you have, they cannot block you from local play, but the on demand games will be lost, and I think that is a major ripoff, considering anyone can get anyone banned, just by putting in bogus complaints about them...
Just don't cheat (or use pirated games) and you'll be ok.
Sorry, but to me it sounds like you like to use "game enhancers" when you play and/or pirated games. If you don't do that then why so worried?
In fact, I think this feature could be another discouragement for cheaters. If they cheat and get caught then they could lose all of their on-demand games. To me that's a good thing. I could mean less cheaters.
Why dont they update the media capabilities instead... Im sure they are plenty of us xbox owners who would love to finally have 5.1 aac support and possibly the Matroska container.
The hardware is there stop whining. I give it another 2 or 3 years before a next gen console is announced. And i like it that way, give me plenty of time to enjoy this console. From the looks of it there is no NEED for a new console anyways. There is no dramatic difference in graphics or the amount of CPU power needed in games today. The updates look great, i am looking forward to them all on my Xbox. Xbox 360 has the best dashboard hands down, beats the crap out of PS3's.
Why dont they update the media capabilities instead... Im sure they are plenty of us xbox owners who would love to finally have 5.1 aac support and possibly the Matroska container.
Ill second this. You know how much of a pain it is to convert .mkv to wmv its a nightmare but Ive finally gotten it down to a tight workflow.
I think almost everyone would rather see a hardware update than a software update. This model is getting pretty old now.....I know they wanna get their mileage out of it, but they didn't exactly cling on to the original xbox for even this long.Lets see a new model! (and I don't just mean a bigger hard drive)
i dont think a total overhaul would be nessicary
maybe a die shrink of the cpu and gpu down to 45 nm (it started at 90 nm and currently is at 65 nm) , then over clock them some as teh new die size would alow more speed with less heat , add about 25-50% more ram to teh system , and that would really knock thigns up on what the xbox 360 could do , but in genral leave the basical hardware alone because a new system is not warrented right now in teh economical times
as for lifting older 360's up to this they could make a ram batch taht plugs to the front side memory stoarage slots but make the syste,m use it as system ram older ssytems might not be able to do newer games in 1080 p but they woudltn avhe a problem dealling at 720 p this way
The hardware is there stop whining.
Well, maybe, but TBH it's pretty unreliable. That's the real problem, is longevity. The heat issues point to a product released way before it was ready. I have a bunch of old consoles spanning back to the original NES, and they all still work (though the NES is finicky as it always has been). If I'm lucky, I can't count on my 360 lasting more than a few more years, which conveniently, is about when the next one is expected to come out. And being stuck with "officially approved" HDD's and wireless adapters is worse than any Apple product that I know of. Heck, the PS3 doesn't care what HDD you put in it, but he 360 requires you to buy the ultra-outrageously-overpriced and under-performing HD that they say will work with it. It's a 2.5" SATA drive inside that cartridge, for crying out loud! I want to be able to actually use the feature of ripping games to the HD so the loud and too-hot optical drive doesn't need to be working ovrertime to kill the whole system, and I want the benefits of faster loading times that come with using the HD for game storage. But the 20GB my system came with ain't gonna cut it, and I don't feel like paying $90 for an under-powered 802.11b wireless adapter. Sure, there are other options for the wireless (an eternal WiFi bridge setup as a network adapter, but seen as an Ethernet LAN connection) but the HD is a ripoff. I can get a good 320GB 7200RPM SATA drive that can fit in the XBOX for $80, but I have to pay $140 for an "approved" 120GB 4200RPM SATA drive. I can pay $55 for the equivalent 5400RPM SATA drive, and it'll be faster. So why not just put in a larger, cheaper third-party drive? Because Micorsoft put in a special firmware key that rejects non-MS-branded drives. You can spoof it for some drives, but nothing larger than 120GB, and it has to be a specific model as well.
There is no dramatic difference in graphics or the amount of CPU power needed in games today.
Only because, for consoles, they only make the game as good looking as the hardware can allow. If they had better hardware to work with, they'd use as much of it as possible. Even though the 360 wowed me with it's graphics, it wasn't long before I could pick out all of the problems with it's rendering engine. Across the board, it seems like no-one can figure out how to make colors, lighting, and textures consistently accurate or glitch-free. The PS3 games do a much better job with this, and I'm willing to bet that there's a little more going on than just the developers' effort in paying attention to detail, and even Gran Turismo 4 on PS2 does significantly better than Forza 2 in these regards, even with less polygons.
The updates look great, i am looking forward to them all on my Xbox. Xbox 360 has the best dashboard hands down, beats the crap out of PS3's.
Well, I can't speak much of the PS3's dashboard, but I can tell you I prefer the old XBOX dashboard over the cluttered, confused "NXE" dashboard. The "OXE" was much more user friendly. Turn your console on now, and what does it do? It puts the marketplace up front and center. It wants you to get distracted and buy things. And what happened to things like dashboard themes? things like that that people already payed money for that were ruined by the NXE. And I liked it even better before I connected to XBL and got bombarded with advertisements before actually even playing a game. Hell, I'd take the Wii's homepage over the NXE any day.
It's all useless to me, except for the Account Management upgrades.