Boot up your Xbox 360 today and if it’s connected to the internet it will start a mandatory download that completely revamps the dashboard. Gone are the Xbox Blades and clunky interface, replaced with something almost as clunky, but a lot cleaner and friendlier looking. Welcome to the NXE.
The first thing you should do after installing everything (which shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes) is create your own avatar. My goofy little guy’s on the right. There’s a nice little selection of features and clothes available that easily puts Nintendo’s Miis to shame. Appropriate, since that’s obviously who they were gunning for with this feature.
There’s not too much you can do with the avatars just yet, but there are already a few games you can buy that will allow you to use your creations in them, such as A Kingdom for Keflings, which features your guy as a giant.
But besides the cleaner interface (and a game library that doesn’t take a half hour to load!) the biggest perk with the NXE is of course Netflix functionality. Those of you who have subscriptions (and judging by the rate Blockbusters are closing, that’s most of you) can set up your account so that you can watching any Instant Viewing films right through your 360. I don’t have to tell you what an awesome, fantastic feature this is, but let’s just say I’ve been watching King of the Rocket Men and digging the hell out of it. I love me some Republic serials.
Now of course their list of movies that you can watch instantly is much, much smaller than their list of dvds, but there’s a ton of great stuff up there (I’ve got all 3 seasons of Alfred Hitchcock Presents on my queue). Just don’t expect to be able to get every single title that you can watch for free on your computer- Microsoft has apparently blocked out any movies they’re selling through their video marketplace.
But this feature is going to be huge. Who wouldn’t want a library of thousands of titles available to be streamed instantly to your TV?
Anyway, while it’s great to see the dashboard become improved, it still doesn’t hold a candle to the simplicity of Sony’s XMB. But it’s a nice step towards making things more geared toward casual players and making content easier to find.
So what do you guys think about it? Let’s hear it in the coments below!
16 comments
Can't wait to try the new interface out when I get home. I didn't mind the old one (much) until I bought a PS3 recently and was blown away by how simple and classy their interface is. It made the 360's look so tacky and cluttered. The Sony Store was especially nice and puts the text-based Xbox equivalent to shame. Let's hope this upgrade will even the playing field somewhat.
i think the xmb bar for playstation is far better in terms of design ease of use and overall simplicity. in my opinion sony is leaps and bounds ahead of its competition. everything that microsoft produces feels like a cheap knock off of a better product. lets see how many people know this…. did you know microsoft still produce 360s with the same overll problems as the first batch made ? 1 out of every 3 sold get sent back. the future rests with sony. mark my words. this is one battle microsoft wont win in the end. oh and sony lovers rejoice because soon all 360s in one way or another are going to have to intergrate a sony product. blu ray baby. sony for life
can't wait to try it. it's a good time to be a gamer… you really can't go wrong with any system at the moment. i don't see what's so beautificent about sony's xmb though… care to elaborate?
Wow G@BRIEL already starting with fanboying? I think the point was what do you think about the new interface, and I believe you missed it. What did you think of it? Anyway, I am very anxious to get off work and check it out. Looking forward to group voice chat and burning games to the hard disk. Has anybody burned a game yet and played it? Very curious to see how well that changes performance.
I would install a few games but I have less than a gig left on my hard drive. I'll have to upgrade to fit anything more on there. As for the XMB- bobby blue, it's just so much more simple and elegant. The NXE is much less cluttered than the dashboard before but it's still tricky to find some things if you don't know what you're looking for.
I like what I've seen so far after playing around with the NXE stuff for a few hours, but it's managed to also hard-freeze my 360 multiple times in just those few hours of use. That's not something that has ever happened before.
Is this X-Box Experience anything like that girlfriend experience I keep reading about on Craig's List?
Your avatar looks like an exceedingly gay biker.
how much does it cost for the x-box live subscription (scam) and netflix?
Stop supporting microtransactions and subscription based games. Playing online should be free.
Yeah it hard-froze mine like twice as well. But once I set up the Netflix thing I forgot all about it. I'm completely enamored with that. COMPLETELY. And the seamless integration between browser and dashboard is pretty damn slick.
Wow. That avatar almost looks like mine. Except mine had the green chucks instead of boots.
jimmy, you do realize it costs money to run servers, correct?
Especially ones that are used to host online gaming.
$60 a year to play as much as you want is actually cheap as hell, better than any mmorpg on a pc that costs $10 and up a month.
As for the NXE, it's solid, did run into it freezing my machine though. Eh, a kink to be worked out (also a major amount of people running it all at once prolly didn't help).
While they certainly look better/more detailed, I don't think the X-Box avatars come particularly close to "putting Miis to shame." Honestly, despite being far less detailed, my Mii looks a whole lot more like me than I could ever get the NXE Avatar to.
However, overall the NXE gets a thumbs-up from me so far. The avatar bit just strikes me as superfluous and unnecessary. Though I'm sure it'll be a microtransaction gold mine for those folks that just love messing with those kinds of things.
Thats funny Jmacq1 I had the exact opposite problem, could never get my Mii to look like me but did a pretty good job with the NXE Avatar. But what really is the point? Kinda like they're copying the Miis just for the sake of being able to say 'oh we have that too'. I've heard there's a small handful of games that actually incorporate it. Meh. That 10 or so minutes I spent on my avatar could have been 10 more minutes on Left 4 Dead 🙂
I updated my 360 last night. I'm not impressed. I don't care about the avatar thing. The new interface is annoying with all the sliding images and options. I think I actually prefer the blades. Oh well. After I'm done with Gears of War 2, I'm trading in the 360.
… and it fucking sucks.
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