We’ve had some time to look through the New Xbox Experience (aka Fall Update 08) for the Xbox 360. There are some goods, bads and oddities about the latest updated firmware and thought it was a good time to share.
The most important feature we’ve found with the new console software is the addition of Netflix. The ability to play software in the “Instant Queue” is excellent, fast and done with high quality. If you have children this may be one of the must-have product features; add a ton of family movies to the Netflix Instant Queue and your children will have hours of entertainment.
We’re not telling you to sit the children in front of the TV for ten hours, but it proves to be a great way to get quality entertainment without bombarding them with commercials telling them to tell you they need new stuff. This is especially true around the holidays where kids are watching more commercials than actual episodes of Sponge Bob Square Pants.
We were a non-Netflix household and recently bought into their second tier program so we can watch instant shows and get one DVD at a time. The NXE has up-sold at least one new Netflix customer, great job Microsoft!
Avatars are another “feature” to the new console software and it all seems very Wii like. Months ago we were kidding about how they’re cloning some features of the Wii but in reality, it’s more a clone than we thought. The sound track while creating your Avatar feels almost ripped from the Wii in terms of cute settling sounds and silly uplifting music. This isn’t your dad’s console anymore Timmy.
The outfits to dress your Mii, oops, avatar in are very limited and you’ll no doubt see a lot of sameness in dress and overall look to the avatars. But, now Microsoft is showing us how to differentiate ourselves by purchasing virtual items to make our avatars cooler. For 250 Microsoft points you can now buy a Ninja Blade theme pack which includes wallpapers and avatar items. Yay. No, seriously, we’re supposed to buy this crap?
The NXE also supports a full system re-design, out with the blades in with the… Cover Flow? The NXE now acts more like iTunes, the iPod and the Apple OS X more than ever. You’ll breeze through your game list, NetFlix Queue, Friends List and other features as if it were Cover Flow album art. Cool in some ways, frustrating in others.
In some ways, item lists are the fastest and easiest ways to view things. For instance, prior to NXE you could tell who was online in your friends list within a few seconds. Now, with NXE you’ll troll through your friends list four-by-four flying through the “art” of your friends avatars hanging out next to a “room” mimicking the game they’re playing. Cute, no doubt, but not an effective way to see who is online.
The in-game console pop-up windows are much cleaner and easier to browse using a mini-blade style approach to finding information. This new re-design allows you to get more from your console interface while in-game than ever before.
The one neglected feature, in my humble opinion, is the “spit and polish” of the new interface. They took some aspects of OS X and some aspects of Wii and mixed them together to make organizational changes, some good and some bad. However, the interface is very flat, drab and boring. There is no real glossy shine to anything, very little in textures for backdrops and windows fixtures and very anti-vista like when it comes down to drop shadows and beauty. A little more glamor, gloss and reflective surfaces would have made the interface look a bit more next-generation in terms of cool factor.
Overall, it is what it is. You may like it, hate it or just learn to live with it. Some features will be easier to browse around while others will require a bit more work. We’ve noticed about a 10 to 12 second pause between shopping screens for add-ons, arcade game downloads and such, hopefully that will change in the coming weeks. It stands out as a bit different from the competitors, in some aspects, while paying tribute to some of the cooler features of other products.
The Netflix addition is the best part of NXE, but that could have come available without a full user interface redesign. Your thoughts?
Portable Xbox
@Wii U’s launch day update
Oh my … so lemme guess, for a device that has no backup battery to keep the device on, you start delivering hours long updates? Really?
If you have no power backup, then how about delivering smaller, incremental patches, so that there are less chances of a power failure/connection failure during the patching.
@Nintendo DRM traps $400 of downloaded games
😀 … yay, go DRM go!
I think there’s a lesson to be learned here, but hey, I also though that there was a lesson also in the Ubisoft DRM servers going down – yet we have Diablo III and Starcraft II …
@GTA: Vice City removed from Steam over music licensing
This is weird. I’m pretty sure the same music was present also on the retail version of the game, yet the issue triggered pulling off the Steam version of the game.
I guess that the developers or original publishers struck a deal with the music industry, and some details of that deal don’t fit with Steam’s digital distribution system?
Unless we get to see the papers behind the deal between the devs and the music industry, we can only speculate.
I guess Valve’s lawyers should have looked better, but then again, the publisher is more interested in selling games; if nobody catches up to the obscure IP issue, then why not?
@Report: Next-gen Xbox TV device coming in 2013
Not sure what to say about this. There’s always a chance of not being able to handle multiple devices – the old 360, the new 720/infinity, and now the TV box.
Microsoft, be careful.
@Sony: Our iPhone and Galaxy S3 challenger is coming
Well, I won’t bother delivering the same warning as above to Sony. What amuses me is the hype that Sony tries to build: “Our iPhone and Galaxy S3 challenger”! Ha! If it costs 1000 USD, then even Apple can afford to not worry.
@QOTW
Yes! Played the first Starcaft, then Warcraft III, then C&C Generals. I played also the Red Alerts (until RA3), but the game that stuck was … C&C Generals.
While I did play skirmishes on Starcraft, it was the GLA units that tilted the scale for Generals. I mean they are the most charming villains that I’ve seen so far 🙂 …
@WiiU launch issues. If you’re dumb enough to shut your system off during a firmware update you deserve to have
it bricked.
@Over 400 bucks of games trapped in limbo. Being denied one game you purchased and having to pay to get it back because of a old and failing DRM system is one too many. I was really hoping for the WiiU Nintendo would do a across platform account for it’s DRM like everyone else does. That would solve tons of issues. I think the rest of the world including myself is wondering why they arn’t doing something like that yet.
@Nintendo Land. I’ve primarily a PC gamer although I own and play on every console except the Wii. I also hate motion controls. But upon my purchase of the WiiU I’ve really liked playing Nintendo Land with friends. Its still some what “tech demoish” but the games are ones that anyone that enjoys Nintendo titles and playing mini games with friends will like. But I’m not sure how it will stand up playing alone to the average gamer. This next year will be really telling on how the WiiU makes it mark, if and when Nintendo announces its first part titles for the system.
No one “deserves” to be bricked, number one. And just so you know, you lose a customer like that, you lose them for life. That statement is also elitist, since you’re saying people who either can’t afford or can’t get a high speed connection “deserve” to have their console bricked.
There’s an old law: the customer is always right.
There’s another issue: the Wii U will go into sleep mode without warning and it doesn’t “sleep” – it SHUTS OFF. Not to mention the controller has a short battery life and from what I understand, it doesn’t charge while playing.
@Shooting Wii U out of a canon
Although Paul makes a reasonable point that Xbox 360 launch was bad; that was in 2006. Microsoft had to rush the Xbox because it was a dawn of a new gaming era. Even HD-TVs were rare back then. Currently, Nintendo is releasing a console based on 6 year old tech. The launch should be spotless. But the whole thing feels unnecessarily rushed.
I am tempted to get the Wii U because it’s new tech. However, since I will most likely import from Japan (for half the price of a local Wii U)I don’t want to end up trying to sort out a bricked/busted unit with a supplier from another hemisphere.
@Nintendo DMR
Sometimes I think that Nintendo leaves their product development to wise old men on Mt Fuji who are cut of from society. Welcome to Nintendo 2013: resisting efficient change with tooth and claw.
@State of the gaming world: Xbox 360 is ploughing ahead but branching out all over the place and starting to forget that it is a gaming console. Wii U still thinks that it’s 2006. And Sony is one step behind of everything. Where did the simple times go?
@QOTW
Dune II: the Battle for Arakis on Mega Drive. I still love that game. So simple but so addictive. That and Red Alert 2. Unlike other strategy games, those 2 don’t need complicated base building and don’t have 100s of units to choose from. That allows you to concentrate on actual battle strategy.
as i’m studying for the finals, i have only time for the QOTW:
Currently i am not playing any RTS, but I had my days of AoE, Starcraft the 1st and my 1st one, the great and powerful TOTAL ANNIHILATION (points for paul if he got the reference).
@last week’s QOTW: i was a little bit inhibriated so i misspeled Gaben, from Gabe Newell.
idk if you might know him, here is a pic of him leading the PC master race against the dirty console users
http://i.imgur.com/Ytl7W.jpg
The WiiU prompts you to adjust the sleep mode timer before the update begins.
I wasn’t trying to say if you have bad internet and so on then you deserve to have it bricked. I was saying that if you knowingly shut it off then thats a mistake. If youre connection cuts out its not going to brick the system. If its installing it and the system is then shut off then you’re in trouble. This I thought has been common knowledge since firmware has been around. I didn’t mean to come off like a dick. So I’m sorry for that. I was merely trying to say, that shutting off your system while installing, not downloading, is dumb.
@HanzKrebs
😛 All hail Gaben!