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?
I liked the show, it was fun. I really hope Liam (I hope I remembered the name) will recover.
@New R18+ guidelines drawn up:
It is a step forward, true, but not without some question marks.
I personally don’t like their definition for what’s allowed in terms of violence for R18+. It’s very ambiguous, and it could lead to a handful of people selecting what’s R18+ and what’s RC depending on their personal taste and/or “gifts” received from publishers …
Lol “device that you could plug in” 😀
Jonah, enforcing such fines is a bit more difficult and costly than what a government is willing to invest.
@Kojima: This year has become meaningless
I feel the guy 🙁 … I also have no idea how the last 365 days passed.
Derrick, I definitely agree with the CISCO engineer vs. game devs. While I do put some heart on the stuff I work at my day job, it is far less that what I put into mods or other personal projects.
And while the money comes from the day job, the satisfactions and frustrations come from personal projects. It’s where the heart is.
@Chinese labor camp prisoners forced to play MMOs:
Playing MMOs as a punishment … there’s just something weird about it. I mean as long as you have the freedom of choice as to when to start playing and when to stop playing, MMOs don’t seem that scary.
But when you’re forced to stare in the monitor for hours and hours, day after day, I can see this having the negative effects that would make playing MMOs an effective punishment.
I guess any activity can be turned into a punishment, as long as you can turn the punished person into hating that said activity.
– you can play it while pooping!
Actually, that is a good selling point 🙂 Think of Chinese prisoners again: now they can stack all consoles in a room and have the prisoners “work” from anywhere on the compound 😛
Derrick, you’re not letting down anybody. I enjoyed the podcast a lot, mostly for the personalities of you guys. And by reading the comments in the show you allowed the listeners to somehow connect with you guys.
Anyway, I’ll keep an eye on the RSS feed. Who knows.
at first i was happy because when i updated the podcast on a smartphone i finally saw the new episode and i said yes!!!! Then i saw the title i was like oh man but its okay derrick and jennifer i will only consider this a pause and you could continue anytime you like @qotw i would like to be surprised to see the podcast up and running again
ill be playing minecraft while your gone and will always wait for your comeback
Thanks for all the memories. The TD gaming podcast got me through 2 years of night shifts and was always a weekly highlight. All the best to all of you in the future.
Hope things continue to improve with your son, Derrick and Jennifer. Thanks for your efforts Jonah over the last 20 episodes. And farewell to my fellow listeners and commentors. (Especially Herr_Alien, who always had something insightful to add. Maybe you should team up with Jonah for continuing the cast =D. )
Roger, Wilco, Over and Out.
@Tristan: the thought occurred to me too, but unfortunately (1) I am too PC-centric to be of an actual use to the podcast and (2) spare time is always an issue for me. To get an idea, I got a copy of Portal 2 for … almost a month now and I only managed to play 30 minutes of it.
Add to that time zone differences and things like synchronizing schedules can become hairy.
As for the question of the week, I would love to see the podcast continue.
Jonah, a piece of advice, if you do decide to continue: take a small break to think a bit on the format, find somebody to co-host it, help you out with editing (btw, since editing doesn’t require synchronizing schedules, I can help out with that).
I’ve really enjoyed the podcast since I started listening to it a couple of years ago and it’s sad to see Derrick and Jennifer leave, but I hope things work out well for you and your family. All the best for the future. Thanks to Don too, he was a pretty cool host 🙂
I do hope that you find a way to continue the podcast Jonah, as I think you’ve done a really good job as co-host for the last 20 or so episodes. But if it doesn’t work out, thanks for your efforts too.
And yes, Herr_Alien, you’ve been a legendary listener 😛 Every week without fail there’d be a comment from Herr Alien with many insightful nuggets of wisdom.
So anyway, if this is the end….. So long, Farewell… and I leave you with this:
“Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need… roads.”
A new episode is coming out tonight. Didn’t have time for Reader Feedback, but hope you enjoy it!