Sneak Peek At The New Xbox Dashboard.

NXE Preview from Justin Winchester on Vimeo.

I'm a lucky bastard and I have a copy of the New Xbox Experience. So for those of you that read the blog I prepared a little video walk-through for you, let me know if you have any questions and I'll be sure to answer them.

The "New Xbox Experience".

This fall Microsoft is bring a huge change to the Xbox 360 they call it the "New Xbox Experience" I think that's lame and I'm calling it Dashboard 2.0. There will be tons of changes and I'll try to cover the basic:

• First off (as you can see) it has a whole new look to it, MS has gotten rid of the "Blades" and made this new "Channels" interface. If you love the Blade interface don't worry, now when you press the Guide Button it will bring up a Mini Blade interface with a lot more functionality than before when you pushed the Guide Button.

So don't worry if you still want the "blade" interface all you have to do is push the guide button.

• One of the biggest coups at E3 was Microsoft's announcement that they now have a partnership with Netflix. Starting this fall Xbox Live member's and Netflix subscribers will be able to stream 10,00 movies instantly from Netflix right to their Xbox 360, all for "free". All you do is put the movies you want to watch in your Netflix Instant Queue, and they instantly appear on your Xbox 360.

• Not too much info is known about all of the channels but Microsoft did announce that users will now be able to copy full retail games to the hard drive. So this is beneficial for two reasons: first is that games will load much, much faster. The second is that even though you will still have the disc in the drive to play (you know to make sure you still own the game) the drive will not be spinning which will cut down tremendously on the noise the 360 puts out.

• One of the key things that MS is trying to do with Dashboard 2.0 is make content easier to find. As this screen shot shows each game will have it's own unique section in marketplace, giving you descriptions, pictures, and video previews.

• Community is also getting a big push in Dash 2.0. Microsoft is added Avatar's to the Xbox 360, much like a Nintendo Mii, your avatar will be customizable and be playable in certain games. This new c0mmunity page is now your Friends List, as your friends sign on there avatar will pop up on the screen.

• Another big change is the "Party System", you will now be able to get into a group of 8 people and travel around from game to game playing with your friends. From Halo 3, Call of Duty 4, GTA 4, or even to a movie. That's right, if everyone has a Netflix account the host can select a movie to watch and everyone can watch the movie "together" all while chatting away.

Another new channel is Xbox Live Primetime, this is going to be full of game-show style games. The kicker is that the games are on a schedule, so you can only play the game in it's time slot. So 1 vs. 100 might be only on at 7pm but there might be 10 different games going.

Look for the new Dashboard 2.0 to be dropping this Fall.

This video should make it easier to understand all of the changes.

Xbox 360 Fall 2007 Update.

Here's a great video walk-through of all the new features of the dashboard update that's coming December 4th.

Now if you're really into bullet points here's some for you:

• Xbox Originals – With this new service, announced on Nov. 13, consumers can download-to-own full original Xbox games that were previously only available at retail. The digital shelves will always be stocked with classic titles, such as “Crash Bandicoot: Wrath of Cortex” “Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge,” “Halo,” “Fable,” “Fuzion Frenzy,” “Psychonauts,” and more as the catalogue grows over time, at 1200 Microsoft Points per game.
• Xbox LIVE Arcade Hits – On Xbox LIVE Arcade, the Arcade Hits program kicks off where some of the best selling Xbox LIVE Arcade games will become available at permanently reduced prices, making it easier than ever for everyone to build a library of downloadable games! The first games to become Arcade Hits will be “Bankshot Billiards 2” and “Lumines LIVE,” which will be available for 800 Microsoft Points each, and “Marble Blast Ultra,” “Small Arms” and “Zuma Deluxe,” which will be available for 400 Microsoft Points each. With free trial downloads for every game and over 100 games to choose from, Xbox LIVE Arcade offers something for every member of the family.
• Inside Xbox – A new direct feed brings current news straight from Xbox.com into the Xbox LIVE Dashboard providing members an easy, predictable entry point where they can discover what's new in game releases, events, and Xbox LIVE Marketplace offers. (It will also feature brief weekly segments from myself, TriXie, Games Editor Denny Atkin, and SoozyQ.)
• Enhanced online profile – Members interested in sharing a few more details about themselves will have the option to go beyond their motto and further personalize their profile with an expanded bio. The extended bios will be visible to “Friends Only” or the entire Xbox LIVE community.
• Expanded Friends List access – A quick and easy way for gamers to expand their personal community on Xbox LIVE, members will be able to see the Friends Lists of other Xbox LIVE members, boosting their social networking experience on the service.
• Enhanced Parental Controls – Family Timer, a strong and flexible new addition to the Xbox 360 Family Settings, enables parents to set the amount of time their Xbox 360 can be used on a per-day or per-week basis by their children or other members of the household.
• New video features – The convenience of full-screen movie previews and enhanced video codec support further expand the options when it comes to the Xbox 360 entertainment experience.
  Easy-to-use navigation features – With several noteworthy changes in the Xbox LIVE Dashboard, from the new Game Store button to the Video Store button to enhanced visuals and descriptions in the video library, Xbox LIVE members can find what they want, when they want it.
  

Now if you want more of a geek list with specs and detailed info check out this list here. One omission from the list above is the much asked for DivX support. Microsoft's big reason for never including this before was because they said that DivX was mainly used for 'piracy'. Now the only reason us 'pirates' use DivX is because it's one of the best video codec's around.

Did I Miss Something?

Update 1: Well someone in the Joystiq comments figured out that if you plug a USB keyboard in and then press the Windows Key + M you get the overlay. At least we got someway to do it till the TID drops.

For the past several weeks since the leak about the Spring '07 update for the 360 came out, everyone has been talking about messenger. More specifically about this (pictured above) cool overlay that is was going to be on top of whatever you were doing: in the dash, playing a game, watching a movie or video. It sounded great but where the hell is it? I've got the update, I've used Messenger and regular Xbox chat and no overlay box... I even tried watching a video and playing a game while IMing thinking that was the problem, nope. So the way it works is I just receive IM's or Xbox texts the same way I always did, lame. The only thing I can come up with is that you need the new Text Input Device (TID) that will be out shortly. I sure hope that's the case because as it stands now, IMing on the 360 is lame.

The Week Of Updates.

This week we (should) see two big Xbox update: Bungie said they will be updating the matchmaking playlists in H2 to include the new maps and be resetting all the ranks. A big "I'm sorry" goes out from me to a the people the cheated their way up (or down for that matter) to their rank, don't worry the Bungie Ban Hammer will find you soon enough.

Also we will be getting the Spring Dash Update. If you forgot what's coming here's a link back to an earlier video I posted. Linky!

Spring '07 Dash Update.

This video highlights all the lame new "features" in the Spring '07 update. The only notable one in my opinion is the ability to have the 360 turn itself off after all downloads are complete. So now if you have several movie/tv shows/game demos queued up, and you go to bed for the night your 360 will finish the downloads and turn itself off when it's done.

(Via: Joystiq... Check out who submitted the article to Joystiq: /wink /wink)