This summer we will be seeing the first major update to the New Xbox Experience. Those who took part in a survey for Microsoft were given a sneak peek into what all Xbox Live members can expect, and after looking under the hood for a couple of days I have to say it’s definitely a step in the right direction. It doesn’t solve every problem, but it does solve a lot of them. I’ll breakdown the major improvements and give you my thoughts on them.
Netflix
The whole Netflix experience has been overhauled. The previously promised Netflix Party has been added. Now you will be able to party up with friends and watch movies together. To add to the experience Microsoft even plays the movie in an Avatar theatre where you and your friends can be seen eating popcorn and interacting in the theatre. While the concept sounds like fun, it’s actually not all that great and for a couple of reasons. Being partied with other friends almost makes you feel obligated to talk. After all, why party up if you are just going to sit there, be quiet and watch a movie? If you are interested in the movie and it’s good, you won’t want others speaking up and ruining it for you. However, it does make it easier to discuss what you’ve just watched as a group. Especially if it was a movie that the group as a whole enjoyed. It could heighten the experience in that manner.
The ability to add movies to your Instant Queue directly from the Dashboard has been added. It’s a functionality that the service desperately needed. You no longer have to sign on to your Netflix account on a PC, add movies to your queue and then sign onto Xbox live to view them. All Instant Queue movies can now be browsed and added to your Queue via Netflix on your Dashboard. It cuts down on a lot of hassle and makes adding movies a breeze. However sifting through all of the selections can take awhile as you can’t just search for a specific movie or show like you can on a PC. But there are different browsing options to help sort things out for you.
Also, you now have the ability to let your friends know what you’re viewing instead of showing the standard “Netflix – Watching a movie” for your status it will let your friends know exactly what movie you are watching like “Netflix – Watching The Dark Knight”. Those of you who are paranoid and like your privacy, or if you’re viewing a skin flick and you don’t want your friends to know, you can change the settings back to the standard status. Perv.
Overall the changes made to the Netflix dash are a big improvement. Just a warning for those of you who connect your Xbox 360 to the internet wirelessly, if you have a not-so-great signal some of the functionality will be hampered. You won’t be able to add movies to your instant queue for example. So before you freak out make sure you have a good wireless connection.
Avatar Marketplace
Another new addition to the Dashboard is the Avatar Marketplace. This is your one stop shop for buying new clothes, accessories and even props for you avatar. If you are willing to shell out actual cash for fake clothes that is.
The new clothing options range in price from 80 Microsoft Points for accessories or hats all the way to 320 Microsoft Points for props and other wardrobe additions. I have to admit that at first I thought the idea of buying fake clothes was silly. But I soon found myself buying a Halo 3 shirt and eye patch, mostly to get rid of the generic look my avatar previously flaunted.
Right now options are limited as to what new accessories and clothing options you can purchase. As the date for the update to go live gets closer I imagine more selections will be made available. But as of now you can only buy clothing options from five different themed genres: Halo, Fable II, The Secret of Monkey Island, Steampunk and Recessionista. All will help add that extra flare to your avatar and help it stand out. At least until everyone else starts purchasing the same thing…
Game On Demand
Besides the new Netflix integration this is the other feature I was most looking forward to. The Games On Demand service will let you purchase and download games directly to your Xbox 360 hard drive. Games are organized in to sub categories like New Arrivals, Top Downloads, Top Rated (which I’ll detail later in this post) and so on. You can even browse all of the titles and organize them alphabetically or by genre. Right now Games On Demand is mostly stocked with games previously relegated to the Xbox Originals category from the Games Marketplace. I’d like to see more content made available soon.
Also just like with other game downloads if you purchase anything on the Marketplace and deleted later, you always have the option of downloading it again later on at no charge. This is great if hard drive space on your console is becoming hard to come by. you can delete games you’ve grown tired of and replace them with newer games and vice verse.
Xbox also promises that you’ll be able to download and view game manuals through this service. Helping ensure you have game documentation you can go back to for reference. This will be a helpful feature in the future for sure.
User Ratings
User submitting ratings is something that Xbox Live has been sorely lacking previously. But worry no more. Included in the new update will be the ability for users to rate games on a five star scale. One star being the lowest and five being the highest. You will be able to rate any game played on your Xbox 360 and you’ll also be able to see it’s average rating given to it by other users. It will even show the number of users who rated it before you. The Games Marketplace as well as the Games On Demand service can organize games by their rating. Helping you browse not just the most downloaded games, but those who fared the best with other users. Just another helpful guide when deciding if a game is worth your hard earned money or not.
While user submitted ratings are a plus, it would be nice to see Microsoft do more with them. Sure it’s nice to see what other people thought of the game and browse games by best ratings, but it would be great if Microsoft did something with your ratings. Like recommending games you might like because of ratings you gave other games in the same genre. If I gave Call of Duty 4 five stars then it should recommend that I try Call of Duty: World at War and so on. Help users find games they may like but didn’t know about. Just a thought.
Well there it is. My thoughts on that major new features made available with the Dashboard update. Of course that’s not everything that will be changing. A new Party reconnect feature will help make it easier to reconnect to your party should you get dropped. They finally reorganized the Achievement Browser to make it easier to read and navigate and also made improvements to Achievement Tracking. And you’ll also be able to sort your Friends List how you see fit. Either by online status, gamertag, and by activity. Something you weren’t able to do before. All great improvements.
To get the full list of what’s changing check out this post. I outlined all of the minor changes as well as the major. And mark your calendars for August 11!
