New Xbox Experience Impressions

It’s been almost 5 days since I excitedly watched the update bar progress and the latest and biggest xbox 360 dashboard update appear on my TV. The flashy intro video was great, and although I found the new dashboard a little baffling at first, I think all round it is a huge improvement, and not just a flashy gimmick.

Avatar Fun

It’s easy to look at the Avatar feature and just dismiss it as a Mii rip-off, but I think all round it adds a bit more personalisation to Xbox Live. I enjoyed making an Avatar of myself, and had to resist making something rediculous just for the sake of it. I think the general look of the avatars is just on the right side of realism. You can pretty much make something that looks just like you but without it being too creepy. Every day i’ve been looking through my friends avatars and having a good laugh at how similar they look in real life, or in some cases just looking at them to get an idea of what they might look like in real life if they’re friends I’ve never actually met. At the moment these avatars just simply sit in the Xbox Live Friends channel and various other locations on the dashboard as well as in a 2D form on xbox.com. They will gradually start to become an identify you can choose to use in certain types on game, much in the same way as the Wii.

Speed

One of the most practical improvements has to be the increase in speed as you navigate around. This makes the whole messaging friends experience a lot more pleasant. There are supposeldy improvements in the speed of marketplace, and whilst i can see that in some areas scrolling through long lists has improved, some parts of marketplace were very slow this week. However the Live team have noted this and are apparently working to improve it.

Overall I like the New Xbox Experience (NXE) a lot, it’s like you’re getting somethign tangible for free (if you ignore the annual Live Gold cost).