Topic: Xbox 360 Dashboard Revamp Coming Soon

[Xessive]

Revamped Xbox 360 dashboard to launch on December 6th, Microsoft confirms

The new look will be in line with the "Metro" style of Windows Phone 7 and the upcoming Windows 8.

[Cobra951]

Thanks for the heads up.  I always wait at least a week to make sure they haven't broken something important.  Knowing when it's coming will let me work game updates and other downloads around that.

[Xessive]

Thanks for the heads up.  I always wait at least a week to make sure they haven't broken something important.  Knowing when it's coming will let me work game updates and other downloads around that.

Anytime, I recall a few people had some issues when NXE first came out.

I think this update will primarily be cosmetic with some minor new features. Very likely a full Kinect control scheme for it too, something to make it more akin to the touch interfaces for other devices.

[W7RE]

Not really much new, unless they actually add Youtube and HBO Go. (which aren't available in the preview program yet) You can do a Bing search, even without kinect, and it shows you movies, music, games, whatever matches the search. You can post achievements to your Facebook without entering the Facebook app.

Premium themes are hosed. You still get the big grey "ground" sphere across the bottom, and you have to go to the "social" section and click on friends list before you see the friend backgrounds.

The Games Marketplace is sort of a mess. The general "New Releases" section shows you everything regardless of wether it's a demo, dlc, or actual game, and doesn't bother to tell you what's new for that game. It just takes you to the main page for that game and lets you guess what's new. To get the info you actually need, you have to go to "games", click on "Game Marketplace", use the right bumper to shift over to "games", "add-ons", "extras", or "demos" and then click on "New Releases" from there. That will only show the new stuff for that category.





Really the biggest issue is all the ads. It would have been perfect to just list your relevant apps in each section. Instead the video section gives you a page full of ads with a small "My Video Apps" to click on. Some of the most used and most important stuff is buried to make room for ads.

[Cobra951]

I knew they were going to fuck it up further, somehow.  It was too simple and straightforward before.  Now that they're trying to go after more markets than just real games, plus that damn kinect taking center stage, what I bought the system for is going to get dwarfed and buried, and harder to navigate to. 

[Quemaqua]

Guess I'm not sorry mine bricked. Don't think I'll be replacing it.

[Xessive]

Take Game Informer's Tour of X360 New Dashboard

[W7RE]

Television providers and when they'll be available on Xbox:


http://majornelson.com/2011/12/04/the-future-of-tv-begins-this-week-on-xbox-360/



Dec. 6:
•    EPIX. United States
•    ESPN on Xbox LIVE (ESPN). United States
•    Hulu. Japan
•    Hulu Plus. United States
•    LOVEFiLM. United Kingdom
•    Netflix. Canada, United States
•    Premium Play by (MediaSet). Italy
•    Sky Go (SkyDE). Austria, Germany
•    Telef๓nica Espa๑a – Movistar Imagenio. Spain
•    TODAY (MSNBC). United States
 
Later in December:
•    4 on Demand (C4). United Kingdom
•    ABC iView (Australian Broadcasting Corp.). Australia
•    AlloCin้. France (AlloCin้), Germany (Filmstarts), Spain (Sensacine), United Kingdom (Screenrush)
•    Astral Media’s Disney XD (Astral Media). Canada
•    blinkbox (Blinkbox). United Kingdom
•    Crackle (Sony Pictures). Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States
•    Dailymotion. Available in 32 countries globally
•    Demand 5 (Five). United Kingdom
•    DIGI+ (CANAL+). Spain
•    GolTV (Mediapro). Spain
•    iHeartRadio (Clear Channel). United States
•    Mediathek/ZDF (ZDF). Germany
•    MSN. Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, United Kingdom
•    MSNBC.com. United States
•    MUZU.TV. Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom
•    ninemsn. Australia
•    Real Sports (Maple Leaf Sports). Canada
•    Rogers On Demand Online (Rogers Media). Canada
•    SBS ON DEMAND. Australia
•    TMZ (Warner Bros.). Canada, United States
•    TVE (RTVE.es). Spain
•    UFC on Xbox LIVE (UFC). Canada, United States
•    Verizon FiOS TV. United States
•    VEVO. Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom, United States
•    Vudu (Wal-Mart). United States
•    YouTube. Available in 24 countries globally

Early 2012:
•    Antena 3 (Antena 3 de Televisi๓n). Spain
•    BBC (BBC). United Kingdom
•    CinemaNow (Best Buy). United States
•    HBO GO (HBO). United States
•    MLB.TV (MLB Advanced Media). Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Columbia, Czech Republic, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, United Kingdom, United States
•    Telenovelas/Sports (Televisa). Brazil, Chile, Colombia, France, Italy, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom
•    Xfinity On Demand (Comcast). United States

[W7RE]

The new revamp is out tomorrow BTW (Tues, Dec 6).

There will also be a Windows Phone 7 update tomorrow. It adds some of the functionality from this update, and also seems to add some remote control type features. You can start up apps, games, movies and such on your Xbox by using your phone. You can then pause, fast forward, rewind, etc. with your phone as well.





The most useful thing to me seems like the beacons. Someone sets a beacons saying they want to play X game, maybe at a specific time. Seeing that on your phone would be convenient. Though the beacons can also post to Facebook, so if you can view Facebook on your phone that can sort of accomplish the same thing. Anyone remember that promo video MS did just before the launch of Xbox Live, where you saw people getting game invites over their phone and running to their console to play? Yea, it only took them 9 years, but it's coming now.

[Cobra951]

When did this happen?  I mean this board going active and all?  Cool!

Well, I'm holding off getting the update.  I never trust these things to go smoothly out of the starting gate.  Does anyone have it already?  Any problems?

[W7RE]

There were issues with downtime and such on launch day. It all seems fine now. I've actually been running this version of the dashboard for almost a week now (was in the preview program for it), and haven't had any problems.


Actually, there's one. I have the Games on Demand version of Darksiders, and it now takes a few minutes to load. I tell the Xbox to launch it, and I see a black screen for like 2 minutes. Then when it loads up and I get to the start screen, and press start, it freezes for a minute or two. It works fine otherwise. I tested other GonD games and arcade games, and they're all fine. The very first preview version of the dashboard did this, and all updates have as well. Maybe I'll try redownloading the whole game again.

[PyroMenace]

When did this happen?  I mean this board going active and all?  Cool!

Idol posted it in the overwritten domain thread on Minds Eye about a week ago.

[Cobra951]

I missed that.  Damn.

That's weird about Darksiders.  I have it too, though I haven't played it in a long time.  If the update trampled something related to it, redownloading the game might fix it.  Let me know how that goes.  I'm holding off on the update till next week anyway.

[W7RE]

Redownloading Darksiders didn't fix the problem. Timed it (sort of, I counted) and it's about 60 seconds for both freezes. First on the black while it's trying to load the game, then on the start screen while it's trying to bring up the save location popup. I tried clearing my system cache. I tried enabling cloud saves.

I submitted a bug report about it during the preview program. I got a MS response asking "are you running the game from a USB device?" I replied that no, it's installed to the internal hard drive. No further MS response, no one else saying they had the same issue.





Quickplay on the new dashboard has had a subtle affect on me. It excludes any disc based games. It can launch indie games, arcade games, music/video apps (but not social apps for some reason). Any game that I have the Games on Demand version, I can launch from there. This makes me wish all my games were the GonD versions.

The major unfortunate thing about that though, is that the GonD prices are still extremely inconsistent. I was looking at Oblivion for Xbox last night. The 5th anniversary edition comes with Shivering Isles and Nights of the Nine, and costs $30. On Xbox the base game is $30, SI is $30, NotN is $10. Disc version = $30, Games on Demand version = $70.

[Cobra951]

The GoD versions are occasionally a good deal, but so far it's rare.  I have a feeling too many people opt for the convenience of not having to go to a store or wait for delivery, or having to find a disc and insert it.  Personally, I refuse to pay more than $30 for anything without a box and disc.  But even when that requirement is met, it's usually a better deal to get something online than to get the GoD version.

[W7RE]

I would pay $60 for a GoD version of a game, if it was available the day it came out. They never are though.

There are benefits to having a physical box and disc.
there are benefits to owning the game over a service that lets your DL it and launch it disc free.

Those two make it equal in my eyes, so that just leaves price. With the Xbox particularly, it's almost always cheaper to get the physical box from someone else. Steam, on the other hand, knows what they're doing.

[W7RE]

Block ads on your Xbox by blocking the MS ad server

That's saying to use OpenDNS, but apparently you can just block rad.msn.com with your router.




It only really gets rid of the ads that are blatant advertisement. So if you go to the Video channel, I see 5 panels that I consider ads. (of 4, I guess "Inside Xbox isn't really an ad). Blocking the address gets rid of 1 of them. The bottom right becomes a picture of some avatars instead of an ad:

[Cobra951]

That seems like more trouble than it's worth.  I may see if I can get my router to do it on its own.  I don't want to muck around with DNS stuff I don't understand.

I would pay $60 for a GoD version of a game, if it was available the day it came out. They never are though.

There are benefits to having a physical box and disc.
there are benefits to owning the game over a service that lets your DL it and launch it disc free.

Those two make it equal in my eyes, so that just leaves price. With the Xbox particularly, it's almost always cheaper to get the physical box from someone else. Steam, on the other hand, knows what they're doing.

You're making my point for me.  The reason the download versions are expensive is exactly what you're saying.  Many people see it as having value added over retail boxes rather than subtracted.  I still expect a bargain for saving them the cost of a box, a disc, and transportation.  If I don't get it, I'm not buying.

But it sure is convenient.  I went for a few months not long ago without ever touching the DVD tray.  Borderlands, mostly, which was my first GoD experience.

[W7RE]

Oh I agree about the value for retail vs DD. I'm just saying that yea, for me the convenience is worth it. I'm looking at my end cost. If it's the same price for both, I'll go for the digital version. It almost never is though.


And for the ad blocking on the dashboard, I'm not gonna do it. I just thought it was interesting and worth posting. I'm hoping MS notices and takes note of it. Is there any chance they'll lower the number of ads? No chance in hell. I'm just hoping someone in their design department hears about how people hate it, and maybe that will influence future design decisions.

For me to do it, it would have to be more of a revamp. It's not just the fact that there are ads, it's that the user interface is spread so thin to accommodate them. Just changing one panel from an animated Chuck Norris WoW ad to a picture of some avatars won't fix that fundamental design issue.

[Cobra951]

The whole thing looks horrible to me.  It's this metro garbage also coming with Windows 8.  I can see the need for big fat interactive tiles in a handheld device with a small screen, but WTF do I want with it on a big TV or monitor?  The ads are just another layer of smelly crap on that monstrosity.  On the Xbox, it's because of Knect, a device I'm unlikely to ever own.  It's too expensive for my scarce interest in it, my game space is too small, by both need and choice, and I cringe at the notion of speaking out loud to a machine.  Not a good fit for me at all.  So I'm forced to get something that's worse than useless to me (meaning the Xbox interface).  *Sigh*  No good choices here.  The only other one is to keep NXE and stay offline for the rest of the console's life.

[PyroMenace]

I would say that a little bit of fat has been trimmed off with this new dashboard. There are still ads, yes, but there are less needless pages of them and multiple ads are isolated to one tile. It's a little easier to navigate, but that's pretty much it. There are also cloud saves which is neat. Overall, its a minor improvement, its not going to break your experience if your used to the current dashboard. I certainly wouldn't cut myself offline from it.

[Xessive]

Microsoft Sneaks a No Sue Clause into Xbox 360 Update

Not only does the dashboard update overhaul the entire Xbox 360 experience and usher in an era of voice controlled navigation, but Microsoft went the extra mile by adding a clause to the Terms of Service (ToS) stripping you of the hassle of being able to file a class action lawsuit, should you ever feel compelled! No siree, if you have an issue, you can sidestep legal action by "filling out a simple Notice of Dispute form" and mailing it in, and Microsoft will then work to resolve the dispute to your "satisfaction within 60 days." Isn't that swell?

Sneaky sneaky.

First thing that popped into my head was that South Park episode "Human CentiPad"

[Cobra951]

I'm sure if the need arises, there will be class-action lawsuits about that clause.  :-)  That they would try to prevent all forms of liability doesn't surprise me.  It depends on the political climate whether they'll get away with it or not in the long run.  You can sign under all the hidden clauses on the planet; it won't matter if courts decide they violate overriding principles like public policy.  You would think it's obvious that a large corporation getting away scott-free with harm to consumers violates public policy.  Who knows what judges think is obvious.

I had to agree to the new ToS just to log into xbox.com.  I have yet to get the new Xbox dashboard.  Pyro's comments eased my fears a bit.  I haven't heard any horror stories yet, so I'll be getting it this week sometime, probably.

[scottws]

The no lawsuits and no class-action clause is disconcerting.  It seems ridiculous that such a thing would actually be legally binding, since the judicial system's entire purpose is for settling disputes.  Their attempt at replacing the judicial system with their own form of arbitration and dispute resolution is a joke.

That said, I recently read a summary of a Supreme Court ruling where the Court sided with AT&T on a clause in a customer contract stating that they could not submit a class-action lawsuit.  So the precedent for this clause's defense is there, at the highest level.  That said, I feel confident that Microsoft did something obviously terrible and there was a class action lawsuit that courts would overlook and abolish the no litigation clause.  That said, other than the AT&T and T-Mobile deal, it seems that money talks with our current government so you never know what sins will be committed next.

Edit: Here is that case I was talking about.

[Cobra951]

Wow.  That's a horrible precedent, and it's binding, nationwide.  5-4 margin means all it will take is the replacement of 1 pro-business judge with a pro-people judge, plus another case with the same issue brought before the court, to reverse it.  Sounds easy, but it may take years, or never happen.  Horrible news, that.

[Cobra951]

Redownloading Darksiders didn't fix the problem. Timed it (sort of, I counted) and it's about 60 seconds for both freezes. First on the black while it's trying to load the game, then on the start screen while it's trying to bring up the save location popup. I tried clearing my system cache. I tried enabling cloud saves.

I submitted a bug report about it during the preview program. I got a MS response asking "are you running the game from a USB device?" I replied that no, it's installed to the internal hard drive. No further MS response, no one else saying they had the same issue.





Quickplay on the new dashboard has had a subtle affect on me. It excludes any disc based games. It can launch indie games, arcade games, music/video apps (but not social apps for some reason). Any game that I have the Games on Demand version, I can launch from there. This makes me wish all my games were the GonD versions.

The major unfortunate thing about that though, is that the GonD prices are still extremely inconsistent. I was looking at Oblivion for Xbox last night. The 5th anniversary edition comes with Shivering Isles and Nights of the Nine, and costs $30. On Xbox the base game is $30, SI is $30, NotN is $10. Disc version = $30, Games on Demand version = $70.

OK, I got this now.  Not bad, really, just have to get used to a few things that moved a bit, plus the tiles thing, which is straightforward.  I tried launching several games, both GoD and arcade.  You're right, there is a delay with Darksiders that isn't there with the others.  But mine is 25 sec, plus 25 sec again when you press Start, not 60.  Seems to be related to I/O of some sort.  No question there's a problem here.  The game works fine after that.  Everything else I've tried so far launches fine without delay.  That includes GoW 2 & Borderlands.

There's no more wasted space now than before.  I ignored most of the vertical scrolling before, and now I'll be ignoring most of the horizontal scrolling on the initial screen.  I hate the word Social as a heading for friends, my acct & avatar stuff.  Sounds like a disease.  The cloud saves look like a great addition.  You get 512 MB of what amounts to an online memory card.  It syncs to an area the same size on your local drive.  That plus roaming profiles will be great for those who go play on friends' xboxes.  I just see it as one more way to safeguard data.  That's assuming the developers aren't assholes like Turn 10.  They have gone to extreme lengths to make sure you can't back up your saves in Forza 4.  To play using the cloud saves, you must be logged into Live, even though the data is in a local cache as well.  You know how I feel about that.

[W7RE]

Also, you apparently can't copy to the cloud, you have to move saves there. (might only be true for some games) So you're either saving to the cloud, or to the HDD, not both.

I turned it on for a while, but turned it back off. I only ever play on one Xbox. Having it on makes my games ask me where which storage I want to use, and since I never use anything but the HDD, might as well turn it off so it's not prompting me.




The YouTube app is up for beta testers. It seems pretty well done in that it complies with the layout of the Metro design, but doesn't shove tons of ads in yoru face. (it's got recommendations instead, some of which are based on your history). I wish it would put my subscriptions up front somewhere though. Instead I have to go left once to get to "my YouTube", click on view all, then click on subscriptions. From there it shows a horizontal list of the channels I subscribe to. If I click on one, it shows me all playlists by that user, I click on "all uploads" and it shows them with the most recent first. I can click on one to watch it. On the PC I click my YouTube shortcut, then click the video and I'm watching. I'ts got the most recent updated to my subscriptions right there on the front page. On the Xbox I've got to dig down 5 layers or so to get to the actual video.

The horizontal headings are my YouTube, featured, discover, and settings, and it starts you on featured.

my YouTube has
large panel with scrolling recommendations based on my history
watch later - things I've tagged to watch later
recommended - same as the large panel, but with 29 results
my playlists - shows me all playlists I've created, with the first being a list of all my favorited videos
view all - brings up 5 options: subscriptions, watch later, my uploads, recommended, and my playlists.

The "featured" section has a scrolling large panel with featured stuff, then panels for YouTube trends, most popular, most liked, and view all.

The "discover" section has categories for browsing. The front section has animation, beauty & fashion, celebrities & gossip, cooking & health, automotive, causes & non-profits, comedy, and view all. Clicking on view all expands to a list of 17 topics.

The "settings" section is pretty barebones. You can sign in/out of your YouTube account, change "safety mode" to restrict content. There's a "kinect tuner" option that tells me to plug in my kinect (don't have one), and customer support, which just gives a url for me to go to.


iHeartRadio is up there now too. It seems pretty much just like Last.fm, except that you can browse real radio stations, including by region. So I could find radio station in my area if I wanted to. You can also do custom radio stations like Last.fm. But also just like Last.fm, you choose an artist and it shuffles through artists they think are similar, and I find myself wishing I could just list x number of artists and having it only play those.

[W7RE]

One one thing the YouTube app does right, better than on the PC: ads. When you watch a video, a couple seconds in it shows a popup at the bottom with a preview pic of an ad with the duration on it, and a small description. If you press A, it plays the ad video. If you press B, it just goes away. No more 30 second ads before you can watch your video AND a popup you have to click the X on. Just a small popup and you press B, and you're done.


Though it doesn't seem to want to play in HD for me. Not sure why.


EDIT: apparently YouTube is Xbox Live Gold only.

[Cobra951]

Also, you apparently can't copy to the cloud, you have to move saves there. (might only be true for some games) So you're either saving to the cloud, or to the HDD, not both.

I turned it on for a while, but turned it back off. I only ever play on one Xbox. Having it on makes my games ask me where which storage I want to use, and since I never use anything but the HDD, might as well turn it off so it's not prompting me.

. . .

I always have to deal with that storage prompt in retina-searing white.  I have 2 old-style memory cards, internal flash memory, a 4GB USB stick, plus the HDD.  You may have to move your saves from one of those devices to the cloud, but you can usually copy them to the other devices (and I usually do, for backup).  Some developers, and I'll repeat the term "assholes", lock the files to a single device, so you can't copy them.  (Actually, you can, by moving them to a USB stick, moving that to a PC, and using a tool such as XTAF or Modio to copy whatever you want from the stick to your PC.  Works like a charm.)  In that case, yeah, you'll have to move them to the cloud and trust that works well (if you don't want to resort to the extracurricular activities I mentioned aside).  Otherwise, you should be able to have you cake and eat it too.

[Cobra951]

One one thing the YouTube app does right, better than on the PC: ads. When you watch a video, a couple seconds in it shows a popup at the bottom with a preview pic of an ad with the duration on it, and a small description. If you press A, it plays the ad video. If you press B, it just goes away. No more 30 second ads before you can watch your video AND a popup you have to click the X on. Just a small popup and you press B, and you're done.


Though it doesn't seem to want to play in HD for me. Not sure why.


EDIT: apparently YouTube is Xbox Live Gold only.

I stumbled into this tonight.  There was a tile about youtube, and selecting it downloaded the app and sent me into it.  I spent about an hour watching different clips from several channels.  Some are high-quality HD.  Works perfectly so far.  I'm going to have to look into creating an account.  It's lot more entertaining than I expected.  The only odd thing is the color, which tends to be oversaturated, with low contrast.  I have the TV's settings on this input so that games look their best, and I'm not about to change that for youtube.  They need to give us color settings in their own app.  Other video stuff looks fine on the Xbox, so it's something specific to youtube video that needs tweaking.

Edit:  I have now discovered the iHeartRadio app.  Cool!  It's now bookmarked on my PC as well, and I'm listening to WEBN, a local rock station.

[scottws]

I used to love that station until 1) Eddie Fingers left for WLW (I can't stand Bob the Producer), 2) I realized that they are as bad as a top 40 station, except instead of playing the top 40 pop hits over and over, they play the top 40 AC/DC, Lynryd Skynryd, and Led Zepplin songs over and over.  Save Led Zepplin, I don't mind those bands but I can't take them in such large doses.

My favorite Cincy station was 94.9/97.3 The Sound.  To bad its parent company shut it down a couple years ago.

This is way off topic, but it reminds me... Columbus and Dayton radio is so much better than Cincy.  You have the same stuff that Cincy has, but more alternative rock stations and more stations in general.  I was excited to come down to a large population here in South Florida for more station variety, but it's actually much worse down here to my surprise!  There are more stations yes, but half of them are Spanish, there are a handful of Christian, and then the rest are top 40 stations for either pop, hip-hop, or both.  Oh and then there is a single classic rock station similar to WEBN.  That's it!

[Cobra951]

At least EBN still has some personality.  I find the playlist way more interesting than the dreck the cookie-cutter stations dish out.  But you're right, almost every other place I've driven to has better radio than Cincy, Columbus included.  New York radio is amazing.  You can find anything there, if your car radio can isolate all the adjacent stations properly.

I've got the iHeartRadio smooth-jazz station playing now, perfect for the morning drowsies.  Can't take hard rock yet.  I may have discovered this site on the Xbox, but I'm seldom if ever going to use that for listening to music.  (It's playing on the PC now.)  Youtube is another matter.  My PC can't handle streaming video well at all for some reason.  There is some inefficiency in the chain (probably flash-related) that makes the video freeze intermittently, independent of resolution or window size.  On the Xbox, even the HD videos are TV-smooth.  Nary a hitch during the hour or so that I messed with it.

I guess if you feel a bit of nostalgia, you can tune in to Cincy radio from down there.  WLW is there too.  Search by zip code.