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Microsoft has detailed some of the changes it will be making to the Xbox 360 dashboard this autumn...
This year's update to the Xbox 360 dashboard might not be quite as big as last year's New Xbox Experience, although it's sure to keep the momentum going. The first details of these incoming changes came at E3 earlier this year but now Microsoft has fleshed out some of the details of these additions.
The info, which has been dolled out ahead of a preview of the update next week (thanks Kotaku), provides a deeper insight into some of its highlighting features such as Avatar improvements and the new Games on Demand service. There are no mentions of the previously announced Last.fm, Twitter, Facebook, and Zune instant-on HD video applications though:
Netflix Updates
Now you can watch movies with your friends no matter where they are and manage your queue from the comfort of your couch.
- Movie Parties - Xbox LIVE Gold members can sit together in a virtual theater with up to seven friends no matter where they are while your Avatars watch a movie, flirt or even throw popcorn at each other.
- Manage Your Queue - Browse the Netflix Instant Watch video catalogue, choose from the most popular movies and genres and add to your queue all from the comfort of your couch - no computer required.
- Enhanced Playback Experience - Enjoy a smooth viewing experience when your internet bandwidth fluctuates.
- Friends Info - Richer information is now displayed in the Friends channel and in the Guide showing what you and your friends are doing.
Avatar Marketplace
Express yourself! Deck your Avatar out with the latest clothing and props from the top brands and game franchises. Please note that only limited content is currently available in the preview.
- Clothing - Download premium items, including branded apparel from your favorite fashion labels and Xbox 360 games such as "Halo."
- Props - You can now equip your avatar with animated items they can carry around and interact with.
- Awardables - The ability to earn Avatar clothing and props as rewards within games has been added. Please stay tuned for an update on supporting titles.
Games on Demand
Enjoy 24 x 7 access to a growing online library of popular full game titles on Xbox LIVE whenever you want them, in the comfort of your living room.
- Purchase Options - Browse and download a great selection of full Xbox 360 games using Microsoft Points, direct debit, or credit card.
- Game Manuals - Game manuals for Games on Demand titles can be viewed, downloaded or printed on Xbox.com.
- It's Yours Forever! - As with other Xbox LIVE content, Games on Demand titles are linked to your Xbox LIVE account, so you can delete and re-download anything you have already purchased to the same console or another console.
User Ratings
User ratings help you find games that other people think are awesome!
- Rate it - You can now rate every game on the Xbox LIVE Games Marketplace using a 5-star system.
- Sort and Find it - Now you can easily find the games that everyone's been raving about by visiting the Top Rated games in the Browse All category of Xbox LIVE Games Marketplace.
Xbox LIVE Parties
Everyone loves to Party! Check out the new and improved Xbox LIVE Party features.
- Party Reconnections - If you are accidently disconnected from your party, Xbox LIVE will automatically reconnect you.
- Streamlined Party Invites - Invites are now just one click away! No need to click through multiple screens to get all your friends together.
Video Display Options
We've made it easier for you to see your entertainment in the highest resolution possible on your TV using an HDMI connection.
- Display Discovery - Make sure you can see and hear your entertainment in the highest resolution and sound quality possible with the option to override and select audio and video formats independent of the information your television sends to your Xbox 360 console.
Other Improvements
We're always listening to you for feedback, and this Xbox LIVE update will include numerous dashboard updates.
- Gold Member Veterans - Xbox LIVE Gold members get to show it off with a stamp on your Gamer Card that tells people how long you've been a Gold member.
- Indie Games - Xbox LIVE Community Games has been renamed Xbox LIVE Indie Games. We feel this new name better represents the independent spirit of these titles.
- Achievement Browser - We've revamped the Achievements browser so it's now easier to read through all the achievements while playing a game. You can now also launch a game directly from the browser.
- Achievements Tracking - A new view inside the profile panel which includes a summary of Achievements earned across all the games played, and shows of all your completed games.
- Streamlined Navigation - Streamlined navigation, including new entry points in the dashboard for Active Downloads, redeeming codes, recovering Gamertags and more.
- Voice Messages - No more blank voice messages! When recording a voice message, a warning will pop up if no audio is detected.
- Friends List Sorting - It's now easier to find your friends! Find and sort your friends by activity, Gamertag or online status by pressing the Y button while viewing the friends list in the Guide.
- Memory - Time stamps now appear in the memory area, which particular handy when managing saved games.
Account Management
We've made some changes to make your life easier.
- Subscription Notification - If your Xbox LIVE subscription is about to run out, you will now be notified when you sign into Xbox LIVE.
- Updates for Invalid Windows Live IDs - If the Windows Live ID you provided has expired, you will now be prompted to update it the next time you sign into Xbox LIVE.
- Account recovery - We've enhanced the account recovery process to make it faster and more reliable.
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Added:Tue 12th Jul 2011 00:16, Post No: 612
at last normal game talk rather than that supid fanboy crap thats been littering this site a few months ago, keep up the good work.
Added:Wed 29th Jun 2011 11:55, Post No: 611
@Peter Corr: You'd be surprised actually. I've done TVG's news on a daily basis for nearly 4 years now, and the amount of rumours that end up having some kind of relevance to them is higher than you'd think. I'd maybe estimate it somewhere in the realms of 30-40% of rumours are at least based on something that was true somewhere along the line.
The real problem is the Chinese whispers effect: after a few drinks at a press event, one journalist tells another journalist something they overheard on a recent studio tour, and the whole thing ends up getting misconstrued and overblown in a rumour article. It's why the sources are often referred to as "familiar with the matter" or "close to [the developer]" etc.
In my career, I've held back a handful of potentially huge rumour articles like this (which have turned out to be vaguely true in the end, I might add). It's usually been because my 'source' told me with confidence that I wouldn't report it, or because the story would have been poorly verified and potentially inflammatory unless it was more substantiated. However, many other journalists would just report these kinds of stories anyway.
In terms of the speculation on new consoles that you're referring to, no rumours are going to force console manufacturers into rushing a new system out of the door. One of the Next Xbox rumours suggested that Microsoft has been working on a new system since 2006, and this wouldn't surprise me at all. My boss and I looked through Nintendo's R&D spending a couple of years back, and it's eye-opening to see how R&D spending ramps-up quite a few years before a new console's announcement.
A good rule of thumb is that you can expect a console manufacturer to at least be in the planning stages for a new system within 2 or 3 years of releasing its current machine. If Microsoft hadn't been sketching out ideas for its NeXtbox by 2008, then I'd be very surprised. Make no mistake, there will be a new Xbox machine somewhere within Microsoft's Redmond HQ by now. The only question is whether or not it's in the hands of developers at this point as well.
As far as rumoured images of new consoles are concerned, you're right - more often than not they tend to look nothing like the final product. There's a couple of reasons for this: fake images can be easily mocked-up by NeoGaf users with far too much time on their hands, but also a new console's design goes through numerous prototype stages before it reaches its final form. Rumoured images may have been accurate at one point but simply didn't end up reflecting the final design.
Added:Tue 28th Jun 2011 19:19, Post No: 610
haha fair enough.
to be honest though, over all the years, only a small handful of rumours in the gaming industry ever turn out to be actually true. even before the internet, i have loads of old mags i could show you where they're going on about the next console, even with pics, which have all turned out untrue, or specualtion on the inevitable.
i think it's the media/whoever trying to force sony/microsoft into the next generation earlier than they both plan, which IMO would be a big mistake. even the best pc hardware isn't AMAZING compared to the 2 current gen consoles. ps3 is doing most of what a top end pc is doing with battlefront 3 for examples (albeit with a smaller resolution and a slower framerate), but seriously, i don't want to pay £500 for a ps4 for such a small step up right now. there's not enough additional quality in the tech yet to warrant it.
there's plenty of scope in this gen yet imo. 'next gen' needs to be a much bigger step up. ps1>ps2>ps3, each one was a huge step up in technology. there's nothing like that to challenge ps3/360 yet, don't you think? (don't even mention the wii2, nobody knows the specs yet hehe)
Added:Tue 28th Jun 2011 15:43, Post No: 609
@Peter Corr: This is the game industry. Publishers and developers will deny whatever they want and call it rumour and speculation until they officially announce it themselves.
That's how it works. They will deny accurate reports to keep their publicity campaigns intact, or because they're under non-disclosure agreements.
For what it's worth, I find this latest round of rumours pretty sketchy anyway, which is why I wrote a couple of paragraphs at the bottom voicing doubt on the whole thing.
I had initially put up resistance to reporting on this latest round of Xbox 720 rumours but, as the rumours started to mount up, I thought it was at least worth bringing it to our readers' attention. To reiterate though, personally I'm sceptical and I think that's reflected in the tone of my writing.
Added:Tue 28th Jun 2011 15:42, Post No: 608
@Post 607: Sorry, I didn't realise you'd used it first anon :)
Added:Tue 28th Jun 2011 14:43, Post No: 607
...you stole my term "nextbox"! ><.
Added:Tue 28th Jun 2011 13:48, Post No: 606
who wrote this? they've since denied there's even a timesplitters 4 in production, microsoft has said last week "xbox is half way through its cycle" and EA have quickly called the rumours about them "100% untrue". this is a complete non story. surely there's something better to report to us than absolutely made up nonsense? lol
Added:Sun 08th May 2011 22:10, Post No: 605
now thats just a childish and quite poor responce from what your making out to be a mature adult, i clearly stated there is less chance of getting an infection by using legal web sites however nothing is hacker proof "learn to read please". google OS is or might not even come to light for at least a few years yet and dont expect linux to steal any of microsofts market share, if it really bothers you that much get an apple mac but really is there any need for the quite silly argumenton a gaming website.
untill you grow up and act your age please stop filling up these pages with your hate, if you dont like microsoft fair enough your not alone but for the people that do like microsoft please stop trolling them its just childish and the only one your showing up is your self.
i dont see any other music producers or games developers with such petty responces such as yours, they have more important things to do than going to gaming websites and sending childish replys, quite obviously you have quite a lot of time on your hands as most developers/music creators have their own blog sites in which to chat when they have some spare time.
Added:Sun 08th May 2011 21:13, Post No: 604
lmao, i'm a music producer and i produce pc games for the likes of popcap too. in other words, i do not pirate anything, from movies to music. it's killing our scenes. i've had a virus (which the virus software killed, not microsoft's windows or IE) simply from clicking a link from a mates phised account of facebook before. you can get a virus from any website, especially if a nice hacker decided to leave the code on a normally trusted and active website. (facebook being a good example).
quite unbelievable that you're calling me a 'fanboy' when you go on too then defend microsoft windows and IE on security with a total falsity of 'dont download illegal things then'. erm, i dont. it's no co-incidence that i've not a problem since flipping to google chrome. i'm just waiting for linux to be more compatibile and/or google to come up with the os that's been rumoured, then i can get MS out my life forever. and i recommend everyone else do the same.
Added:Sun 08th May 2011 20:40, Post No: 603
jesus post 600 did your rattle fall out of your pram and post 602 your right post 600 is a hypocrite, the playstation has been hacked loads of times, just cause all the times before sony didnt shut its servers down dont mean its better or hasnt been hacked lol, the only poeople who get seriously bad security breaches in windows and internet explorer are morons who download illegal digital content, the security provided with windows is secure enough for people who dont partisipate in illegal activity such as illegally downloading games, movies, music and software.
if you just bought official software, games, movies, music ect you would have far less chance of being hacked, im not saying you wont get hacked just there is far less chance of it happening, nothing is hacker proof you moronic hypocrite.