Date Set For New Xbox Experience
After it was first announced at E3 this past July, fans of the 360 and the gaming community as a whole have been awaiting the arrival of the New Xbox Experience. From TGS, Microsoft has announced that we’ll all get a feel for the revamped Xbox 360 interface on November 19th.
The New Xbox Experience will intro features such as Avatars, a customizable character unique to your profile, Netflix integration, allowing users of Netflix and Xbox Live Gold to watch streaming movies on their 360 consoles, and Xbox Live parties where you can listen to music, share photos, and voice chat with up to seven friends on Xbox Live.
Last month Xbox Live saw a 24-hour down time to prepare for the massive update. No word on whether any additional down time will be required when the switch finally gets flipped, but we’ll find out before November 19th.
[insert opinion here]
Without actually getting our hands on it, it’s hard to say, but our feeling is that this New Xbox Experience, is either going to truly revolutionize a console purely with a software change, or it’s going to be the most overblown U.I flip ever presented. Let’s not forget that the current 360 dashboard is wonderfully designed, and messing with that could back fire unless the changes are truly ground breaking and beneficial.
While some new features are being rolled out, not everyone is excited for or will make use of certain features (a lot of people don’t have or want Netflix, some people are already ambivalent towards Avatars, etc), and that leaves the majority of people judging the “New Experience” based on the fundamental of user interface design. Microsoft has to nail this dashboard, perfectly. No exceptions.
It’s not that failing to do so will result in some catastrophic setback, but simply that we’ve promised so much from a U.I face lift, it better be freaking worth it.
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