The Grand New Xbox Experience

[Felon]

Microsoft would have us believe that compared to the New Xbox Experience, sliced bread is about as good of an idea as Webvan.

The only major new feature for me is watching Netflix movies online without any extra charge. Finally got to see Ratatouille. Other than that, I can't say it's got much going for it. Then again, I don't enjoy multiplayer gaming enough to care about the Party feature.

For those who have it, what do you think?

 

[Pants]

I personally think it's borked.

I don't care for the new interface. It's a step-down from the old Dashboard and that wasn't even close to perfect.

It was avatars. Whoopdeedoo, you copied Nintendo, you should be proud of yourselves!

Personally, I've been having weird connection issues since the update. I haven't been able to play Left 4 Dead much online because I keep getting booted at least once every 30 minutes.

Also, the new party system, while a nice addition, has resulted in some people not being to talk over their microphones.

Aside from the buggy party chat and the netflix thing, I see nothing really worthwhile about the update.

 

[Enforcer]

I like the new interface. I really like how the Xbox button on the controller can launch the game disc immediately now, that's neat.

Better than sliced bread? Nah, but I prefer it to the old interface.

 

[Redrobes]

Yeah its all a bit mneh... but I like the way you can download a game to the HDD now - it runs a lot quieter that way, presumably uses a little less power though Bungie reckons it might slow down the game... I find that hard to believe. HDD slower than disk, even if run in parallel then its not a lot of gain in overall bandwidth and must surely be a lot less seek time... game runs alright for me anyways. So tentative small thumbs up.

 

[Pants]

I like the new interface. I really like how the Xbox button on the controller can launch the game disc immediately now, that's neat.

Ooh, I have to agree that is cool, though I didn't notice it right away.

 

[Arnwyn]

While it's nice to see that MS has finally realized that the whole "blades" interface was stinky, the NXE is also not that great. Avatars? What for? Pfffft. No difference in the amount of advertising I'm bombarded with, either.

Needless to say, whenever I turn on my PS3 and get the (far-superior in every way) XMB, I breathe a sigh of relief.

 

[Simplicity]

The Netflix thing alone has made it worth it. I now have more TV than I know what to do with. Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Season 1 and 2? Yes, please. And these aren't seasons like today's crappy 13 episode seasons. Oh no, we're talking 30-40 episodes of the best plot twists ever. For free. Sweet.

When I'm done with that, I'll start watching the New Outer Limits... And by the time I'm done with that, they'll have made the next next gen experience. I get utility and it's free, I'm certainly not going to complain.

I *do* wish Netflix would add more titles to their instant watch list, but I imagine that will happen eventually.

 

[John Crichton]

Needless to say, whenever I turn on my PS3 and get the (far-superior in every way) XMB, I breathe a sigh of relief.

This.

One thing I do like about the NXE is the install to HD feature. I have seen better load times on three games. Gotta use up that 120 HD for something...

 

[Banshee16]

Loading games onto the hard drive is useful.....particularly for games like Fable II which have bugs resulting in more "disk read failure" errors than normal. And when those bugs are compounded by another bug that results in your saved game (of which there is only one) is corrupted, if the "disk read failure" bug occurs while saving the game.

Wish I tried loading it to the hard drive before the bug corrupted 30 hours of play and made me need to start over..

I really don't care much about the avatars, but I really like party chat. I play a fair bit of multiplayer, and it's frustrating needing to switch between 5 chat channels to talk to different friends, even though we know each other. Now we just make one party, and be done with it.

Banshee

 

[Punnuendo]

As someone who found the blades "meh" and never really cared for the PS3 interface, I enjoy the NXE. It works for me and feels intuative.