The New New New Xbox Experience Halo4 Dash

[EvilBoris]

Autumn this year.

[SuperBeatBoy]

Didn't expect it so soon. Thats good news.

The community channel reminds me of old Mschat lol.

[MJ]

I wonder how many consoles it will brick in time for Gears 2's release.

[EvilBoris]

They've update the front of xbox.com to reflect the new dash

[Family Fry]

Some more information has been revealed about testing of installs internally from MS, via Gamespot. Some choice snippets from it.

http://uk.gamespot.com/features/6194093/index.html?tag=top_stories;title;1

Microsoft reports that it has seen a 30 percent improvement in load times in internal testing. As an interesting data point, Microsoft went out of its way to tell a group of reporters that the full Devil May Cry 4 hard disk installation took roughly 10 minutes on the Xbox 360.

Another side benefit of having games installed on the hard disk is reduced noise, since the optical disc no longer needs to spin up. However, you will still need to have the game disc in your optical drive while you're playing it, presumably as a piracy check.

[Spatial]

As I've said before I'm not 100% convinced about the new dash but I have to admit that I'm quite excited about being able to get my hands on it to try it out. That's a bit sad really isn't it - being excited about a UI

If they've redesigned Xbox.com already I wonder if that means we'll be seeing it quite soon?

[Matt]

The noise reduction is a great advantage.

Now they need to drop the price of the HDDs, or open it up like the PS3 so you can use any HDD (just sell the caddy seperately). A 20gb drive has something like 12gig free? Add a few Arcade titles and you may not have much space left for more than 1 installed game.

A 360 DVD holds up to 6.8gb of data. Many games won't be that large, but still, the original 20gb drive is looking far too small right now.

[Family Fry]

Suppose the main factor though is they wont be manditory installs (yet), so HD size neednt be an issue unless you want to install everygame.

[Matt]

Suppose the main factor though is they wont be manditory installs (yet), so HD size neednt be an issue unless you want to install everygame.

I don't think installs will become mandatory, though I imagine we'll be seeing an "Install Recommended" label before long.

I think this is a great, and unexpected, addition to the 360. Anything to speed up load time gets my vote, and cutting the noise is a hugely positive side effect.

Still, I hope the 120gb HDD drops to a more reasonable price (like 1/3 of it's existing price, it's a huge rip off right now). I think 20gb owners will be stuck with 1 game on their HDD, maybe a second, that may be their lot. I think to fully take advantage of this, you need to be able to put your 5 to 10 most played titles on a HDD. Shame you still have to stand up to put the disc in the tray

It will be interesting to see what this does to Oblivion, if it helps speed up those Loading pauses while riding a horse cross-country at speed.

[Rossco]

Haven't been following this but can you install games that are already out such as GTA?

[EvilBoris]

Yes, you just need to leave the disc in

[Rossco]

Awesome, not bothered bout the disc but if it means load times are better then I can't complain.

Will it improve things like texture loading, pop in etc?

[Matt]

Pop in is usually an engine issue; texture mip-mapping should improve, such as on Unreal based games where the textures load up low-res before the high-res.

[JohnMcL7]

Sounds very promising as long as they don't force it and I don't think they will, I find with the Elite particularly it's the DVD drive that's responsible for most of the noise. I'm just hoping this is implemented properly and that the disc is left idle most of the time. I can't say load times normally bother me too much on the 360 but any reduction is welcome.

John

[EvilBoris]

A few points were clarified during Major Nelson's Podcast

• Themes and gamerpics are 100% compatible with NXE
• Avatars are OPTIONAL
• Developers can make games that unlock avatar accessories with achievements (a t-shirt with the game on it when you finish a game etc)
• NXE definitely out this year
• 'Play from hard drive' is 100% compatible with all Xbox 360 games to get fast load times
• Play from hard drive is completely optional and works well with multi-disk games
• Schedule downloads from Marketplace from the internet (your 360 must be on for it actually to start the download right away)
• Live Party is 8 player chat/game invite system
• People in the Live Party do not all have to be playing all same game but can still chat
• Live Party is compatible with ALL 360 games
• The current dashboard will be built into the Xbox Guide - all the blade functions will work in the pop-up guide, but without adverts, so you do in effect keep the current dashboard
• New Guide will browse Marketplace contextually - you're playing GoW, it'll bring up GoW content
• If you don't like the new dashboard, you never have to use it as all functionality remains in the pop-up Guide
• NXE has been built with speed in mind, all things should work quicker, including links to content via pop-up Guide