The New New New Xbox Experience Halo4 Dash

[Jebus]

I must be the only one, but since the dash update my 360 takes ages to log into LIVE!

Everything else seems quicker, it's nice to go to "my game library" and they are all there straight away. Media streaming had to "rebuild" though as well.

[MJ]

I've just noticed you no longer need to enter the button combination to clear the hard drive's cache, it is now an option when you go to System Settings / Memory / Select drive / Press Y for Device Options.

[averybluemonkey]

Most, if not all, games cache data to the HDD anyway, so it's not like you're keeping it from wearing by not installing games to it.

I'd be a bit surprised if this was the case on 360 for most games. Why bother coding the caching algorithms when not all users have a hard drive? As a programmer I can assure you that pulling stuff off a hard drive is dog slow and if developers are accessing that on the fly they are better off with developing a decent streaming infrastructure and pulling straight from the disc in the first place.

Personally I've had two Western Digital drives die on me in the last 6 years, most my uni mates had one die on them at least once. Disk head crashes aren't that uncommon when drives are put under heavy load.

[toythatkills]

FAO someone who's bought something from the avatar marketplace:

Does this content work like regular marketplace content? If I buy something will all the other profiles be able to use it too or will they have to pay separately? The new Tokidoki stuff is pretty cool, and might convince my girlfriend to play some games!

[RetroEd]

I just tried accessing the Fable II tee I purchased (I know, I had to see how it worked, didn't I?) on a different profile, and it doesn't appear when browsing your Avatar's clothing on another account, unfortunately.

[toythatkills]

Ugh, what a stupid, irritating decision.

EDIT: Just realised the avatar marketplace for male and female avatars is different anyway, so it wouldn't have made any difference. Some quite cool Steampunk girl stuff, still not gonna get bought now!

[Malc]

When the dashboard update hits for all of us, i'm not going to purchase a single item from the avatar marketplace. I can see how having a certain piece of game branded clothing would be nice, but to have to pay money for something so insignificant and that no one else cares about is a waste of my money.

I know it's not going to cost more than a couple of pounds for most things, but when MS realised that other companies were thriving off micro-transactions, they clearly wanted a piece of the action. I will support Microsoft by buying their games, XBL subscriptions etc. but I refuse to support them by paying for this kind of content.

[gunrock]

I agree. I'm all for choice, and if you like that sort of thing, great! But paying real word cash for some virtual stuff for a virtual avatar in a virtual world, that exists only on a private network, is a no-no for me.

Piffling rubbish!

[SmokeMeAKipper]

I agree too - I'm not paying to deck out my avatar.

On an unrelated note, now that MS have made it easier to clear the cache, is there any reason why they (and Sony) don't / won't release some sort of defragmenter or HD repair tool? Surely it might be useful to have a clean out every now and again.

[egparadigm]

I won't be touching the Avatar guff, just like I avoided all the gamerpics and themes.

[parkinho]

I won't be touching the Avatar guff, just like I avoided all the gamerpics and themes.

Me too, anyone who buys this junk must have more money than sense.

[Jebus]

Seriously, is nobody else having issues with log in speed? It's MUCH slower to login to XBOX LIVE than it ever was. Is it a profile size issue or...?

[SuperBeatBoy]

Its been fine for me even when i'm downloading stuff on another machine.

[Jebus]

Once its (deep) in(side) it's fine, but the initial (entry) log in takes longer than before!

Everything else is fried gold though, just that!

[Alex_976]

Well personally I can't wait to deck my avatar out in some cool Sega threads.