The New New New Xbox Experience Halo4 Dash

[Bort]

So this Cloud storage is only available if you are a Gold member? I don't care about storing save games in the cloud - all I want is to be able to log on to both my xboxes with the same account without having to wait 10 mins to download my damn profile each time. I hope I'll be able to.

You can just keep your profile on a usb stick and move that between machines. There is no reason to keep recovering your profile.

[Fader209]

Yeah, no mention yet what happens if you use Cloud but then stop being a Gold member...

And what happens years down the line when you want to play your old 360 games...do you have to buy a Gold membership for a last gen console?
I thought the idea of saving onto the cloud was a great idea for easing up space on my HD but there really is no point if I'm going to have to copy/move it all back when the Gold sub runs out. (Currently have no Gold so can't even try it out atm).

[fuse]

I got to try this last night and I'm in two minds right now. There's some nice new bits which I need to work out how best to use, and whilst I think both the "games are too far away" and "there's loads of ads" arguments are rather overblown, I do think that the new games marketplace is a touch labyrnthian. My usual scout for the latest videos/DLC etc certainly seems more convoluted, at least. I don't think my current theme (DDPFK) suits it so much either, I'm tempted to switch to the default super-clean one they were showing in all of the preview screenshots, as that looked nice and tidy.

I'm finding it quicker to populate large games lists, I really like the idea of beacons, and as a 3-Xbox kinda guy I'm quite excited about cloud storage and trying to find the best way that works across different consoles. Twitter/Facebook integration can bite me, but apps like 4oD / BBC will be a huge plus, especially if they've done a good job of them - I'm already hearing the 360 version of Lovefilm trumps the PS3 equivalent. My Kinect's not plugged in right now, but having everything voice-activated seems to make a lot more sense than having a seperate dash too.

It'll take some time to get used to I'm sure, but it seems like a decent enough update. Certainly not the end of the world.

[Lebowski]

Did this happen to your mum last week?

Yeah It was a green haired guy do you know him

[mikewl]

I'm not impressed with this new dash, it just feels like they are shoving too much crap I don't want in my face, it just feels like the old supermarket trick, move everything about make it seem like its full of new stuff, shove the best at the back so you have to wade through all the other rubbish they want to sell.

They should just make a customizable dash, so you can put what you want where you want.

[chopemon]

I have a huge problem with ads in a premium service and it is made worse by the ads not even being relevant to me. It would be better if I could tell them that I don't wear Adidas, won't pay for a Beyonce video and I'm not interested in Hangover 2.

Since they've hidden the stuff I'm interested in under garbage I don't want to see and have to pay for the privilege to see, turning on my Xbox has become a really negative experience.

[SUMIRE]

I think I must be the only person who likes this new dash after reading all the negative comments on various forums. I might have to change my mind now just so I don't feel left out.

[dataDave]

Can't we still have auto-boot so we never even see the dashboard? The only time I ever use it is to browse the marketplace/XBLA.

[charlesr]

I think I must be the only person who likes this new dash after reading all the negative comments on various forums. I might have to change my mind now just so I don't feel left out.

Splitter!

And yes, you can still boot straight to disc, although load disc is the first thing that is selected when it boots up anyway, so little point.

[Fader209]

I think I must be the only person who likes this new dash after reading all the negative comments on various forums. I might have to change my mind now just so I don't feel left out.

Peer pressure at its best

I do believe that for every negative comment you should find a positive so here goes with the good stuff:
I now get to annoy friends on Facebook by sharing my achievements as they happen
The colours are a nice change.
As pointless as it is the avatars jumping into the foreground looks kind of neat.
Cloud storage is a clever idea although those without Gold can't use it.

[charlesr]

I have a huge problem with ads in a premium service and it is made worse by the ads not even being relevant to me. It would be better if I could tell them that I don't wear Adidas, won't pay for a Beyonce video and I'm not interested in Hangover 2.

Since they've hidden the stuff I'm interested in under garbage I don't want to see and have to pay for the privilege to see, turning on my Xbox has become a really negative experience.

I'm with you here. Surely they can see from my history and game ratings that I'm never in a million years going to be getting Fifa12, so why bother? Having said that, intelligent ads are probably next on their agenda - just getting the structure in place and spamming everyone with the same ads is phase 1. Now if phase 2 has intelligent ads that show me games and films I'm probably quite interested in then it becomes something much more useful, like last.fm

Oh and is there a way of stopping the sign-in thing being the first thing you see? If I'm streaming a film, I don't want to sign in, so I'd like the option of just choose myself, much like before.

[charlesr]

Sigh. I tried going to settings by going left once from the home hub/blade. Nope. you have to go right 6 times. It doesn't wrap. Lame.

I'll report back with some positive findings when I find some.

[Papercut]

Overall I'm marginally in favour of the new dash, although it could do with some polish.

The ads are not great, but to my eyes they don't seem any worse. It least we no longer have 'channels' dedicated to adverts.

[charlesr]

And what on earth is the point of the "Quick play" square? It doesn't even remember things that have been recently played and is just another advert for Zune/lovefilm/etc as far as I can make out. I played a few XBLA games, expecting them to then be on that list, but no.... Surely that should be called "Quick advert"

[chopemon]

Oh and is there a way of stopping the sign-in thing being the first thing you see? If I'm streaming a film, I don't want to sign in, so I'd like the option of just choose myself, much like before.

You mean your profile signing in?

If you go into your profile you can turn off the setting to make it the default profile to sign in. When you start up it will be a non-Xbox Live dash and you can stream your movie.