Review: An Evening with New Xbox Experience

On Wednesday, November 19th, Microsoft will release a brand new version of the Xbox 360 “dashboard”. This interface allows you to interact with people, play games, videos and music using the Xbox Live Internet service. While the interface was slick and polished, increasing competition from Sony’s Playstation 3 and Nintendo’s Wii might have forced them to shake things up as sales were falling flat for their Xbox 360 console. Did Microsoft succeed in making the best videogame experience ever or will the competition sleep easy at night? It will offer my NON-expert, opinion from an actual Joe the Gamer (or should I say Ronald the Gamer).

Thanks to my excessive reading of blogs and Twitter, good ol’ Xbox Live programming master Larry Hryb, a.k.a. “Major Nelson” let the gaming public know about a preview of the New Xbox Experience (NXE). The first wave of entries was very small and therefore most Internet Tough Guys ripped apart the Major and Microsoft in general on various message boards. I didn’t get in the first time, so I went on with my life and could wait until the 19th when everyone can join in on the fun. Little did I know that MS was still somehow inviting gamers into the preview. A whole bunch of e-mails went out on Thursday the 13th and ronaldhennessy is included as one of them.

The install process went very smoothly, the file is really small and will download fast on a relatively fast connection. You even get a cool, cgi-laden intro video once your finished. Is Microsoft taking a cue from Apple? While pointless, it serves as a way of saying that this update is a NEW day for Xbox and you should note how important it is! The dashboard itself is very different from the previous one. Instead of flicking left and right to see different areas of XBL, you flick up and down and left and right. For example, under “My Xbox” You have your choice of playing the game in the drive, your gamer score tag and avatar, Game Library (w/ content and Arcade games), the list goes on. You can see what’s next at a glance. Inside Xbox, Events (that were originally listed on the xbox site), Spotlight, Friends, Video and Game Marketplace (now separate) are similar in form.

A new, mandatory feature for your profile is “Avatars”, a cutesy, chibified rendition of yourself (or something else). At the very start, you can choose from a bunch of pre-made avatars and from there you can customize it to your liking. I’m not a big fan of creating “myself” in virtual form or posting pics of my real self online (I have over 4,000 pics on Flickr and not one of them features my face. Needless to say, I’m camera-shy.) Now that Sony is about to launch the virtual world of  “Home” for the PS3 and Nintendo had “Miis” since day one, MS needed to jump on the virtual self bandwagon. You get a small amount of clothing and you can change variables from skin color to height and size. It’s a bit more involved than chosing a face and hair piece for your Mii, but not overly complex. The Second Life Avatar is freakin’ complex and the sky is the limit…if you know what you’re doing. I didn’t expect MS to go that route. If they did, you would see a lot of ‘roided tough guys and furries running around on XBL. Still, the avatar from the NXE looks a lot more presentable and expressive than a simple Mii. Can’t say much about the Home avatar, but they all look like American Eagle models to me. (PROTIP: Press down the right analog stick and your Avatar will wave!)

Taking a cue from Sony is the game install option. Depending on the size of your hard drive, you can install your games to reduce loading times. Please note, you still need the drive in the 360 in order to play. Will it stop 360’s from the Red Ring of Death? It might, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up. It still sounds like a jet engine when idle. Game files for single disk discs can weigh up to 6.8 GB! Clearly, this is a ploy from Microsoft to get you to buy their overpriced 120 GB hard drive. (sadly, I fell for it : ( ).

MS hooked up with Netflix for streaming movies. If you have a Xbox Gold account AND an unlimited Netflix subscription, you can watch classics like “Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo” and “Shaft in Africa” on your TV screen. You can watch more palatable content like “Heroes” and “30 Rock” as well. Some shows and movies are in HD as well. Too bad you have to add the movies on your PC. Will this kill “AppleTV”? Maybe. Better films are needed on Netflix, but I know it will improve since more will be using the service. It somewhat already has better content thanks to “Starz Play” with some decent titles. Just don’t expect films and shows that came out 6 months ago. That’s what the Video Marketplace is made for.

This interface may be the best experience created for a console. So far, I wish I could say the same thing for the Xbox Live network right now. At the time of this writing, Xbox Live is having a lot of hiccups now. I am unable to connect to anyone or play any games online. UPDATE: Looks like they fixed things as of Saturday night 11/15. There is also a new “Party” feature that allows up to 8 friends to communicate from game to game, but that is not working as well. Hopefully, the Xbox Live servers don’t melt into goo once the official rollout of the NXE occurs on Wednesday, November 19th.