Geekshow

Clarifications on Xbox 360 New Xbox Experience

Microsoft tossed out a lot of information during E3. We covered much of it during the week. But now with the actual event over, we are starting to see some of their community members come out and give a more detailed description of some of the features they have announced.

One of the biggest problems with the show was that Microsoft seemed as if they wanted to rush through all their announcements because they had so many. As a result, a lot of the news didn’t get the time it needed in order to be understood by gamers.

Major Nelson runs a podcast over on his website where he often talks about the 360, his job at Microsoft, etc. Well, yesterday he put up an episode where he could just go over everything, go into more details where need be, etc. Give it a listen if you have time and you are interested. If you don’t have time but are interested, I’ll try to sum up some of the details. So keep reading.

New Xbox Experience:

• Avatars are optional. You can choose to use your gamerpic instead.
• Many 3rd party developers are already thinking of ways to use Avatars. Fallout developer thought of the idea of releasing a hazmat avatar suit. Developers will be able to release clothing pieces and stuff with their games.
• All themes, gamerpics, etc will work with the new system.
• This update will "definitely be out this year".
• You will be able to install games to the hard drive of your system, and play them from there. You still will have to insert the disc to verify you own it. However, after that, it will not spin from the drive at all. Also, all games will support the HDD install, not just new games.
• Also works "really slick" with multi disc games. You can install the first disc only, 2 of the 3, whatever you want.
• Fully optional to install to HDD.
• Xbox Marketplace online. Go via your computer to Live, buy/choose a piece of content. When you turn on your 360, it automatically starts downloading the content you chose online.
• RSS feed will be available online so that you can monitor new content.
• Primetime is broadcast simultaneously, everyone will be able to answer the same questions. You can win real prizes. Major Nelson is trying to host one.
• Xbox Live Party System – So cool, but you may have to try it to realize it’s full potential. 8 players. Allows you to assemble your friends, go into any game as a group. You stay together as a party between friends. If 4 players want to play Gears of War, and 4 wants to play Uno…you can do that. You don’t have to be in the same game. Works with every single Xbox 360 game. Obviously you’ll have to have a multiplayer game that supports that many players.You could have 4 different co-op games, for instance.
• New display support 16×10. Letterboxing so nothing gets stretched.
• Current Dashboard is built into the new Xbox Guide. The current blades system will make up the new guide button feature. Every single thing you can do in the  dashboard will be in the new guide. No ads, pretty obviously. But you can browse the marketplace for content, for example. It will detect your game, and assume you want that content.
• If you don’t want to use the new dashboard, you could always leave your game in the system, and operate the whole system from the new guide rather than the dashboard.
• Optimizing the speed, so it will be "wicked fast". Thank God.
• It’s pretty much done, but not code complete. The changes will be tweaks.

Netflix:

• Two requirements for Netflix: You must be a Gold Member. You must be a Netflix subscriber that has unlimited instant watch. Which means the cheapest subscription plan ($4.99, apparently) won’t work, but the rest do. So starting at like the $8.99 plan.
• Lots of Anime for anime plans.
• In order to use Netflix in the Party system, all members must meet the requirements of watching Netflix. That’s sad, but understandable.

Lips:

• 2nd player can join in just by picking up your mic and shaking it. Then you will be in a duet with the first player.
• You can use your Zune/iPod with any non-DRM song.

Rockband 2:

• You will have a fee to export your Rockband 1 songs off your disc. Probably like $5. Most likely to pay for the fees of re-lisencing the songs.

Final Fantasy XIII:

• North America and Europe, but not Japan. It will come out at the same time as the PS3 version.