New Xbox Experience themes info News

"Those bouncing around smiling and so on are connected to the internet, while the ones having a nap are offline"

/ rips out his ethernet sits on the floor hugging his 360 weeping

^^^^

I feel your pain... MS what have you done?

^ over reaction of the week

this is beginning to look good. Well done MS

looks good to me

I hope there's still a way to just get a goddamn list of people. I want absolutely nothing to do with Avatars and I'm praying there's a 'hide this horrible crap from me' option somewhere. The whole thing is a solution looking desperately for a problem.

Maybe your Avaters start crying, just before you get the Ring Of Death!

@NegativeZero The whole original dashboard (the current system) is still available via the guide button as far as I know.

Those bouncing around smiling and so on are connected to the internet, while the ones having a nap are offline.

lol... ffs.

November 2008 would be stretching it since all the big games are coming in late october and early november, so releasing a big system update when the whole LIVE service will be struggling due to Fable 2 and Gears of War 2 seems silly.
They never learn and we all remember when Halo 3 and GTA IV launched and the christmas of 2007 incident.

I need the 8 player party chat so I can play with my friends without having to sit in another post/pre game lobby and listen to sore losers or abusive winners anymore.
So mid october seems better.

Oh and those avatars are just stupid.

Not a fan of the avatars, but I'm really digging the new dash.

I really don't get all the bitching, whining and moaning over the new dash. you don't *have* to spend any time on the dashboard if its that repulsive to you. Whack in a game, and bring up the guide to access everything that way if you really must.

Personally, I think the new dash looks awesome, and the avatars add a bit of character and fun to liven things up a little so you're not just staring at the same old screens with nothing going on.

The Avatars remind of the paperclip/wizard etc that comes loaded in Microsoft Office thats cute at first but gets to be hugely annoying in the long run.

"Those bouncing around smiling and so on are connected to the internet, while the ones having a nap are offline"

Case in point.

I get the feeling this is being pimped and sold with lots of media attention but delivers little to no actual content. Bug fixes, silly avatars and the ability to store a game on the hard drive to save your DVD drive are about it right? Seriously - thats not really any new content? No new codec supported, no real new features - jsut seems a lot of hype with little content really. I don't give a crap if I can push a button and make mini me burp.

Can't wait for this!

@DB2k,

I think the main focus is to make it more "friendly", but more importantly an attempt to streamline the ability to find content on your console and on the marketplace. At the moment, with so much on there in movies, xbla, updates, map packs, etc it can be a nightmare to find anything.... especially if you don't know exactly what you're looking for.

But I think the truly massive addition is Primetime. In a world that seems to be addicted to watching quiz games, playing online poker, playing Bingo, et all being able to get involved in realtime online quizzes such as 100-1 has the potential to be massive for MS. And for this, Avatars are a must to really allow the players to get involved.

Now, it's not something that I can see myself getting involved in, and there's a chance that the whole thing could fail massively. However, there's also the chance that MS has hit on something huge here and will end up being a system seller to those same families who make up the viewing figures for such programmes.

Bunch of Victor Meldrews posting in here. If you don't like some bits, don't use them. Myself, I think it adds a nice touch of movement and personality.

All this is starting to sound like when people complain about BBC idents. It is a change to, what, 2% of your gaming time? It's not that big a deal!

There's a hell of a lot more to this update than the Miitoos, people just seem to be focusing on them.

Geez people the Avatars are optional so take a chill pill. I wasn't too keen on them but now my fiancee and I are quite looking forward to this small part of hte update. Although i have to make sure she doesn't create an avatar that's TOO girlie!

Now to make this perfect. There needs to be a slap the bouncing idiot button! I can see hours of fun from that option. Some ready to rumble face deformation would be good to go along with that.

they're optional MEM, the key word being optional. what part of the word optional do you not understand??

I never liked the original dash so I'm looking forward to this.

As for the avatar hate I suspect this is a careful mix of:

Internet tough guys who don't like anything so 'girly'

and

jumping on the bandwagon.


I do agree that there are other things that need changing as well though. Give us some decent codec support like h264 mkvs ;)
Maybe with subtitle support! MS have an opportunity to make this an awesome media centre/extender.... but they won't.

You've got mp3 and mp4 support so it's not like you're forcing everyone to use MS codecs like wma and wmv anymore. May as well open it right up.

True they are optional but MS has decided to focus on Avatars to the detriment of other more neccesary areas like DB2k stated.

My biggest problem is that they are so bland with very little modification available, where's the GOW avatar, Master Chief Avatar and Pinata Avatar for example?

I want my Avatar to be as weird as I am. LOL

Bergeron said "I need the 8 player party chat so I can play with my friends without having to sit in another post/pre game lobby and listen to sore losers or abusive winners anymore. "

You can already set something similar up to this anyway. If you only want to hear your mates, even 20 of them and cut out the few idiots in the background just change your privacy settings in your profile to only let you hear people from your friends list. You never have to hear abuse or stupid people ever again.

The new dash will generally be an improvement, so don't worry about the little things you don't like. At least it is not Sony's Home!

Like someone said, gamers (or internet folks in general) are just a bunch of victor meldrews. Get a clue, a life and some perspective. Thier avatars, a new dash, big deal. What effect does it have on your life?

"Get a clue, a life and some perspective. Thier avatars, a new dash, big deal. What effect does it have on your life?"

You could say the same to people who are so bothered by others not liking something, what effect does people not liking the update have on your life......

Some like it, some hate and some are waiting for judgement, but ALL are free to express their views whether you like it or not ;)

"As for the avatar hate I suspect this is a careful mix of:
Internet tough guys who don't like anything so 'girly'
and
jumping on the bandwagon "

Fact! I mean, how can anyone be so verbal about something we know so little ?

Why do they feel we need avatars anyway? Surely just concentrate on bringing out games for the console to keep us amused rather than what our avatar will be wearing. The whole "bouncing around smiling" thing is just a bit silly.
Surely just have a blackened out shape if you are offline, then be able to see your avatar when you are online. No need for them to be bounding around the place with grins on their faces.

What's the point of releasing 1080p shots if they're bloody upscaled? I thought one of the big advantages of the new UI would be that they could do native 1080p support, but apparently that's not going to happen? Weird! Kinda lessens the value of all of this for the whole media aspect of the machine ...

"Microsoft also reiterated that you can still use existing Xbox 360 themes, which "look even better over the new UI, especially in high-definition", and illustrated this with some screenshots of a Gears of War effort"

Looks even better ? What are they smoking at Microsoft ? I'm currently using that theme, it's the free Gears 2 theme, and you can barely see 25% of it judging by that screenshot. Totally pointless to try and retain 'some' of it in the way they have even though the re-design clearly makes them unusable. Glad the only theme I ever bought was courtesy of some free MS Points *cough* dreamcarchallenge *cough*

meh to the avvys, if i dont like them i wont use them. i just hope this isnt a shit excuse to charge us for modifying our avatars, ie. a hat for 50credits or trousers for 75. i already find it shady they charge us for themes and gamer pics, especially when the themes are free on psn, or you can make your own etc.

as others have stated, this update seems to be fixing things that weren't broken in the first place, so why couldnt microfatfuck have added new codecs or something? because my ps3 replaced my 360 for media as soon as it got unwrapped, what with upgradeable hdd and quiet drive etc. im really hoping they address a problem (for me) thats existed since the xbox 1, by adding fastforward/rewind buttons to the music player.

" already find it shady they charge us for themes and gamer pics, especially when the themes are free on psn, or you can make your own etc"
There are literaly hundreds of free gamerpics in Live.

True. I've never bought a theme or gamerpic but I think that I own well over a 100 pics and 50-70 themes. I'm not even actively looking either.

Still the Rare white theme is imo the best. Nice and clean.

I quite like the new dash but those avatars can feck right off!!

I wonder if we can use the Avatars in-game at some point (real games I mean, not mini-games!)

... If so GoW could be made Avatar Slaughter House, chainsawing your mates avatar in the face, it would be awesome and everyone would buy it! (if over 18 of course)


But the dash is looking awesome, if only the Avatars weren't there to pull people's gaze away. I'm still reserving judgement though.

miiiiguel/xerxes, you didnt get my point. im aware of free pics and themes but theres many more that arent free and thats my beef. i play a lot of bf2 and tdu still and their themes and pics cost. i know theres games that will give them away - my point was they sometimes cost on xbl, theyre always free on psn.