Xbox Live dashboard updating now

By Robert Purchese Published 10 August, 2009

Service won't be down, just to be clear.

Microsoft has begun rolling out the Xbox Live summer dashboard update, and the service will not go down while the new features are applied. You will be prompted to install the changes over the next few hours.

Xbox Live bigwig Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb asks us to remember that the ability to use the Avatar Marketplace and the Xbox Live games-on-demand service through Xbox.com will be added this Thursday.

The Xbox Live supper update brings an expansive platter of additions. Among them: full Xbox 360 games on demand, an Avatar Marketplace, community game ratings, better party controls and a renamed Indie Games channel. A full list of the improvements can be found on the Xbox website.

There are some hidden bonuses too, as the Digital Foundry blog points out.

Remember that Twitter, Facebook and Last.fm features will not be available until later this year. It's a similar story for the Zune Video Marketplace, too.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (53) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • HoriZon #1 3 years ago

    Down from when and how long for ???

  • miiiguel #2 3 years ago

    ooooh awesomeness!

  • Whizzo #3 3 years ago

    Maybe they'll do some maintenance on the GOD pricing while it's down?! :-P

  • bioreit #4 3 years ago

    @ Whizzo

    'twould be nice, but Microsoft really can't make the prices any lower. Multiple markets with a single price point, anti-competition laws, single-retail channel monopoly - wouldn't be allowed, I'm afraid :-(

    Edit: Oh yeah - the comment I was going to make!

    Picked a most excellent time to visit my sister's tomorrow then! Was going to go today and play games tomorrow, but wanted to play Arkham Asylum tonight so rescheduled. Obviously my inner geek keeps a much better track of the Xbox Live downtime calendar than I do!
    Edited by 1 at 10/08/09 @ 16:47

  • Moribundman #5 3 years ago

    I read Aussie Mass Effect GoD was 8000 MSP ($99)! Some shitty random site that said it but that'd blow bioreit's theory if true!

    At the very least, if MS want to flog Mass Effect for £19.99 they should bundle in all the second disc stuff from the platinum version such as the Normandy premium theme... In fact you should get incentives like exclusive NXE tat to try and woo people over to buying online if they insist on that price point for games well over a year old!

    Really, as a preview adopter, I'd say there's sod all of any value, apart from un/reinstalling games to take up less HDD space. Oh, and the tiny interface tweaks are nice, as is the ability to rate all games and DLC a la Love Film.

  • Vice.Destroyer #6 3 years ago

    I remember years and years ago, Bioreit educated me on something fundamental. And he hasn't stopped since. I am going to C+P your first passage and present it to anyone that complains about the prices of GOD. Blame the bureaucrats. Not Microsoft. It ain't their fault, this time.

  • Toothball #7 3 years ago

    Yeah, I'd also like to know when this starts and how long it's expected to continue. Someone online said it'd be out for two days, but I've not really seen anything to confirm this.

  • telboy007 #8 3 years ago

    The best thing about this update is the lag reduction on exiting from the xbox guide. From 30 seconds to a couple of seconds. From my experience with the preview anyway.
    Edited by 1 at 10/08/09 @ 17:08

  • jim1975 #9 3 years ago

    great so i have to wait a hour to download and install the update...oops, no sorry that's my other console...

  • septimus #10 3 years ago

    You must have a really shitty connection jim.

  • effinwooly #11 3 years ago

    not an hour but a good 25 mins

  • ParanoidZombie #12 3 years ago

    hmmm a bit surprised, microsoft never told us the service was going to be down for maintenance because of the update, they usually send a message when they do so. I just received a message in my windows live mailbox telling me about the update, but they never mentioned about the downtime. We'll see, I guess...

  • miiiguel #13 3 years ago

    ^ That's actually a good point, I mean... they wrote Operations Framework, are they not complaint with their own guidance ?

    Then again I never read MSOF (in detail), I do the very British ITIL.
    Edited by 2 at 10/08/09 @ 19:18

  • Whizzo #14 3 years ago

    The GOD prices are not unified worldwide, Mass Effect is indeed AUS$100 (6000 points) which is more expensive than that game was when it came out in retail over there, in the US it's $20 (1600).
    Edited by 1 at 10/08/09 @ 18:20

  • Graftonator #15 3 years ago

    "great so i have to wait a hour to download and install the update...oops, no sorry that's my other console... "

    To be fair to the PSN, at least it doesn't go offline when an update is made available like on live. Which is a good thing, as it happens fairly often! Also, if it's taking an hour to download, something is very wrong with your internet connection.

    Back on topic, the new "installed games" sizes sound great as do the reduced delays in using the guide!

  • metallicorphan #16 3 years ago

    so why is it down?,i am in the preview and it took 2 minutes at the most to update...does the whole service really need to go down just to apply it?

  • Daryoon #17 3 years ago

    Shame it's technically Autumn now olol!

  • thegamesthething #18 3 years ago

    A whole day without 1943?






    Fuck.

  • thegamesthething #19 3 years ago

    Given the way new content is sometimes there, but isn't, or error messages, or appears ahead of time, or (if from Bethsheda) is broken, they probably take a VERY belt and braces approach to updates, in case they break every online 360 on the planet.

    Still, bugger.

  • CARL05 #20 3 years ago

    There is nothing really exciting in this update. Just more ways to spend money.
    The faster browsing that people are reporting doesn't seem to be happening to me, I'm still waiting far too long considering i'm on 20mb broadband!

  • Xerx3s #21 3 years ago

    I doubt that it will go down. Never before did live go down on the day the released an update, how could it? Nobody would be able to download the update...

    It didn't go down for those of us that participated in the beta either.

  • LiamK #22 3 years ago

    @Daryoon

    "Shame it's technically Autumn now olol!"

    I get that you're taking the piss, but does who on Earth thinks that Autumn starts over a month before it actually does?

  • Murby #23 3 years ago

    According to e (from Major Nelsons Podcast)

    thevowel: Also, ignore what Eurogamer and others are saying - Xbox Live will not be down for maintenance as part of rolling out the Dash update.

  • Moogrose #24 3 years ago

    From major Nelsons twitter: "There is a little misinformation floating around...Xbox LIVE will *not* be down for maintenance tonight when we roll out the dash update."

  • Darren #25 3 years ago

    Could it be that LIVE is being switched off to transfer data from the closed network that the previewers have been using onto all the servers for everyone to use then switched back on? If that's the case then it's going to be interesting to see if these dashboard speed improvements reported in website previews such as the one Digital Foundry did are indeed true of the new NXE when millions of users are connected in each territory.

  • BBIAJ #26 3 years ago

    Ummm... LIVE isn't going anywhere though!?

  • neonxaos #27 3 years ago

    God, I hope this speeds NXE up. Last night, I accidentally hit the guide button during the MvC2 character selection (and I even have a MadCatz TE stick where you can lock the guide button - d'oh!), and the other guy had started the match and killed both Psylocke and Wolvie before I could get the damn thing to go away again.

    Oh, and Trials HD... you're MINE tomorrow! :)
    Edited by 1 at 11/08/09 @ 09:00

  • Teamallstar #28 3 years ago

    What do we do for the next 24 hours!! I may actually have to leave the house!

  • bioreit #29 3 years ago

    @ Vice.Destroyer

    Ashamed to say, your post has made me feel warm and fuzzy!

    Although it does actually appear as though I'm wrong on at least one count, as Whizzo and Moribundman are both saying Oz have to pay 100 AUS$! Which is rather steep! Although, I seriously doubt Microsoft are going to implement different pricing for each and every territory - I'd expect at least all Euro-using countries to get the same prices, if not the UK too, just for the sake of convenience.

    On-topic:

    Xbox Live was up at 07:30 today before I left for work and as others have pointed out, there was no pre-warning message from Xbox Live in my Inbox, so maybe Eurogamer have got their wires crossed? The Xbox team have always been good at ramming the point past your eyeballs that there's going to be downtime.

  • HolyJebus #30 3 years ago

    @LiamK

    "I get that you're taking the piss, but does who on Earth thinks that Autumn starts over a month before it actually does?"

    Ireland.

  • madnizz #31 3 years ago

    according to major nelson (Director of Xbox LIVE Programming) : Xbox LIVE will *not* be down for maintenance tonight when we roll out the dash update

  • thegamesthething #32 3 years ago

    "Xbox Live was up at 07:30 today"

    Did your 360 change language, or fix itself to 320x240, or melt? If not, I'll risk it too.

  • Skurmedel #33 3 years ago

    And how many of these features will people in Scandinavia get to use? I can't even access the Community Games section.

  • Brogan #34 3 years ago

    will this update make it so my 360 can read a disc with out have to eject it 30 times?

    EDIT; I'm guessing the mark down means it won't, oh well new box for me.
    Edited by 1 at 11/08/09 @ 10:51

  • Darren #35 3 years ago

    "The Xbox Live supper update brings an expansive platter of additions..."

    For someone reason I read 'expansive' as 'expensive' and was about to post that I agreed with it!

  • Darren #36 3 years ago

    @BBIAJ - I know that now but EG have sneakily replaced the original article that claimed LIVE was being shut down with this updated story without mentioning that this new article is a revised update. As such the first dozen comments no longer make any sense. Well done, EG.
    Edited by 1 at 11/08/09 @ 10:52

  • BBIAJ #37 3 years ago

    Indeed, it's all been a bit of a shambles on EG's part I must say...

  • thegamesthething #38 3 years ago

    Something certainly isn't right. Maybe Ellie has gone down as well.

  • Spydy #39 3 years ago

    GOD is a complete waste of time. MS were obviously going for a bulletpoint, because anyone who buys anythings via that service needs a slap. The other additions are OK, and I'm all for faster dashboards, but I can't shake the feeling that this is just a small, incremental update made to look like a huge feature-ridden monster. Rating games without acutally playing them?...I think that could turn into a bit of a disaster considering all the knobheads on Live.

  • Darren #40 3 years ago

    So long as the irritating dashboard/marketplace "lag" is gone with this update, I really couldn't less whether the update had any other features. It's a free update anyway so I look upon them as the chance to fix issues/annoyances rather than add new features. The "Clear System Cache" and being able to open the disc tray with a game in the tray via the X button are such improvements and very welcome.

  • Daryoon #41 3 years ago

    @LiamK

    "I get that you're taking the piss, but does who on Earth thinks that Autumn starts over a month before it actually does? "


    Funny thing is, I wasn't! Autumn = August-September-October. Blame the Celts for their logic in placing MIDsummer in, eh, THE MIDDLE OF SUMMER, and not the start of it like most people rather bizarrely do...

  • ebony69 #42 3 years ago

    Some good points.
    Ability to rate games without having a single achievement in them is a major flaw. How many 12 year olds will mark stuff up or down because the latest school fad tells tem too :)

    Also I think there should be some sort of name and shame for anyone who spends money on their Avatar. I mean ffs just give the money to charity. Completely bizarre - really can't get my head around the concept. Doesn't contract law state that a deal is only legally binding if there is some value each way in the transaction. How the feck is a new t-shirt for a digital avatar adding value? Honestly makes me want to shit on Larry's head.

  • iter #43 3 years ago

    @Daryoon

    Hmm... Autumn is September, October, November.

  • HolyJebus #44 3 years ago

    Oh jesus, we're still trying to figure out when Autumn is are we. Look, it's NOT the same all over the world. For most of the world, it's Sept-Oct-Nov. For parts of East Asia and Ireland it's Aug-Sept-Oct. Can we please move on now. Thank you.

  • Sunyavadin #45 3 years ago

    #1 annoyance - those bloody beeps on the party chat windows!

    It was fine having them on the dashboard. I actually use them when navigating, because the sounds let me know which page I'm on before the animations catch up. But now the chat has deafening pbeeps in my headset every time someone joins, leaves, or any other event happens! I need a way to disable THOSE sounds, but KEEP the useful ones.

  • mega7ech #46 3 years ago

    Well its definalty speeded up the dash no end so its all good in my book! :)

  • smelly #47 3 years ago

    YAY!

    I *love* clothes shopping me.. i love trying clothes on and stuff, and buying them for real money.. i cant wait to spend more real money on clothing for the virtual me...

    .. erm.. hang on... no i dont.. i've just lied.

  • Sunyavadin #48 3 years ago

    Yeah, I noticed immediately on booting up - I went to my list of games AND EVERYTHING WAS LISTED ALREADY - no waiting half a minute for them to load.

  • busboy33 #49 3 years ago

    @ebony69:

    "Also I think there should be some sort of name and shame for anyone who spends money on their Avatar."

    Gamertag busboy33. I bought a spire jacket for my Avatar. My girlfriend liked it.

    There's your "name". "Shame"? Let me have it. I tremble in fear . . . well, assuming you have something more cogent than "I think it's teh suxx0rs, so u b a looz0r." I appreciate you don't like them. Groovy. Glad to know. Don't buy them.

  • GamesConnoisseur #50 3 years ago

    WELL DONE! I now finally able to navigate marketplace much so quicker! That is the biggest highlight for me!

    /Hoping no one noticed that i m such a wastrel to have downloaded an expensive and foolish Halo remote car toy for my avatar!

  • Iain815 #51 3 years ago

    I bought Pom Poms.

    No joke.

  • smelly #52 3 years ago

    "I went to my list of games AND EVERYTHING WAS LISTED ALREADY - no waiting half a minute for them to load. "

    Oooooh.. that does sound better!

  • Fab4 #53 3 years ago

    Not that impressed, tbh. It can still take up to 30 seconds to load a page of people you last played against...especially the gamerpics. Which is quite pathetic over a 40 Mbps connection.
    Edited by 1 at 12/08/09 @ 07:33