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Checking Out Xbox 360's Latest Coat of Dashboard Paint

We played around with an unfinished version of Microsoft's latest dashboard. Oh, and find out what a Beacon is!

You can tab between each section or swipe with your hand. The older dash still comes up via the Guide button.
You can tab between each section or swipe with your hand. The older dash still comes up via the Guide button.

You have to respect Microsoft's endless iteration of the Xbox 360's dashboard interface. It might not always turn out particularly well, but it's staggering to look at how much has changed since Microsoft introduced this console back in 2005. Such drastic changes would usually happen in a new machine, but the dashboard goes under the knife every year.

For better or worse, Sony has done little to change the overall look of the Cross Media Bar, instead focusing on implementing additional features (i.e. PlayStation Plus).

Remember this?! How far we've come.
Remember this?! How far we've come.

Microsoft invited a few of us in the office to check out an in-development version of the latest dashboard update last week. Unfortunately, Microsoft wasn't talking about the feature we were the most excited about: cloud saves. The company would only confirm cloud saves are coming in this update, and the team working on it was currently hammering out all the details. Microsoft did made it sound like cloud saves would not be an unlimited affair, but specifics are being ironed out.

Our demo mainly focused how Microsoft has been working to increase what it calls "discoverability." When Xbox Live was originally conceived, it wasn't designed to handle the amount of content that's been pushed onto server farms since. Dozens of games? Sure. Thousands? Not really, which means content ends up getting pushed into the background and quickly forgotten. It hurts everyone involved.

This update goes a step forward to making it easier to find content, through a combination of Bing Search and Kinect. You don't need Kinect to use Bing Search, but does prove useful. Say "Harry Potter" and everything related to Harry Potter on the service comes up. Ask it to sort by movies and the movies will be pushed to the front. Same goes for games, television, music, etc. It's far easier than digging into each individual application, searching desperately for a way to find what you want.

This search aggregation will not extend to Facebook and Twitter, but both of those applications will be updated to better fit the interface introduced with the Kinect last fall. Much of this update helps brings the interfaces together--mostly in a good way. If you want to tab between the different sections with a controller, you can. If you want to wave your hand around, you can. Microsoft's just ensuring there's not an unnecessary interface change that ultimately comes across as confusing.

Quickplay provides easy access to recently used games and now applications, too.
Quickplay provides easy access to recently used games and now applications, too.

Kinect integration is all over the place now and makes way more sense. There was no clear distinction between what you could and couldn't say last time around. Now, if there are big, bold white words on the screen (which is basically most of the screen), you can say it out loud. That includes movie titles, game names, applications, etc. You can finally both open and close the disc tray, too. Madness!

One thing you can't do is call up features that aren't on-screen at the time. For example, you cannot say "Xbox Netflix" when Netflix isn't featured somewhere in front of you. You'd have to say "Xbox Video" and then "Xbox Netflix." One way around that, however, is the new "Quickplay" option.

Quickplay replaces the Games Library and comes packed with some nifty tweaks. One, it's not featured on a page you need to flick over to; it's there when the machine boots up. Two, it also includes applications, so if you want to hop right into Netflix, you no longer need to tab over the Video Marketplace for the billionth time.

I also learned what the hell a "Beacon" is at this meeting. Every time I read a press release detailing the Beacon program, I'd make note of it...then immediately forget what it was. Beacons represent the first baby step to introduce scheduling into Xbox Live, an evolution of the game invite. You can send out a Beacon to your entire friends list, asking for people to join a game of Halo: Reach. The Beacon can even be pushed out to Facebook (but not Twitter, for whatever reason). Right now, there isn't much user control over the Beacon. You cannot set a Beacon to blast out at 6:00 p.m. When you set up a Beacon, it goes out. Being able to have more hands-on control over its release would go a long way, but that's not coming in this update.

Based on what we've seen and played with, this feels like a solid improvement. There are bugs, there are features we still haven't seen and the Kinect wasn't really cooperating in our demo, but we should we have a better idea soon, as Microsoft said a beta should go live sometime in early October.

Patrick Klepek on Google+

235 Comments

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gunslingerNZ

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Edited By gunslingerNZ

What the fuck is with all the fucking ads!!! Seriously guys if you're going to charge for a service then don't force me to stare at ads. Other than that I guess it looks ok.

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afrokola

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Edited By afrokola

That image of Major Nelson with 100 gamer score is insane! Good times.

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Brackynews

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Edited By Brackynews

@mostman said:

In the XMB, nothing is in a place that makes sense, and many features launch you into "apps" that exit the primary UI. Look at how the store works, it launches into a new "app" with a totally different navigation method. Garbage. And then, don't even get me started on the "Settings" area. This was the design discussion: "Just pile all that shit in here in random order".

The 360 has its faults, to be sure. Its often slow and the organization of the content leaves a lot to be desired, but at least everything I touch acts the same and follows the same UI design. I see this iteration as them trying to solve the "organization" problem, which will be excellent.

Quoted for truth, especially the store. Even with the speed of the XMB, and the limited number of columns, I constantly have to remember where to find what should be the simplest things. Change my avatar pic? Not while viewing my profile card. Download my freebies from the PSN outage? Not from the store app. Delete my DLC without deleting my saves? Well there's 2 folders it might be in, and in the correct one we're not going to group or describe what you're actually deleting, but we'll put Delete as the first option anyway! O_o

These all require drilling down 2 or 3 levels, and being familiar with where and how to use the Options menu. I recently updated my LittleBigPlanet data, and they overhauled the save profiles. It is such a change to how the game uses the XMB folders they made a five page tutorial for it that begins with "Don't worry!" How very British, innit?

Now I need to pay extra to keep my system, trophies, and games automatically up to date? And still I need to quit out if I want to disable my wifi to play Demon's Souls in peace?

I do in fact like the XMB and my PS3, but it has been said many times by many smart people in the industry that Microsoft is a software company first, and Sony is a hardware company first, and this expertise is laid bare by the strengths and weaknesses seen with each console.

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mrcraggle

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Edited By mrcraggle

I like Metro (I have a WP, a Zune 80 and I use Zune for my music) but please just be fast. While the XMB isn't the best in terms of navigation and is pretty inconsistent with how apps are, it's darn fast. It turns on and loads far quicker than my Xbox and I can get into a game and see all the games I have downloaded right away which is what I want my Xbox to be like because I have tons of XBLA games and quick launch isn't quick at all. It can take minutes to show up.

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rGrayMiller

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Edited By rGrayMiller

Well, if you're going to be accosted by ads at least it's nice to switch up the organization and delivery every now and then.

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IncredibleBulk92

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Edited By IncredibleBulk92

@afrofools said:

There are almost no good exclusive games on 360, and all the updates are just more improved ways to show advertisements to you. Yes the Xbox team are a great bunch of people that pioneer new features like beacons, but at the end of the day it's the games that matter. Also, the Xbox dashboard benefits from Microsoft's design teams and research departments. The interface is very close to that of Windows Phone and Windows 8, which is three products, two of them immensely popular. Sony only has one popular product to design interfaces for /excluding android tablets and cameras.

Well actually no, the main improvements of this version to me are the search options and the last used apps page, search should let me find what I want a lot faster and the last used apps should be on every device imo. Phone, PC or console. I actually agree that Microsoft has fewer exclusives that are worth playing but if a game is multiplatform I and many other would rather play it on the 360 as it has matchmaking and social features which should now be the standard as far as I'm concerned, playing with friends is a real chore on the PS3 and that's what I was talking about in my original post.

Games like SOCOM and MAG are ruined by Sony's lack of proper feature set and I feel like I've wasted good money on them where honestly I think they'd have flourished on the Xbox 360. I didn't mean to troll with this or my previous post. Just posting my honest opinion.

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monkeyking1969

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Edited By monkeyking1969

Look, it is one-step closer to looking like the Xross Media Bar.

Hey, good work Microsoft, now you are only two or three steps away from admitting the competition thought through their GUI better then you did.

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Corvak

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Edited By Corvak

It looks like Windows Phone, but MS is trying to push that UI.

What I also see, is that the big icons means that it'll be Kinect enabled. (Currently, Kinect has it's own limited Dashboard that can be used with motion controls)

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tricky69

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Edited By tricky69

@mostman said:

Are people really of the belief that the PS3 interface is good and easy to use? Not to be flametastic, but you are wrong. That interface is terrible. If ALL you want to do is play games and occasionally play a movie off disk, I could perhaps agree with that opinion. If you are doing anything else, forget it. And lets not forget, that the latter is what the VAST majority of people are doing. Hardly anyone uses these devices as single purpose gaming machines anymore. When I want to watch Netflix or rent a movie, trust me, the XBox is the first choice. Hands down.

In the XMB, nothing is in a place that makes sense, and many features launch you into "apps" that exit the primary UI. Look at how the store works, it launches into a new "app" with a totally different navigation method. Garbage. And then, don't even get me started on the "Settings" area. This was the design discussion: "Just pile all that shit in here in random order".

The 360 has its faults, to be sure. Its often slow and the organization of the content leaves a lot to be desired, but at least everything I touch acts the same and follows the same UI design. I see this iteration as them trying to solve the "organization" problem, which will be excellent.

Ha, ha. That was funny. If the Xbox dashboard was so fucking great, why does Microsoft have to keep updating it ? As for the XMB, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

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tricky69

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Edited By tricky69

Can I still play games ?

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bross92

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Edited By bross92

I still don't know how I feel about this new look, but the trend over time for Xbox Dashboard looks has been a positively incremental one, so I can't really complain

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TadThuggish

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Edited By TadThuggish

I like the part with the ads and the "social network media blogosphere teen experience ads".

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matt_wickstrom

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Edited By matt_wickstrom

I really like the new look of the dashboard. Looks a lot more organized and modern than it's predecessor, but that's also what I said with the original NXE...

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Edited By GGear0323

for those saying that XMB isn't all that great, well ...... i totally agree. it is nice and fast, but it does so by pushing most stuff off into separate 'app' launches. whoever said that the Settings tab was a clusterfuck is right on point. not to mention, outside of playing games, people are going to mostly be in the PS Store which is where your comparisons should start and the PS Store is slow as fuck and in no way better than XBL.

and for the people talking about ads, are you kidding me? like i have said before, this is like complaining about going to Gamestop and seeing a giant poster for Gears of War 3 on their window next to an Uncharted 3 display by the door under a Modern Warfare 3 banner hanging from the ceiling. they sell this shit, do you understand that? if there was a giant Sprint ad on the main page, i would agree with you. if there was a couple Geico ads all over the place, i would not be happy. but they sell games,TV shows,Movies, etc... through their marketplace, are they not supposed to promote that? how is putting a promo for Black Ops DLC on the main page any different? i am honestly surprised that people are still bringing this up like their arguments have much merit.

that said, i am liking this new revision very much. clean, simple and better integrated with the content they have added to the 360.

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tricky69

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Edited By tricky69

@zFUBARz said:

@Sander said:

Another redesign? You can't defeat Japanese ergonomics; the PS3 dash hasn't needed an overhaul and yet still remains the preferred choice for gamers.

Besides, I've already seen X-Men 1st Class so this is useless to me.

Ok I hope your whole post is a joke and not just the last sentence... Just over 100 people on some random forum make for a legitimate measurement? You should really look up what a good sample size is.

You should try reading the "small print" on certain TV adverts, they use sample groups as small as 20 people.

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Twiggy199

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Edited By Twiggy199

looks just like the zune player (what it looked like last year dunno if its changed.)

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Dobkeratops

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Edited By Dobkeratops

Props to M$ for continuing to tweak the UI. Maybe they could sell the old UIs back as DLC to those who really want them.

(runs in the other direction)

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zFUBARz

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Edited By zFUBARz

@Tricky69 said:

@zFUBARz said:

@Sander said:

Another redesign? You can't defeat Japanese ergonomics; the PS3 dash hasn't needed an overhaul and yet still remains the preferred choice for gamers.

Besides, I've already seen X-Men 1st Class so this is useless to me.

Ok I hope your whole post is a joke and not just the last sentence... Just over 100 people on some random forum make for a legitimate measurement? You should really look up what a good sample size is.

You should try reading the "small print" on certain TV adverts, they use sample groups as small as 20 people.

Yeah but those are just as unreliable, with millions of consoles sold for all platforms you would need a sample size from varying groups and locations numbering in the thousands to expect any kind of logical conclusions to be drawn from the data. Just cause people on TV do it, doesn't make it right or real.

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WilliamRLBaker

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Edited By WilliamRLBaker

Yeah not too wowed by it considering the fact they sit and concentrate on stuff like this while netflix and hulu plus are completely and woefully worse then their ps3 counterparts.

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Sander

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Edited By Sander
@Brackynews said:

I do in fact like the XMB and my PS3, but it has been said many times by many smart people in the industry that Microsoft is a software company first, and Sony is a hardware company first, and this expertise is laid bare by the strengths and weaknesses seen with each console.
Have you seen Windows mobile or Windows Vista?
 
That we're all having this debate when XMB is in its original form and the Xbox is receiving overhaul #28 is a testament to how good XMB is.
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Azteck

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Edited By Azteck

Why do people miss the blades? It was a terrible layout, it looked awful and was slow as fuck.

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Kordesh

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Edited By Kordesh

@Azteck said:

Why do people miss the blades? It was a terrible layout, it looked awful and was slow as fuck.

Probably because there was less bloated non-gaming related crap floating everywhere when it was still the blade setup. Now, you can play games on your xbox somewhere between those TV ads over there, that Netflix button there, and behind the Twitter menu to the right of the Facebook screen.

Not gonna lie, as someone who does not have a Kinect and has absolutely no use for one given what they've actually done with it, this update is looking like another disappointment that's going to get forced on us again /=.

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i69edUrGpa

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Edited By i69edUrGpa

BRING BACK THE BLADES

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Brackynews

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Edited By Brackynews

@Sander said:

Have you seen Windows mobile or Windows Vista?

Have you seen Windows 7 or Windows Phone 7 or Windows XP or Microsoft Office 2003 or...

Microsoft makes so much software that it has flagship versions of its flagship products, along with "B" and "C" Team attempts which they simply don't expect to have a shelf life (Windows ME? Bob? Game Room?). Office for Mac is superior to Office for Windows in many ways, but they finally brought Outlook to Mac and it's a version 1.0 heap of junk that hardly improves on the Apple Mail client. There is no single example that exemplifies the quality or lack thereof of what they make, because they make so much. And now people can have a "favourite" version of the Xbox dashboard.

That we're all having this debate when XMB is in its original form and the Xbox is receiving overhaul #28 is a testament to how good XMB is.

I'm not going to pretend I care about cross-game chat, but the fact that XMB has not received any substantive functional improvements in five years, is more of a testament to how little they are committed to improving the user experience. Except NOW they have a subscription service to make downloading your system updates feel like a "premium" instead of a chore. :P

Back when they were upgrading the PSP-1000 firmware every month, you could see the XMB evolving. I don't feel like my PS3 is any better than it was four years ago, because they've taken away more meaningful features than they've added.

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Sander

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Edited By Sander

Did I see Windows 7? You mean the same Windows 7 that's being replaced next year? 
It seems far worse when they believe they've created something that's not supposed to have a brief shelf life, but then they end up having to replace it soon after.
I just hope they don't assign Charlie team to the xbox dash again.

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mostman

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Edited By mostman

@Sander said:

Have you seen Windows mobile or Windows Vista? That we're all having this debate when XMB is in its original form and the Xbox is receiving overhaul #28 is a testament to how good XMB is.

Ha! So wait, let me get this straight. I can write a piece of shit software package and simply never update it, thus giving me the ability to state: "No changes, therefore: BEST!"

Do you work in Marketing?

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Rekt_Hed

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Edited By Rekt_Hed
@MEATBALL

It reads quite promising, it's also nice to be getting a very new look for the dashboard. I wish Sony would grab some of the Playstation Plus money and take a leaf out of Microsoft's book with an XMB re-design, at the moment many of the XMB's features feel much more bolted on. I'd love to see them better integrated.

I kinda wouldn't mind a xmb redesign but it would be like re inventing the wheel. I'm not saying Sony made a perfect dashboard but I like how simple it is to access everything and normally this is something that gets more and more funky when something is redesigned.
The new xbox dash looks cool but will reserve judgement for the time I have to use it just to play some games and be able to find content in the online store easily.
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Rekt_Hed

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Edited By Rekt_Hed
@NinjaCommando
eh...
Im eh-ing at your 'eh...'
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krazy_kyle

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Edited By krazy_kyle

I want the old blades dashboard back! :'(

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Sander

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Edited By Sander
@mostman said:

Ha! So wait, let me get this straight. I can write a piece of shit software package and simply never update it, thus giving me the ability to state: "No changes, therefore: BEST!"

Do you work in Marketing?

No, because if it was a piece of shit, it would either never be approved, or sell very much.  
Did that really need to be explained?
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mostman

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Edited By mostman

@Sander: Oh come on. The PS3 isn't sold on the merits of its sparkling UI. I mean, shit, I have a PS3!

Fine. I'll reword. If I built a piece of hardware that had a horribly shitty user interface and simply never updated it, could I then say, "never updated it, therefore...BEST!"

Of course not. Look at the appallingly bad eStores on Nintendo's portable devices. They make no attempts to update them, fix them, or change them in any way. Does that make them superior? Of course not. Would you ever come in here and claim as much? I doubt it.

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Branthog

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Edited By Branthog

So, still 90% advertising, huh? Looks like shit.

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Sander

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Edited By Sander
@mostman:
What I'm saying is that the mere fact that an even debate continues between which UI is the best, is a testament to the design of the XMB. While xbox has repeatedly designed UIs that are abandoned, newer ones have never had a discernible advantage.
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Tea_bird

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Edited By Tea_bird

@KurtBrownridge said:

wowzers!

Edit: Finally!

PS - I'm actually interested to see this stuff launch. I might actually use Kinect for dash navigation now.

Yeah, I actually really liked the blades.

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morkaithewolf

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Edited By morkaithewolf

I'm really liking that Quickplay area. Would definitely make doing common things a little easier. Have netflix, maybe facebook and my arcade games area a little more in reach is always welcome.