Sorry if this has already been posted. 
 
Today apparently on Xbox Live, an update is being rolled out to Xbox Live members. What does it add? 
 
Well right now nothing, but according to Major Nelson, "This update is preparation for additional system enhancements coming to Xbox 360 later this year."
 
So yer, full details here: http://majornelson.com/2011/07/18/xbox-360-system-update-coming-this-tuesday/
 
Let your crazy imagination and conspiracy theories run wild, GB!

This is pretty common before a big update, users wont see any difference.

This is pretty common before a big update, users wont see any difference.

Wonder if it's to prepare everyone for that new "disc format" that they beta'd a few months ago?

How is this "useless"?

How is this "useless"?

it probably gets ready to update ap2.5 of the entire 360 catalog

lol I don't know what any of that means so don't ask me that's just what my friend said

I'm just excited for the new dashboard. It looks sexy as hell. The DL only took my 360 two minutes unlike the PlayStation updates...

I'm just excited for the new dashboard. It looks sexy as hell. The DL only took my 360 two minutes unlike the PlayStation updates...

@l4wd0g said:

I'm just excited for the new dashboard. It looks sexy as hell. The DL only took my 360 two minutes unlike the PlayStation updates...

Funny.. I notice that isn't the first time you said that. Learn to use port settings.

@TotalEklypse said:

@l4wd0g said:

I'm just excited for the new dashboard. It looks sexy as hell. The DL only took my 360 two minutes unlike the PlayStation updates...

Funny.. I notice that isn't the first time you said that. Learn to use port settings.

Port forwarding will make no difference to download speed.  Their can be exceptions but generally it doesn't make any real difference, the biggest issue is being able to connect or not.You cannot change the ports the PS3 connects to PSN with which is where ISP throttling could come into play but that's unlikely for the ports PSN use. (some ISPs filter common torrent program ports)  I have all my ports correctly forwarded and an open NAT, I still get slow downloads on PSN compared to Xbox Live. Whether it be wired or wireless, connected via my router or directly into my modem. It makes no difference. PSN is well known to be slower than Xbox Live for downloading.

@mnzy said:

@JoeyRavn: Because it's an update that doesn't change anything by itself. You know, "use".

But it serves a purpose: to prepare the system for future, bigger updates. You know, it has its "use", even if the end-user will not see the benefits until a couple of months from now.

To be fair, every update on the console has been useless, unless you count increased advertisement delivery on a pay service to be an enhancement.

@Branthog said:

To be fair, every update on the console has been useless, unless you count increased advertisement delivery on a pay service to be an enhancement.

I use Party Chat all the time, great feature.

Well we get a big update every winter don't we? This stuff was all previewed at E3 I thought.

Yeah I imagine it is for the new cluster of advertisements y'all gotta sit through whilst trying to navigate to the game.

But seriously, I imagine it will be for the big update they showed at E3, all that stupid voice search stuff.

Yeah I imagine it is for the new cluster of advertisements y'all gotta sit through whilst trying to navigate to the game.

But seriously, I imagine it will be for the big update they showed at E3, all that stupid voice search stuff.

@Turtlebird95 said:

@Chabbs0 said:

This is pretty common before a big update, users wont see any difference.

Yeah. I recall them doing something like this last year. Just thought I'd share before threads of people complaining about it not 'adding anything major' flood the site... If that even happens here.

I'm sure there's a joke in there about nothing major and major nelson. I'm just not clever enough

It already happened.

it went to update, downloaded it and then told me there was no enough room to install, so I cancelled it. Now it no longer recognizes my hard drive.

Edit: It is recognised but it says 'unformatted'... am I about to lose 5 years of save data, DLC and arcade games? Great.

@TotalEklypse said:

@Ygg said:

@TotalEklypse said:

@l4wd0g said:

I'm just excited for the new dashboard. It looks sexy as hell. The DL only took my 360 two minutes unlike the PlayStation updates...

Funny.. I notice that isn't the first time you said that. Learn to use port settings.

Port forwarding will make no difference to download speed. Their can be exceptions but generally it doesn't make any real difference, the biggest issue is being able to connect or not.You cannot change the ports the PS3 connects to PSN with which is where ISP throttling could come into play but that's unlikely for the ports PSN use. (some ISPs filter common torrent program ports) I have all my ports correctly forwarded and an open NAT, I still get slow downloads on PSN compared to Xbox Live. Whether it be wired or wireless, connected via my router or directly into my modem. It makes no difference. PSN is well known to be slower than Xbox Live for downloading.

Never had an issue with either. Sorry i just don't buy it. Mine is comparable on all accounts, just as speedy either way. After some tweaking of course. The only download speed annoyance I have is with STEAM due to their server side speed limitations or whatever was in place. That is finally getting an update thank god.

Regardless of whether he is doing it right or not, it doesn't change that fact that for the majority of users (who don't know a single thing about port settings) xbox live updates are faster then psn updates.

FYI, if a programmer is expecting their end user to have perfect settings to use their software then they are a terrible programmer.

@l4wd0g said:

I'm just excited for the new dashboard. It looks sexy as hell. The DL only took my 360 two minutes unlike the PlayStation updates...

I'm also excited for the new Dashboard. Isn't it crazy to think how far we've come from the original blade menus the 360 launched with? My favorite feature (and I really, really like it) of my Kinect is the motion and voice UI interaction in Netflix, Zune, and such so I can't wait for it to be compatible with everything across system (like it kind of should have been originally).

@Branthog said:

To be fair, every update on the console has been useless, unless you count increased advertisement delivery on a pay service to be an enhancement.

You can keep your blades, I'll keep using the easy to use, easy to navigate interface that is in place now.

@TotalEklypse said:

@l4wd0g said:

I'm just excited for the new dashboard. It looks sexy as hell. The DL only took my 360 two minutes unlike the PlayStation updates...

Funny.. I notice that isn't the first time you said that. Learn to use port settings.

That's likely not the issue. PS3 is insanely slow. Xbox and Steam are usually capped for me around 4 megabytes/second. PS3 never seems to get above 512k.

                   

@TotalEklypse said:

@l4wd0g said:

I'm just excited for the new dashboard. It looks sexy as hell. The DL only took my 360 two minutes unlike the PlayStation updates...

Funny.. I notice that isn't the first time you said that. Learn to use port settings.

That's likely not the issue. PS3 is insanely slow. Xbox and Steam are usually capped for me around 4 megabytes/second. PS3 never seems to get above 512k.

                    

Its because Sony doesn't seem to believe in the concept of spreading around lots of servers infact I believe during the whole hacking fiasco it came out their account servers all exist in japan only.

@Branthog said:

To be fair, every update on the console has been useless, unless you count increased advertisement delivery on a pay service to be an enhancement.

I use Party Chat all the time, great feature.

The last update didn't do much either, but i can remember reading about some people using chipped 360 got flagged or banned right away after it, or something like that. It's possible that this update have som hidden stuff in there too. But i can't complain: It's not regular, and it seems that every update on the 360 only takes about 5 minutes for me, which is great.

@TotalEklypse said:

@l4wd0g said:

I'm just excited for the new dashboard. It looks sexy as hell. The DL only took my 360 two minutes unlike the PlayStation updates...

Funny.. I notice that isn't the first time you said that. Learn to use port settings.

That's likely not the issue. PS3 is insanely slow. Xbox and Steam are usually capped for me around 4 megabytes/second. PS3 never seems to get above 512k.

@Rolyatkcinmai said:

                   

@TotalEklypse said:

@l4wd0g said:

I'm just excited for the new dashboard. It looks sexy as hell. The DL only took my 360 two minutes unlike the PlayStation updates...

Funny.. I notice that isn't the first time you said that. Learn to use port settings.

That's likely not the issue. PS3 is insanely slow. Xbox and Steam are usually capped for me around 4 megabytes/second. PS3 never seems to get above 512k.

                    

Its because Sony doesn't seem to believe in the concept of spreading around lots of servers infact I believe during the whole hacking fiasco it came out their account servers all exist in japan only.

@TotalEklypse said:

I get a lot higher than 512k. On everything, even STEAM during the big sales. Seriously I don't know what the issue is with you other people. I'd be interested in hearing what kind's of routers are being used. Also are you using a wireless set up? I don't go wireless personally. I have heard of problems with slow speeds in that case, have a friend who is a prime example. Got him to go wired and his downloads cook now. I'm more curious as to what the common factors are in the cases with people having DL issues. I'm curious like that lol. Rather have informative posts, than ones like that dumb ass earlier claiming it is always bad programming ...blah blah blah. I believe it to be a hardware issue involving the wireless adapter built in, in most cases. This gen has been a stinker for hardware all around.

I get around 4,500kb on Steam, 3,800kb on XBL, and maaaaybe 500kb on PS3.

All three are connected to Linksys router via wires. No wireless involved. All ports correctly forwarded, dedicated IPs set up, etc.

The PS3 is slow for just about everyone. I don't think we all just have our settings wrong. Oddly, stuff downloading from other places (LittleBigPlanet levels, Blu Ray extra features) cruise.

Also, them having all their content servers in Japan is well within the realm of possibility for a company as Japanese as Sony. That sounds like exactly the kind of Japanese thinking that has put Sony and Nintendo behind MS and Valve in terms of online abilities.

@TotalEklypse said:

I get a lot higher than 512k. On everything, even STEAM during the big sales. Seriously I don't know what the issue is with you other people. I'd be interested in hearing what kind's of routers are being used. Also are you using a wireless set up? I don't go wireless personally. I have heard of problems with slow speeds in that case, have a friend who is a prime example. Got him to go wired and his downloads cook now. I'm more curious as to what the common factors are in the cases with people having DL issues. I'm curious like that lol. Rather have informative posts, than ones like that dumb ass earlier claiming it is always bad programming ...blah blah blah. I believe it to be a hardware issue involving the wireless adapter built in, in most cases. This gen has been a stinker for hardware all around.

I get around 4,500kb on Steam, 3,800kb on XBL, and maaaaybe 500kb on PS3.

All three are connected to Linksys router via wires. No wireless involved. All ports correctly forwarded, dedicated IPs set up, etc.

The PS3 is slow for just about everyone. I don't think we all just have our settings wrong. Oddly, stuff downloading from other places (LittleBigPlanet levels, Blu Ray extra features) cruise.

Also, them having all their content servers in Japan is well within the realm of possibility for a company as Japanese as Sony. That sounds like exactly the kind of Japanese thinking that has put Sony and Nintendo behind MS and Valve in terms of online abilities.

@NickBOTT said:

@Chabbs0 said:

@Branthog said:

To be fair, every update on the console has been useless, unless you count increased advertisement delivery on a pay service to be an enhancement.

I use Party Chat all the time, great feature.

I cringe when i think back to Live b4 the party chat. Ever since it was introduced I've been saved from hearing every high pitched 12 yr old and every pot head talking about "hold on lemme get ma blunnntttt." So yeah Amen for the party chat.

I don't know a single person I'd want to talk to on my list, so it's a useless feature. However, I put those dicks who play a multiplayer game but don't offer much in the way of teamwork because they're too busy having a completely unrelated chat with a bunch of guys playing other games just about as frustrating as the inane idiots making random noises and the "listen to me be a rapper" dickwads.

it went to update, downloaded it and then told me there was no enough room to install, so I cancelled it. Now it no longer recognizes my hard drive.

Edit: It is recognised but it says 'unformatted'... am I about to lose 5 years of save data, DLC and arcade games? Great.

@Turtlebird95: Yeah... it really does.

@TotalEklypse said:

@l4wd0g said:

I'm just excited for the new dashboard. It looks sexy as hell. The DL only took my 360 two minutes unlike the PlayStation updates...

Funny.. I notice that isn't the first time you said that. Learn to use port settings.

Oh, I must be an idiot. The cup holder that pops out of my computer still works pretty well...

I also did a speed test using the PS3's web browser, getting 15mb/s down and 2 up as it should.

The logical conclusion is that I'm downloading the file(s) during peak times. That indicates that Sony doesn't have the infrastructure (server capacity) that Microsoft does. I also think Microsoft's understanding of software is far greater than that of Sony, which also them to make 'smarter' files.

These are the ports I was told to have open.

TCP 80

TCP 443

TCP 5223

UDP 3478

UDP 3479

UDP 3658

Here's an article on GamePro about it. It's from 2008 and nothing has been done to fix it.

I was hoping for beacons :( 
 
Edit: and bacons.

@WilliamRLBaker said:

@Rolyatkcinmai said:

                   

@TotalEklypse said:

@l4wd0g said:

I'm just excited for the new dashboard. It looks sexy as hell. The DL only took my 360 two minutes unlike the PlayStation updates...

Funny.. I notice that isn't the first time you said that. Learn to use port settings.

That's likely not the issue. PS3 is insanely slow. Xbox and Steam are usually capped for me around 4 megabytes/second. PS3 never seems to get above 512k.

                    

Its because Sony doesn't seem to believe in the concept of spreading around lots of servers infact I believe during the whole hacking fiasco it came out their account servers all exist in japan only.

Well we know that to be wrong. Prime example was when they brought it back online how it was done in waves due to server locations. I don't think they have as many as maybe something like steam (seriously have you seen how many are on the server lists??). I'd probably agree that the account info is probably housed in one place not on a region server of sorts. Not sure about Japan but that is possible.