Rumors had pointed towards the latest dashboard update for Xbox 360 arriving in time for the machine’s sixth anniversary, but the actual update is coming just a few weeks after on December 6, as it turns out.

The date was announced today by Microsoft.

The company also took the time to remind users about the new features coming this time around, including cloud storage for game saves and player profiles, beacons for coordinating multiplayer games, a revamped interface with streamlined Kinect support, and a new suite of media partners bringing more video content.

Select Xbox 360 owners have already been messing with an early version of the dashboard, too, helping Microsoft work out the kinks before its formal release next month.

Rumors had pointed towards the latest dashboard update for Xbox 360 arriving in time for the machine’s sixth anniversary, but the actual update is coming just a few weeks after on December 6, as it turns out.

The date was announced today by Microsoft.

The company also took the time to remind users about the new features coming this time around, including cloud storage for game saves and player profiles, beacons for coordinating multiplayer games, a revamped interface with streamlined Kinect support, and a new suite of media partners bringing more video content.

Select Xbox 360 owners have already been messing with an early version of the dashboard, too, helping Microsoft work out the kinks before its formal release next month.

What a shame!!

Looking forward to it!

Could storage about time, and wow remember the faceplates for your old Xbox that was something.

Wish Microsoft would let those in the preview program speak about it publicly. That way there could be a dialog started about any of the issues it might have.

@Klaimore said:

Could storage about time, and wow remember the faceplates for your old Xbox that was something.

My old Xbox? The original Xbox was just black as far as I remember.

Image?

Who is that moth-faced bitch on the side of that 360?!

whats up with the image? 

If you love ads, you'll LOVE the new dashboard. Each page has one tiny button for content you want to access, and the rest of the screen is ads. There are like 8 tabs, but without the ads, the stuff you actually want would fit on a single page.

I'm dying of laughter from that image. No caption makes it funnier to me.

@MannAlive: Sounds great.

Why... Why is... Never mind.

@Chavtheworld said:

@Klaimore said:

Could storage about time, and wow remember the faceplates for your old Xbox that was something.

My old Xbox? The original Xbox was just black as far as I remember.

And green. Don't forget the green.

The face plate for that 360 is just Paris Hilton side boob. That is hilarious on many different levels.

One Night In Paris!

Brilliant picture.

Cloud storage?  
 
Hurray!

I'm in the beta, guy above is full of shit about the abundance of ads. It's sweet, especially with a kinect. This past weekend I got to watch UFC 139 through the UFC app for free.

That's hot.

Now you can jerkoff while you play video games thanks Paris Hilton!

lol That xbox360 skin = )

@AgnosticJesus:

Doubt it'll matter, but I think there's an NDA thing when you get into the preview program. Just don't wanna see you get banned or something shitty like that.

@AgnosticJesus: Maybe we use different methods of counting. Maybe you can tell me which tab has more than one button that takes you to the content or ap you want... Some tabs have no content buttons, but a button for "My Video Aps" or something similar, which is their way of saying "Take me to a page that looks like what this page should look like if you were concerned about usability."

The new features aren't bad, but it's a shame all the new functionality takes a back seat to filling the screen with rapidly scrolling ads. I'm actually fine with the ads in the current dash, but in the new dash they are just over prioritized

and get in the way of actually using your Xbox.

I know, I already got a call from Major Nelson and Steve Ballmer.

I hope they add a few more panels of ads to make shit a little bit more annoying to use. That'd be awesome.

Hot.

Nice one Patrick, with the Paris Hilton xbox. Is that yours?

My favorite thing about the new dashboard is that when you turn it on it highlights play game by default now.

Patrick, posting that picture is the funniest thing you've done so far.

Is there a link to the actual info that MS reminded us of? As funny as the picture is, this "news" post is apparently only a troll post.

@MannAlive: You must use the George Bush fuzzy math method of counting. Just logged in, received another update, and each of my sections has exactly one ad. The larger panes are all game centric content and one smaller pane is outside advertisements.

@ICryCauseImEmo said:

Now you can jerkoff while you play video games thanks Paris Hilton!

What, I wasn't supposed to be doing it before?

@ICryCauseImEmo: To Paris Hilton? What kind of sick freak would do that?

@Nymphonomicon said:

@ICryCauseImEmo: To Paris Hilton? What kind of sick freak would do that?

I thought the exact thing when I read that.

I'm in the beta and all I have to say is: get ready for the advertisement overkill.

@CptBedlam said:

I'm in the beta and all I have to say is: prepare for the advertisement overkill.

Aw man, I was hoping this would reduce some of the clutter.

So I was in A.C. Moore the other day trying to get a poster framed and I stumbled into this poster sitting under a display rack. Behold, ladies and gentlemen, I bring you the perfect White Elephant/Yankee Swap/Bad Santa gift.

@yevinorion said:

@CptBedlam said:

I'm in the beta and all I have to say is: prepare for the advertisement overkill.

Aw man, I was hoping this would reduce some of the clutter.

Most of what you see now is always ads when you're online. The big space in the middle? Always a huge rotating ad, next to it more ads. Only two of the tiny fields are reserved for menu functions such as play game or browse shit - and what's even worse that the positions of the non-ad fields change. It's not always on the left, in the games menu it's field 3 and 7 or something that you have to navigate to, so you have to go over ads first to get there.

@CptBedlam: Each sections has exactly one small pane that clearly has "advertisement" written under it. How are other panes highlighting game videos, demos, new releases in zune video, and music available on Live ads. I was always annoyed with outside advertisers; Geico, State Farm, US military, etc. not new products, game add-ons, demos etc. that the typical user wouldn't necessarily know they are available on Live

@CptBedlam said:

@yevinorion said:

@CptBedlam said:

I'm in the beta and all I have to say is: prepare for the advertisement overkill.

Aw man, I was hoping this would reduce some of the clutter.

Most of what you see now is always ads when you're online. The big space in the middle? Always a huge rotating ad, next to it more ads. Only two of the tiny fields are reserved for menu functions such as play game or browse shit.

True. It does seem easier to navigate to me, though. It also defaults to the "play whatever game is in the xbox" option, so you don't have to cycle through anything to just start up whatever game you have in. Would be nice if your stuff was in the big section in the middle, though and ads in the smaller spaces(or no ads, but that won't happen.)

Will these cloud saves affect all games, or just select games? *hopes for former*

Cool stuff. Hopefully the Kinect interface works better than the last menu system (based on that Kinect had a seperate menu and the marketplace was hidden away and voice commands were very restricted).

Cloud storage also sounds like a nice thing as well.

@AgnosticJesus said:

@CptBedlam: Each sections has exactly one small pane that clearly has "advertisement" written under it. How are other panes highlighting game videos, demos, new releases in zune video, and music available on Live ads. I was always annoyed with outside advertisers; Geico, State Farm, US military, etc. not new products, game add-ons, demos etc. that the typical user wouldn't necessarily know they are available on Live

lol... so just because it's games or movie stuff on XBL you think these are not ads?

These are fucking ads. I don't want to be harassed with some stupid modern warfare dlc crap when I didn't even play the game. But right now that's the most prominent thing that I see when I start up my xbox.

I'd much rather see a bigger picture of the game that I'm playing. I want MY stuff to be the most prominent elements of the UI, not MS's ads.

As for cloud saves, you get 511mb of cloud storage. About what one of the old memory units had in terms of storage.

The scary thing is that's not even a paint job. Hilton just hugged an XBOX and it transferred, like silly putty and comic books.

@CptBedlam: You're obviously an idiot that will believe he's right no matter what. Don't want to see what movie just became available, don't go to the video section. Don't want to see what music is now available, don't go to the music section. It's not rocket science genius, MS makes billions off the content they provide, of course they're going to highlight what's available. To make you happy Microsoft should have scrapped absolutely everything so that when you turned the Xbox on it was nothing but a DOS command prompt.

@AgnosticJesus said:

To make you happy Microsoft should have scrapped absolutely everything so that when you turned the Xbox on it was nothing but a DOS command prompt.

But how cool would that be?

@AgnosticJesus: The stuff you're talking about would be alright if it was displayed in the specific marketplace sections. I want to watch a movie? Totally fine if MS shows the new shit there ... but not on the startup screen, and not at the expense of what's important to me. It should be the game that I'm playing right now displayed in the big middle section, but instead it's fricking advertisements all over the dashboard when I turn on my xbox.

So people honestly think that Paris Hilton is attractive enough to put her on their Xbox? *shudder*