I like Segoe UI Light so much I have trouble disliking any of Microsoft's stuff that uses it like this.  Very nice. So fucking clean.

Wow blades! I don't remember them looking so ... old.

Looks like it has more ads. At least the current dash keeps 'em out of the main row. $60 a year for Microsoft to stick a giant Xmen ad in the middle of the home screen.

I thought about getting a Kinect just for the bing stuff in the new dashboard. Looking forward to this.

I want two things:

- see my whole custom wallpaper image again

- not have ads shoved in my face when I pay for the service

(... also, I would gladly go back to the first blades dashboard.)

I don't like the fact that the largest most prominent square is an Ad.  That should be where whatever is in the disc tray is displayed.  Hopefully you'll be able to choose which tab you start on when you boot the system.

@Bane: I hope they have a dark theme as well. That hurts my eyes.

@MooseyMcMan:I miss the blades as well.

@bcrt2000: Ps3 can stream through windows media. Both consoles, I think, can use ps3 media server so mkv can also be streamed which means both consoles might support the same number of formats if you are streaming.

This is really good. I have to hand it to Microsoft, the XBox 360 team really does get how to support a product and leverage the hardware they've got out there. *redacted*.

Beacon looks like it will be useful maybe in its second iteration.

note: Shortened my original post to avoid a potential flamewar.

The search feature was desperately needed.

Hopefully it'll integrate Kinect better. The Kinect hub right now is too stilted.

@baron_calamity said:

@Bane: I hope they have a dark theme as well. That hurts my eyes.

Exactly! Let me change the colors of everything, let me have a custom wallpaper (and see all of it, no stupid fog, planet or whatever in the foreground), MS. It can't be that hard to do.

I usually use my Xbox with the roomlights dimmed and it's a real strain on the eyes.

The current dash is just awful. I don´t mind the clutter cause I don´t use a lot of "apps" on my 360, but the design.. ugh! It´s like they actively try to make you play less. Way too bright, waaay to white and green and the marketplace was actually better in the NXE.. get rid of this stinkin pile of shit Microsoft! Oh, and redesign your xbox.com website. It´s embarassing to look at in front of people.

Whatevs, I just want to play the video games.

I hope they can avoid bloating it up with layers of menus and ads. This is what the original NXE was supposed to fix and it was back to the same place within months. If they could also make the dashboard not hang for a few seconds every time you ask it to do something, that would be good too.

I'd just like a refund for all of the stupid themes they've charged for in the past and subsequently turned useless with UI updates. I guess it's my fault for trusting them repeatedly with my money. I've learned that lesson.

Hate to be a cynic, but it appears a little more difficult to navigate with a controller than the current dash.  I  hate to see the system catered to the Kinect like this.  I'll reserve judgement until I hands on with it. 
 
Though it does seem clear that MS is looking for ways to further advertise us.  I imagine that big central block is going to be filled with all manner of devious junk to click on once this launches.

Despite the Kinect integration, it does at least look like they have catered for those without it, which was my big worry after seeing this before. I just hope it's quicker than the NXE just to get around and looks a bit more 'HD', as everything seems to take up too much screen real estate at the moment

@JJOR64 said:

I thought about getting a Kinect just for the bing stuff in the new dashboard. Looking forward to this.

Voice control with Kinect is actually quite nice and I'm glad to see it more widely incorporated. Even though I don't use mine for games too often, I use the voice control daily. Stuff like my Blu-ray player now seems low-tech because I can't just tell it to pause.

$150 is a lot to ask for a glorified remote, but hey, it comes with Child of Eden now which softens the blow.

This looks cleaner and a lot quicker to navigate than the nxe. I approve.

Why is the "Home" screen mostly giant ads? What kind of home is that?

And the gradual evolution of the dashboard towards emulating the features and functionality of the XMB continues unabated.

Not that this is a bad thing, of course.

Main sections on horizontal axis? Check.

sub-sections on the vertical axis? Check.

Quick launch of recently used applications? Check.

Loathsome in-your-face advertising? Oh wait... Microsoft thought of that one all on their own. Great work guys. I guess. It looks really pretty though.

I was hoping to see something about HBO GO. Is that still happening for game consoles? That service crying out to be on a big television rather than a computer monitor or an iPad.

Wow a bunch of cluttered crap. XMB ftw.

I'm kind of excited for this.

Looks like a cross between the XMB and WP7. It also looks much better than that godawful thing that 360s are running now.

Maybe I'm shallow, I like having a new dashboard every year. Even if they're just re-arranging the deck chairs, it adds a bit of freshness to my gaming habits. They should do it every 3 months, seasonal refreshes of your dashboard experience.

edit: Although honestly guys, I think your obsession with cloudsaving is entirely based on your profession and not the habits of the common user.

I like how Microsoft continually makes the dashboard worse looking and more difficult to navigate every time.

Nice to see they are still innovating on the UI... but how is a Beacon separate from a game invite sent to a group, besides being able to spam facebook? Do you have more control over who it's sent to? I guess the way I play, it wouldn't be all that useful... but maybe others will use it.

They should call this "new" refresh the Super Duper New Xbox Experience. With that said, I'm actually liking the look of this.

*looks at comments* Oh look, most of the shit talkers are the blue names, go figure.

it be nice if they showed what it looks like with a theme....

Hopefully this fixes the slow load times of the current dashboard.

Reading this reminds me about how much I miss the blades.

It looks good... hope it doesn't hang as bad as it does currently.

Looks just like my phone.

I thought the point of a beacon was to tell your friends what you're willing to play. I might be online playing Gears of War, but I want my Call of Duty-playing friends to know I'm down to play that too when they're ready, so I set a beacon that says "invite me and I'll play (whatever) game".

Is that not in here? What you described in the story was no different than a regular invite: "You can send out a Beacon to your entire friends list, asking for people to join a game of Halo: Reach."

sort of looking like my windows phone 7.

Wait... I've been hearing about beacons on Major Nelson's podcast a few times, and I thought they said it was more of a "regardless of what I'm doing now, I'd like to play this multiplayer game". What you're describing really doesn't sound all that useful. :\

They should call this "new" refresh the Super Duper New Xbox Experience. With that said, I'm actually liking the look of this.

*looks at comments* Oh look, most of the shit talkers are the blue names, go figure.

oh hey zune interface

eh...

I'm not sure if I'll like this as much as the last dash or not but one thing is for sure: Sony could get an f'ing clue.

There's a fantastic irony to loading the main page up after the site update and finding this in the featured slot.