Having been accepted into the early preview of the Next Xbox Experience in the third wave, I was really excited to try it out. I’m a pretty optimistic guy, and when companies say they’re going to change things for the better, I tend to believe them. So when Microsoft announced a complete overhaul of the current dashboard (something I didn’t already think needed an overhaul) I kind of went to my happy place.

I turned on my Xbox at 10am, despite being told it would come at or around 1pm. A friendly update screen greeted me, and I began the download a few hours early! Early download of an early preview dashboard! Success! It was a quick download and my final glimpses of the old dashboard we whisked away as the console rebooted.

Upon restart, another update screen appeared. But this was unlike any update screen I’d seen before on my Xbox. It was part of the NXE! While nothing of use was shown on this screen, I knew my old dashboard was gone and I was never getting it back. After another 5 minute or so download (I’m at university so I have a phat pipe) the console rebooted once more. I was in New Xbox Experience land. A sweet opening animation illuminated my screen before dropping me into the new “Avatar” creator. It’s pretty obvious that this is ripping off Nintendo’s Mii’s, but I gave it a go anyhow.

The choices are fairly stark at the moment but that’s to be expected since the thing isn’t even released yet. I created an avatar as close to myself as possible (or rather what I would dress like if I had these clothes put in front of me to choose from) and I was then thrown head first into – Ads.

The new interface is organized by “Channels,” a sort of reverse XrossMediaBar. The first channel I was dropped on was the “Spotlight” channel. The only thing I can see this channel being good for is ads, because that’s all it is. The My Xbox channel was much less cluttered, and is probably where the majority of gamers will spend most of their time. The friends list isn’t well suited for this view though because all of the avatars of the friends take up quite a bit of space. It’s a pain to find the one you’re looking for, especially right now since none of them have avatars. I suspect in time these things will get better.

The video, music, and game marketplaces have ads for different things in between the actual things you’ll probably clicking on – Your library and the marketplaces. Your library is on the far end of the ads, but this isn’t ‘much of a problem as all of the library’s are organized neatly in the My Xbox channel.

The My Xbox channel contains links to the game in the drive (giving you the option of installing it), your avatar/gamercard, and your game, video, music, and picture library, as well as Windows Media Center extender and the system settings. This channel is where the majority of the time will be spent, and it is very well done without any obtrusive ads.



One channel I really like is the Events channel. In the old dashboard finding out about the “Game With Fame” events and other cool things going on on Xbox live was kind of hard to do, and I’ll admit to not even trying to look when it was so out of the way. Having them all neatly organized into one channel is really great and will help ensure that more people get involved in some of the cool things that Xbox Live has to offer.

I didn’t get a chance to try out the hard drive installs, as my sparse 20 GB drive is nearly full to the brim of demos and videos. Perhaps in the near future (read: Christmas) I can procure a 60 or 120 GB hard drive.
The Netflix feature is something I intend to be using A LOT. Thanks to my aforementioned phat pipe to the internet, most of what’s available to be streamed to my Xbox can be displayed in glorious high definition. I’m not sure if it’s 720p or 1080p since my monitor is only 1680x1050 (which is a newly supported resolution, though selecting it just seems to give me black bars on the top and bottom). Netflix’s entire library is available and as long as you have one of their plans for unlimited rentals your streaming is unlimited as well. I’ll be using this to catch up on back seasons of 30 Rock.

The NXE is really well done, save for a few things (Massive ads, friends list clutter) but these things are easy to get around by hitting the Guide button, which brings up a condensed version of the old X360 blades. This mini dashboard works really well and gets a lot more done that the old guide did. You can access your game library, videos, and even change some settings in here, right in game. Most options require you to quit your current game, however, so it merely serves as a shortcut to the main dashboard rather than the in-game dashboard it seemed like it would be.

I’m really excited for this to hit the mainstream and for more people to have avatars. I think avatars are cool, even if it is blatantly Xeroxed from straight from the Wii. If Microsoft can fix a few of the gripes that people including myself have, I think that the overall Xbox experience can be enhanced by the latest update from our friends in Redmond.