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The New XBox Experience: A Brief Reaction

Posted by Bob Mackey

The New XBox Experience is finally available to all XBox 360 users today, and I couldn't be happier. Microsoft's old "blade" format had quite a few problems, most of which involved finding stuff on the marketplace; to use the old GUI effectively, you pretty much had to train yourself to think bass-ackwardsly. And when you got to the right place, sometimes you couldn't even find what you were looking for; I remember a certain summer adventure when a friend and I wanted to play the newly released Commando 3, only to find it minutes later listed under WOTB--which caused me to forever think of the game as Woe Tub.

The best idea out of all of the new changes has to be the Netflix streaming movie integration. As a loyal NetFlix customer, I was aware of their streaming service before the NXE announcement, but never really used it because I sit in front of my computer too damn much as-is. But now when I'm alone or entertaining (and most importantly, far from my computer desk), I can choose from a good selection of quality (and not-so quality) programming that further justifies me not having cable TV. My own cheapness can only excuse so much.

The Avatars--Microsoft's bone thrown to the non-hardcore--have that same kind of limited appeal that that Nintendo's Miis have; though, in Microsoft's favor, I think the 360 uses their little cartoony creations much more effectively by actually including them as part of the interface instead of segregating them to a separate program. I could honestly give or take my Virtual Bob, but Avatars are an astoundingly better idea than paying Microsoft for the benefit of using a tiny, blurry image to represent yourself. I once paid for some GamerPics with some leftover Microsoft points and now must live with the shame forever.

All in all, NXE is a pretty monumental--though expected--change to the 360 interface. I especially appreciated the simplification, as the combination of both NyQuil and DayQuil on my brain is making it hard to do simple tasks, like navigate menus and construct simple sentences. Hopefully you haven't noticed the latter.

Related Links:

Microsoft Might Just Hate You
Turning Japanese: Microsoft’s Latest Ditch Effort to Win the East
R.I.P. Xbox 720 and Playstation 4: The Future of Gaming

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Posted Nov 19 2008, 04:00 PM

Filed under: xbox 360, xbox live, bob mackey, xbox live arcade, hardware

Comments

Demaar said:

I have some gripes (some major gripes actually), but on the whole I'm glad they did this. A lot better than the old tab style layout.

November 20, 2008 8:52 AM

aludarie said:

I'm feeling rather 'meh' about it.. but I've got my fingers crossed that with this little update they've accidentally left some hole in the programming that will allow us to stream an XBMC install to it an hijack the whole thing. (I can dream can't I?)

November 20, 2008 7:57 PM

About Bob Mackey

For a brief period of time I was Bull from TV's Night Court, but some of you may know me from the humor column I wrote for Youngstown State University's The Jambar, Kent State University's The Stater, and Youngstown's alternative newspaper, The Walruss. I'm perhaps most well-known for my bi-weekly pieces on Something Awful. I've also blogged for Valley24.com and have written articles for EGM, 1UP, GameSpite and Cracked. For all of my writing over the years, I have made a total of twenty American dollars. It's also said that I draw cartoons, which people have described with words such as "legible." I kidnapped the Lindbergh Baby and am looking to do so again in the future.

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