25 replies to this topic

[Smacktalks]

According to Major Nelson the new Xbox Dashboard Update (Above) with various TV / Streaming, Youtube, etc. is due for release on 6th December.

I've been using it for the last few weeks as part of a testing phase but the TV options and Youtube havent yet been added. Microsoft did add a UFC App for US testers over the weekend with the UFC PPV streaming for free so it looks like they'll be offering a PPV service for UFC events.

[ALL STAR]

I like it but I don't think I'll download it straight away incase there are any problems like previous major updates.

[Aero]

im not overly interested in ANOTHER change... why cant they keep 1 style instead of changing it all the time

[salizzle]

Let's just go back to the blades then aero, great.

The biggest thing for me is cloud saves, oh man. CLOUD SAVES.

[Smacktalks]

The Cloud Saves are good but at the moment you've got to manually copy the saves you want the same way you would if you were moving them to a USB drive, etc. I'd like to see them add an option for automatically backing up game saves to the cloud.

[salizzle]

That ain't too bad, I did that with my USB stick a while ago and it didn't take long, not even with 200 games.

[ALL STAR]

One thing that would be awesome with the cloud, whenever the next Xbox releases it would be awesome to log in to your profile and have all your saves right there from the start.

[salizzle]

Well, I pretty much intend to put all my saves on the cloud, so that will be happening for me

[Smacktalks]

I dunno if the video shows the Beacons but i've found them to be a good addition. You can set one for any game and it'll give you a notification when someone starts playing that game.

[salizzle]

I've set my beacons, but I guess it doesn't work in the current dashboard.

[ALL STAR]

What are the beacons?

[Smacktalks]

There basically just extra notifications to say someone is playing a certain game that you can set. If you set one for FIFA and one of your friends signs in and starts to play FIFA you'll get a message popup saying that person has started playing it.

The message you usually get when you start a game and it says others are playing it has also been updated to say how many are playing it and when you press the guide button during the popup it only displays your friends playing that game instead of your full list.

[Professor of Wrestling]

I came out of retirement to reply to this post, just because I 'really' fucking hate the new dashboard. Had the beta for a couple of weeks now and I'm thoroughly disappointed with it. It was unneeded. I mean, don't get me wrong, the thing "looks" pretty and all, but it's not worth the hassle of the confusing, non-Bing/non-Kinect navigation. You think "omg Cloud storage *pants explosion*" at first, but it's not that great. You get roughly 500MB of storage, which is fine, but while enabled, it's constantly streaming data and if you're on a limited connection, like me, it's a major annoyance while playing online. It does have a lot of promise, though. YouTube is a possibility in the future and with the recent acquisition of Skype by Microsoft, it may be possible to video chat with non-Xbox users via Skype at some point. Beacons, although nice to have, are a serious annoyance while playing online. It may just be because they're having a LOT of lag issues with the dashboard beta, but Beacons drasitcally slow down gameplay, especially with Modern Warfare 3. It's all good at first and you're like "oh cool!", but with Cloud, Beacons and the general lag from the beta, it's hard to praise it at the moment. I'm sure they'll work a good bit of the kinks out in the final build, but it blows, to me, at the moment.

[Smacktalks]

I havent had any lag issues so far, but I agree with the whole navigation itself. I used to browse the dashboard sections after playing a game while I was still in a party but with the new dashboard everythings hidden with the changing tiles. I just wish they'd release the streaming apps seeing as they're already advertising them on TV.

[Smacktalks]

I'm guessing this will get blocked but I signed up for a US account online and then retrieved the gamertag on my 360 which gave me access to the apps for the new dashboard. I downloaded Hulu Plus, Syfy & DailyMotion, then signed back into my UK account and they all appear to be working fine, no region block.

[Strum la Frantique]

The new user interface is complete arse. Who the fuck designed this piece of shit? Let's see if we can hide anything of any use behind five layers of tiles.

[Smacktalks]

I prefer the look of it, but the old one was way better for general browsing to see what was on offer, etc.

Did they release any TV apps, etc. in Australia? Any good?

[Strum la Frantique]

Yeah there's Foxtel for 360, Foxtel being the cable tv provider. But it was available before the update anyway, so there's nothing new at all, it's just hard to find anything. Which is strange because ads are usually important, but now they're just obscured along with everything else.

[CrossFan]

They made finding arcade games like a damn treasure hunt. Oh how clever.

Do like the addition of beacons though

[Chillalex]

I'm not normally one to moan about updates, and normally see those who do as petulant little whiners.... but I'm in full agreement, it's really diffiicult to use and find anything. First time I used it I spent 5 minutes trying to find LIVE (despite it apparently being the first slide??) and it's still difficult to find what I want. Definitely not great.
Maybe it's a case of shock of the new or whatever, and once we've used it for a while it'll be great, but was it necessary?