Xbox 360 dashboard getting speed improvements in new update

Posted Jun 22, 2009 at 10:32AM by Karl B. Listed in: Xbox 360 Tags: Dashboard, Major Nelson, podcast, Zune
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Dashboard - Image 1


Major Nelson's latest podcast has some good news for Xbox 360 gamers who've found the Guide to be sluggish. A new update scheduled for later this year will increase the dashboard's speed as well as introduce new features such as Zune 1080p streaming, an avatar marketplace, and Games on Demand.

"The team has done some really good stuff around making performance enhancements," explained the Major. "'Performance enhancements' doesn't sound right because it sounds like we're going to give the Guide a little blue pill, and we're not doing that."

E, the Major's co-host, added: "Whatever we call it (and it's not going to be called the NNXE), but whatever the next version of the dashboard is called, it's better with a lot of very cool new features. That update will be out later this year."

You can listen to the podcast by clicking on the Source link. The update is mentioned about 21 minutes in.



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Via Major Nelson

 
 
 

Comments [refresh]

by phiyuku - 2009-06-22 07:37
» Avatar marketplace

as in paid clothing for Avatars? Looks like MS looking for more money once more with micro payments like Home. As for dashboard I see nothing wrong or slow about the dashboard unless by dashboard they mean the in game one which at times can be unbearable.



As for 1080p streaming, in my opinion good for the average consumers but for enthusiasts streaming will never beat blu-ray, because of the compression used for streaming there is a noticeable difference in the picture quality even if they both have the same pixel count. Also I think Sony does it but I never checked if it was full 1080p or just 720p. Though one thing I noticed is that it seems you can only rent HD movies and never buy them on PSN. You can only buy SD copies.

by rollypoly - 2009-06-22 09:15
» meh

i welcome any speed boost. if you have a lot of content or tons of played games, the system can be unreasonably slow...



avatar marketplace ey? i'll reserve judgment for now.



what exactly does 1080p zune streaming mean? streaming to zune? if so that makes no sense... the zune screen isn't capable of 1080. even if the zune outputs to tv, whats the point? the 360 is already hooked to the tv...

by Relys - 2009-06-22 11:26
» rofl

Avatar marketplace? How lame is that?



We should get cloths for getting achievements or something.

by avatar76 - 2009-06-22 11:41
» Yeah that's what I heard too

Ages ago I heard they were going to have Avatar clothing acheivments that you could obtain by unlocking in game acheivments. Kind of like how you can make cosmetic changes to your character appearance in Halo3 by getting certain acheivements (eg finding all the skulls gets you the hayubusa armour). Earning over 1000 gamer points gets you the sword.

That's a much better idea then cr4ppy micro transactions for clothing, which incidentally at the launch of the Avatar concept MS said they will never do...

by Shatterdome - 2009-06-22 11:52
» New Zune HD

http://www.zune.net/en-us/mp3players/zunehd/default.htm



Can store HD movies and output them via a dock to any HDTV @ 720P. This is probably incentive to have a zune/360 combo so it can output @ 1080P.

by Shatterdome - 2009-06-22 11:57
» yeah....

Lot's of people see 720/1080p and just assume it is perfect picture quality. However, it's just a resolution and you can have a horribly compressed 1080p image which is technically HD resolution....but looks like crap.

by Master Chef - 2009-06-22 12:33
» omfg

About damn time jerks, I am so sick of this POS locking up on me. It locks up on everything, viewing messages, accepting invites, opening the friends list makes it lock for about 10 to 20 seconds until it loads the gamerpics. So annoying, by the far the slowest interface I've ever used



As for avatar marketplace they actually announced that a little before E3, tho I'm sure everyone saw it coming. Sounds dumb but we'll see, maybe they'll have some stuff on there to make the avatars not look like morons. Hopefully it won't be a huge ripoff



To Relys, they have confirmed just that thing, they did at the same time they confirmed the avatar marketplace. Awards for doing things in games. Check this link



http://kotaku.com/5274407/xbox-360-avatars-getting-new-outfits-props-marketplace

by vash9 - 2009-06-22 21:30
» Well..

I'm all in for the speed improvement..as long as it is free. You never know, Microsoft could probably bend this statement a bit and say, "Update = 200 MS points" or something i don't know. But i mean if you need to pay with real money just to look a "little cool" for your GAMING avatar that is basically useless as soon as you pop your disc in, i think they could charge a lot more for something like that.

by Solid Snicker - 2009-06-23 00:09
» .

as usual, i'm not gonna pay for *****. I've never bought anything from the marketplace and never will.

by rollypoly - 2009-06-23 06:35
» yeah i read...

so it's streaming from the zune then?



i guess that makes sense if there is zune exclusive content... otherwise it still doesn't make sense.

by Master Chef - 2009-06-23 09:11
» lol no

Microsoft said way back when XBL was new that updates will never, ever cost money. And they said it again when 36 came out, dash updates will always be free.



But yea the props and clothes for your guy will cost money. I guess if they give you the option to say buy one cool looking shirt for 8 points (10 cents) or something

by Master Chef - 2009-06-23 09:13
» oops

Pressed reply too soon lol



But yea the props and clothes for your guy will cost money. I guess if they give you the option to say buy one cool looking shirt for 8 points (10 cents) or something that'd be fine, can't complain over a dime, but MS will probably sell them in packs for a minimum of 80 points or something.

by RexNox - 2009-06-23 16:55
» can't wait for them to change the...

"your-5-year-old-is-still-playing-with-building-blocks" XBL visuals

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