Feature Article 5/26/2006 1:24:40 PM
Major 360 Dashboard Update Coming Soon
Xbox 360 owners will soon be getting a nice update to the console's dashboard. Better navigation of the Xbox Live Marketplace as well as the ability to play games while downloading are two significant additions among a laundry list of enhancements. More within...
At E3 this year Peter Moore told us, "One of the things that we are looking to do is continue to update live and make it more navigable... Live, as good as it is, you've got to find stuff better in the Marketplace, you've got to sort the music out better... and there'll be Live updates which are very important, so you'll turn on Live one day and it'll look and feel a lot better."
Although Microsoft has yet to release an official announcement on the matter, company officials have indicated that an update to the Xbox 360 dashboard is coming within roughly one week. This will be the first major update for the system since it launched last November, and the plan is that Microsoft will release two major updates a year enhancing the system's functionality and usability. Another update is expected this fall.
The forthcoming update will bring with it a number of additions designed to enhance the user experience, with perhaps the most notable function being the download manager. Currently, when downloading demos, trailers or other items from Marketplace users are tied to the download screen. The update will enable users to queue up and prioritize up to six downloads and users will be allowed to play music, games or do other things on the dashboard while downloads are in progress. If an online game is started, the current download in progress will be paused so as to avoid lag.
As for making things more navigable, a number of changes have been made to the Marketplace layout. Game trailers and movie trailers have been separated, as have demos and gamer themes/pictures. A new Media and Entertainment menu also adds categories like Short Films and Television, Music and Sports. The Games menu also adds a Newly Released section for the latest additions like game demos and Arcade titles. Marketplace can even be searched by genre with this new update.
Other significant changes include being able to fast forward and rewind within videos saved to the hard drive, better artist information retrieval for music CD albums, DVD player bookmarking (so the user can stop the disc and play a game with a friend and then continue in the movie later), full USB keyboard support, an "away" or "idle" function similar to instant messaging when you've left your 360 alone for 15 minutes, and also a direct to dashboard startup feature so that users can boot to the dashboard even if a game disc is in the drive.
Even gamers with the core pack (meaning no HDD) can take advantage of this major dashboard update when it's released, as Microsoft is flashing it to the internal hardware of the console like a firmware update.
Some would say that many or most of these features should have been present when the Xbox 360 first launched, but it is good to see that Microsoft is continually looking to improve the user experience.
by James Brightman
Major 360 Dashboard Update Coming Soon
Xbox 360 owners will soon be getting a nice update to the console's dashboard. Better navigation of the Xbox Live Marketplace as well as the ability to play games while downloading are two significant additions among a laundry list of enhancements. More within...
At E3 this year Peter Moore told us, "One of the things that we are looking to do is continue to update live and make it more navigable... Live, as good as it is, you've got to find stuff better in the Marketplace, you've got to sort the music out better... and there'll be Live updates which are very important, so you'll turn on Live one day and it'll look and feel a lot better."
Although Microsoft has yet to release an official announcement on the matter, company officials have indicated that an update to the Xbox 360 dashboard is coming within roughly one week. This will be the first major update for the system since it launched last November, and the plan is that Microsoft will release two major updates a year enhancing the system's functionality and usability. Another update is expected this fall.
The forthcoming update will bring with it a number of additions designed to enhance the user experience, with perhaps the most notable function being the download manager. Currently, when downloading demos, trailers or other items from Marketplace users are tied to the download screen. The update will enable users to queue up and prioritize up to six downloads and users will be allowed to play music, games or do other things on the dashboard while downloads are in progress. If an online game is started, the current download in progress will be paused so as to avoid lag.
As for making things more navigable, a number of changes have been made to the Marketplace layout. Game trailers and movie trailers have been separated, as have demos and gamer themes/pictures. A new Media and Entertainment menu also adds categories like Short Films and Television, Music and Sports. The Games menu also adds a Newly Released section for the latest additions like game demos and Arcade titles. Marketplace can even be searched by genre with this new update.
Other significant changes include being able to fast forward and rewind within videos saved to the hard drive, better artist information retrieval for music CD albums, DVD player bookmarking (so the user can stop the disc and play a game with a friend and then continue in the movie later), full USB keyboard support, an "away" or "idle" function similar to instant messaging when you've left your 360 alone for 15 minutes, and also a direct to dashboard startup feature so that users can boot to the dashboard even if a game disc is in the drive.
Even gamers with the core pack (meaning no HDD) can take advantage of this major dashboard update when it's released, as Microsoft is flashing it to the internal hardware of the console like a firmware update.
Some would say that many or most of these features should have been present when the Xbox 360 first launched, but it is good to see that Microsoft is continually looking to improve the user experience.
by James Brightman