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Unspinning Microsoft’s NXE Update

November 13th, 2008 at 2:00 pm · 23 Comments

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Well, the last (and most important) reason to is that you won’t have to hear the 360′s DVD drive do it’s best 1:1 impression of a Harrier Jet doing a vertical take-off in your living room.  Others have claimed the chances of getting circular scratches on their discs is lessened, but I don’t see how since it still has to spin up the game discs to validate them.  The feature, plainly, is there to address shortcomings of the system and drive people to buy larger high-markup hard drives from Microsoft.

The 3D avatars have garnered Microsoft a lot of crap from folks as a quasi Wii/Home ripoff (which Rare assured us was in the works before either product was released.)  Whatever.  I don’t have anything against 3D avatars on the whole, but I think there’s a time and a place for things like that and I’m just not convinced right in the middle of your interface is the place and until many games/apps actually use the avatars, I’m not sure this is the time.  I think Nintendo has largely underdelivered on the purpose of their Miis (leaving it mostly first party and not even across all their titles) and Sony’s clearly keeping their avatars (mostly) at Home.  At the end of this generation, I don’t expect all three camps to be as keen on 3D avatars as they might be putting on right now but we’ll have to see how it works out.

Lastly, we have the party system.  This is a highly requested feature that’s been a long time in the coming.  If it delivers in the way they’ve described, this could end up being “the” feature of the update for social online players.  That, though, is the caveat.  It does nothing for the people that don’t play online games.  It does nothing for people that don’t want to go game-to-game with the same group.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that it does nothing for a lot of people.  To those that will use it, it’ll be a Godsend, but to others, it’ll be a non-point.

So, as I look back at this list of highlights, I’m forced to wrangle my anticipation back again and wonder what the excitement is about.  For me it’s about a crappy interface implementation getting spruced up a little but clearly everyone doesn’t think the blade interface is crappy.  It’s about potentially being able to use what little precious hard drive space I have to play games without the WHIRRR WHIRRR WHIRRR of my DVD drive.  I won’t be streaming Netflix movies or using the party system because I don’t have an Xbox Live Gold membership.

Why should I get excited over this update?  Are you excited?  Tell me why…

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Tags:
Categories: Editorial · News · Xbox 360

  • http://www.sarcasticgamer.com Lono

    As long as it runs faster and my XBLA and demos load faster, I will be happy.

  • MadAdam4

    Same here. From a gamers standpoint: As long as it makes the games I play better, that’s fine.

    They are also attempting to appeal to the “casual” market with the avatars and such. Not for hardcore gamers.

  • http://www.myspace.com/b01001011 BrianKotarski

    I feel like I’m getting a little Christmas gift early from Microsoft. I’m shocked that for once I may be the target gamer that they are shooting for. I’d be willing to pay for this kinda upgrade. I wasn’t an ‘Xbox’ fanboy, but on the 19th I may try to change my last name to 360. I already have the perfect honeymoon place. And for real I took the 19th thru the 22nd off of work to soak everything up, and catch up on gaming.

  • Painkilla05

    Comming from someone who has the NXE, it does run much faster and things like the guide load and run much faster and smoother. Also I noticed that load times in Gears 2 has significantly decreased.

  • Strandli

    looks like an identity crisis to me. Wasn’t 360 for the hardcore non-wii’ers? It was never intended for casual gamers. I wonder how many hardcore “cool” gamers who will be pissed off about the avatars saying “hello, welcome to the xbox” every time you boot, and seing them everywheeere. Hope there is a “off-button” for them.

    The party function seems awesome though, if you need it. and the Blade-interface really needed the facelift, but not with Mii*whops*, Avatars…

  • http://www.sarcasticgamer.com darkwonders

    I still see the installing your games to your hard drive just a ploy to get people to buy their ridiculously priced Hard drives.

    I see what you did there, Microsoft :p

  • http://www.bachiatarikoneko.co.nr outcast6

    There is no netflixs in England, and I don’t hear the drive when I’m gaming, I’m too involved in my games to notice it.

    I don’t mind the blade interface, however the large lists are annoying to navigate, and i have no problems with game load times, never felt a game took to long, and I play a lot of games.

    And finally the party system is good, but I usually only play with one or two friends at a time as most aren’t on at the same time.

    But in the end, its free (well, depends how you look at it…) and new so i will enjoy exploring it and seeing what i can offer me over the old system!

  • http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/author/yousty/ Yousty

    Personally, I’m absolutely stoked for the Netflix HD streaming. Keyword being HD. I’m one of those audio/videophiles who absolutely hates watching anything that isn’t HD so for me the Watch It Now Netflix player on my computer looked like crap. I’m really looking forward to seeing just how HD these new streams are and also the increased size of the library. And since I’m already a Netflix blu-ray subscriber I feel like this is free gift from Microsoft and Netflix.

    I’m also excited for the group chat option. There have been SO many times I’ve wanted to create a 3 or 4 way chat with friends on XBL. Not only that but it makes the 360 the perfect option for playing Wii games online with chat.

    Other than that I’m not really concerned about anything else. I didn’t mind the blades so I’m meh towards the new layout and avatars are just stupid and pointless as Nintendo has shown us.

  • http://sarcasticgamer.com/wp/index.php/author/yousty/ Yousty

    I forgot to throw my 2 cents in on the HDD installs.

    Yeah it seems kind of gimmicky, but I will definitely be using it. I can tell you right now the first game I put on there will Rock Band 2, because that is the game that always gets played when I have friends over so it will be extremely nice to have really quick load times between songs.

    Also, if you’re like me, you usually play through one game at a time so what I plan on doing is when I get a new game that I know will take me awhile to play through, I’ll install it so that load times are faster and noise is quieter and when I’m done with that game I’ll delete it and install the next one.

    It may seem stupid to do, but at least it’s not mandatory installs like on the PS3 :-P

  • jeff

    @Rothbart

    you picked a very unfortunate name for your avatar as seen in the NXE pic, lol

  • jeff

    i’m a ps3 owner i have to say i am jealous of the potential HD netflix streaming, however the recent flash support and sites like hulu are filling the void fairly well, and that will only improve. plus mediamall claims future netflix support.

  • SergeantCarnage

    Great reverse spin job. I hope you didnt get dizzy.
    Sounds like the first draft was dony on Sony letterhead.

  • Truth N Justice

    I too am looking forward to take full advantage of my netflix subscription. I will admit I didn’t even think about your Video Marketplace point Rothbart. Something to think about though.

    The avatars dont really do anything for me , But when people say the are useless cause its NOT like PS Home where you can do stuff , I just giggle inside.

    I cant wait for the party system, as a avid gamer who does play with a specific group almost weekly, this will be a welcome upgrade.

    As with the Harddrive installs , I will reserve judgment till its in my hands and can see how well it works.

    So IMO it’s a all around good thing. Worthy of being excited for.

  • http://www.sarcasticgamer.com Sean “Rothbart” Workman

    @jeff: Lono provided the NXE screen, that’s not MY account. LOL

  • J

    I fall into Rothbart’s category. I’m a Silver member with no Netflix membership. I think that the update will reinvigorate my system. My wife, a gamer in her youth, thinks the avatars are a shameless Wii ripoff. Like Yousty, I will install/delete games as I play them so as to keep my HD clean and gaming experience quiet.

  • codespace

    lol, sony fanboys writing about Xbox features and the article comes across with a negative slant.

  • Lukas Heinzel

    Wow,

    a PS3 Fanboy complains about the 360 system?Wanna talk about the PS3 menu?

    Or even better:HOME :-)

  • http://www.sarcasticgamer.com Sean “Rothbart” Workman

    @Lukas Heinzel: I _do_ prefer the XMB to the current Dashboard… hands down. Also, if you want to drag Home into it, compared to what I’ve seen of the avatar usage on the 360, I _would_ choose Home over it.

    @codespace: Oh how easy it is to just dismiss things as “sony fanboy” without taking what’s said into account. How about addressing the points in the article? You’re free to disagree, but state WHY you disagree… that’s actually… useful.

  • Drauglim

    What a waste of writing, you spent the whole time criticizing all the features saying that it won’t help many core gamers. Then you criticize the last feature saying it focuses on the core gamer which is somehow a bad thing. You need to get that stick out of your ass Rothbart, this is just a free update. I know you hate microsoft and praise sony daily, but do you write articles about every sony update and say why they’re so terrible and how every feature is worthless?

  • Drauglim

    Just wanted to add that I still love you Roth, you’re a great writer but I just think you’re being way to negative in this post.

  • V3NOM

    I’m excited for the update for two reasons.

    The blade interface ran fine a long time ago, but as features were added it became far more laggy. Hopefully the new interface will run more quickly. Right now it takes too long to open up my Friend List and select and friend and open up the keyboard to type a message. There’s just too much delay between each press of the A button before the next screen shows up. I want this to be addressed.

    The second reason I’m excited is because I play on my PC monitor, and the new update *FINALLY* adds more VGA scaling resolutions so I can set the Xbox to scale to my native resolution of 1440×900. My monitor is just terrible at scaling, while the Xbox does it smoothly, so finally my games won’t have jagged lines across the screen.

  • kirk

    this article just seems overtly negative and not very constructive IMO.

    I mean the real draw to HDD installs is making the 360 quieter. Loading times wasnt a HUGE with the 360, so im sure thats not the reason they gave the option.

    Netflix wont compete with XBLVM simply cause XBLVM is more like PPV (newer movies) while netflix is like cable (older classics, atleast a year old)

  • Obama Iz Pro

    Download The Beta Update Srsly