[MR_T3D]

how many of you have a 360 and now the big update, and what do you think of it?

I personally think it is less intuitive to navigate than my old dashboard, and the Mii's are boring.

[CKid]

I like the big update. At first it was hard to get use to navigating around but after a little while of play around with, it was a peace of cake.

[JGZinv]

So far I updated, but seem to be getting slow down on the dash, some error messages and sometimes
it takes 20-50 sec for something to load. That's disappointing.

I do like the avatar (mines not that far off but yeah I'd like to see a few more options) and the
backgrounds. The (what I shall dub) Blade Guide I like a lot better than the old system. Quite a bit faster.

Now with the happy happy joy joy is over with.

Things they need to fix:

1. Slow loadings (hopefully a follow up update)
2. Be able to remove other channels, like Inside Xbox and Spotlight.
3. There's no longer any "free content" section... I know why they are doing it... to get people to buy junk.
I can make stuff that looks better in 15 seconds on Photoshop... than some of the content. I want the freebies category back.
4. Stuff for like the games list, some of the market place areas.... with a lot of content it takes a while to scroll.
Just seems like more work than it needs to be. If you think about how Windows does your folder view, why not set it up for NXE, List, Details, Thumbnails.
5. Some of the wording still needs to be ironed out. Went to view the Transporter 3 trailer and it says "Buy this in standard resolution free" um....yeah...ok...
6. Avatar games is broke... you just can't get into that section. Pops up errors.

But there's my mini rant on the subject. Eventually I might get back to gold status and play something.
Hopefully Live party works well.

[phreak]

I like the way the new dashboard is styled and I like the fact you can now save the game discs to a hard drive for faster loading, but the avatar this is ****ing retarded.

[Colonol Dekker]

I like the fact you can now save the game discs to a hard drive for faster loading,

Disc still required though right?


I don't wanna fill my elite HD with games when i could fill it with pictures and music.

[JGZinv]

It is required and on some games like COD WAW and Halo 3 it actually
slows down the game loading due to caching.

[IceFire]

Its not bad...a decent update.  Made a few things easier...a few things harder.  The avatar Mii like thing is sort of nifty but after you set it up and take a picture it doesn't really do anything.  Not yet anyways.

XBox Live Gold features should still be free.  PC, Wii and PS3 give that functionality out free...

[Inquisitor]

Its uneven at best on the PC, the PS3 is cumbersome at times and uneven would be a generous description (granted Sony finally fixed their online store so it was at least better than the Nintendo Wii shopping channel, but bleh), and it sucks outright on the Wii. You get what ya pay for, for the quality, they can have my 5 bucks a month.



That said, Netflix on the NXE is downright awesome. No lag, no crappy framerate, no mismatched audio. They must be downloading chinks ahead of time and caching to effect "streaming" like that, it was just like watching a DVD. Either its that good, or I have been lucky in the handful of things i have watched the last couple days.

Damn handy either way. Not sure how i feel about the rest of it, I quite liked the blades interface, was very intuitive.

The Mii-wanabes are cool enough, if not a little pointless. Maybe if some game in the future could leverage them they might be more interesting. That's my favorite part of the actual Miis on the Wii, you can use them in a fair number of games as your character.

Game installs seem pointless if I am to use the machine for any HD video. I guess we'll see how future games leverage that, I am hopeful "installs" will not ever be required, the PS3 does that to me, and its a downright pain in the ass. Pop disk in, go find a snack while it gets its **** together...

[IceFire]

Seems pretty uneven on the 360 too....Halo 3 matches games fine (I have 1 month free right now) but Forza 2 refuses to work no matter what my network configuration is.  Have to see if any of my other games make use of Live....so far though all I've done is loose badly playing Halo 3 in the newbie section

[Colonol Dekker]

Managed to get the update from my little bros HD, i'll take it back to him at some point

Don't like it much....
Avatars are (as mentioned) a jump on the WII wagon, and the install (virtual drive system) seems retarded due to the fact that Fallout 3 takes longer to load

[General Battuta]

You probably don't want to install games without confirming that it helps.

I believe Mass Effect benefits somewhat.

[Colonol Dekker]

It's a console, i don't want to install games...

:bah:

[IceFire]

Halo 3 and some other games have warnings that pop up now suggesting that you don't install to the HDD as they already have a good caching system that is interfered with if you install it.

[Inquisitor]

Icefire: Some games are more forgiving than others for certain network configs, run the "test connection" routine and make sure you don't have some weird MTU setting or some such on your router. For some routers, the Xbox really wants to be in the DMZ.

Once I had my network "approved" by the test widget, I never had any problems with XBL games on the 360, and before that, it was mostly either funky wireless setups or weird router models. Never actually tried Forza though. Lots of Halo 3 and Gears, lots of FFXI, lots of R6V and R6V2, lots of a handful of other games.

PS3 on the other hand, the SOE titles have been most consistent. Everything else was hit or miss whether it would even work. So, SOE's "network" is fine, but stray off that and here there be dragons. And Home is just kinda stupid.

Wii, egads, multi-player Mario Kart on that thing is an exercise in masochism. And thats Nintendo's model game for doing multi-player...

[JGZinv]

I was under the impression IceFire meant he was just new to Halo...
The best guide for Halo 3 multiplayer IMO
http://www.2old2play.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=36834

But yeah check with the Xbox site or some other news group before doing
a disc install... least ye regret it.

[IceFire]

New to online Halo yes....but also annoyed with some of the problems getting connected (mixing my frustration ).

Thats a pretty good guide there...I love the website concept (2 old 2 game ) as it seems that my problem online these days is that I'm not as fast as I used to be.  I'm absolutely killer if the game focuses more on shooting first, being in the best position to kill, and so on but once its a bit more run and gun and the other guy can turn my initial advantage into his advantage by being faster and more accurate on the controls I get screwed.  Or if its a RTS I'm getting whupped by guys who can click faster than I can.  The only game I'm decently competitive at now is IL-2 and for that its the older guys who are teaching me lessons rather than the younger ones.

Cant win in the online arena.

I would like to try my mettle in Forza 2 if I can get it to work.

Tonight its telling me in the NXE panel that my NAT is "Moderate" whatever that means.

[lx]

the xbox product manager in germany said in an interview on nxe, that
"Some games will load a lot faster. Modern games that are optimized for fast DVD access won’t gain as much. For final numbers you have to wait until the update is available.". (His blog: http://www.dreisechzig.net/wp/archives/1393 ), so don't expect any signifcant improvements (aside from the noise reduction) when copying new games to your xbox hdd.

Colonol Dekker:
The point ist that you *can* install them on your console.


Personally i like the NXE interface! it's much more cleaned up and easier to use (but since i'm used the old messy interface, it's sometimes still hard to find some options..). the avatars are nice for creating a "unique" xbox-live avatar-picture but apart from that it's just a "Mii Too".... whatever. It's also great that the xbox now decodes more videos (can't say which codecs in special ,but i noticed that i can play some movies from my pc which i couldn't before).

[Inquisitor]

Try putting the Xbox in the DMZ, that "Moderate" result can have wonky effects on some games, if memory serves.