New Xbox Experience

This morning at the E3 conference, Microsoft announced the New Xbox Experience, also known as the new features and look of Xbox Live.  I’m really excited about this because the current blades system does not make use of its screen real estate very efficiently.  There is tons of wasted space towards the sides, mostly apparent in media blades.  I’m totally down for something fresh.  Let’s take a look at some of the other announcements from today.

• Play from hard drive. I think the only way you can take advantage of this is if you have the 120GB HD or at the very least the 60GB HD.  The 20GB HD gets filled up pretty quickly with a couple game demos and some music.  Now you won’t hear the airplane engine-like roar of the spinning disc drive that drowns out the audio.

• Access Xbox Live Marketplace on the Web. This is great for gamers with crazy home theaters with a dozen components to turn on.  My projector set up takes about 2 minutes to warm up and power on, but I would turn it right off after a download.  Not exactly great for the bulb.  This way I can browse Marketplace for a movie/game/trailer/whatever on the web and have it on the Xbox when I’m ready to power it on.

• Dashboard built into the new Xbox Guide. This was a confusing point for many when announced this morning.  I think what they are referring to is when you press the Guide button, a simpler blade system will pop out instead of the single one.  You can bring this up in a game or in the dashboard.  We’ll have to wait for a video demo of this for clarity.

• Live Party system. This is a neat feature allowing you to gather up a party of 8 friends and do everything online together.  Chat, play games, watch a movie, share photos, and more.

• Xbox Live Primetime. Have you always wanted to be on a game show?  Now you can!  I think this will be particularly successful with groups who enjoy playing as a family.  Live hosts, Achievements, real prizes, and more.  This is a definite winner with gaming families.

• Avatars. Think Mii, but more realistic and customizable.  This will be great for chat rooms or even to integrate into Live Arcade games.  A great addition to your Gamertag and for the Dashboard.  It’ll be interesting where they take this.

• New display support. Now supports 16×10 resolutions, which is what the majority of computer LCD displays.  (1440×900, 1680×1050)

I was actually one of the Beta testers for the very first Xbox Live system on the original Xbox.  Remember that green dashboard that started up with just 4 tabs?  Yah, that one.  Far from perfect, but was still a great experience playing online games that wasn’t on a computer.  I played a fair bit of Revolt, MotoGP, and my favourite, MechAssault all online!

That was in November 2002.  Now 6 years later, Xbox Live has evolved and advanced into a fully featured online experience away from the computer.  It’s so much more than just simply a teenager’s gaming console.  It is now often a core component to any home theater.

Obviously, there are great games that I play on the Xbox, take GTAIV, COD4, and NHL08 for example.  Tons of fun!  Apart from that, there’s also Live Arcade for casual gamers who just want to kick back and relax.  Use the DVD/HDDVD player to watch movies or even rent HD movies without leaving your couch.  Scrooge much?  Then download and watch on the Xbox that comes enabled with DIVX/MPG/WMV and more.  Some other fun features are music and photos.  Remember this is what is currently available at time of writing.  Expect this along with the New Xbox Experience this Fall.  I haven’t even mentioned the upcoming games this Fall yet, but that deserves a post of its own.  Go get an Xbox already!