| A Look at The Upcoming NXE Dashboard Update |
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Here's a guided video tour of the NXE Dashboard '09 Preview Beta. It's lacking some features which makes it a bit less exciting than what was shown at E3 this year, but what is on offer currently is the Avatar Marketplace of which you can buy yourself a rather expensive Halo RC Warthog for your Avatar to keep himself amused with whilst he's not gaming. Now from other reports I'm hearing that Netflix functionality is much improved for US residents and Netflix subscribers. Sadly though, this Preview does not feature the SKY Player, which was no doubt one of the highlight announcements for UK Sky TV Subscribers and Xbox 360 owners at E3, neither does it feature Twitter or FaceBook features, these are due later in the year. While the Games on Demand service is in place, it's yet to feature any Xbox 360 games for download. From the looks of some of the notices on the dashboard, that's coming very soon. All in good time...
Now, there's a few things here that I'm not overly fond of, the fact that I feel like I sold my soul in purchasing that Halo RC Warthog of which I had hoped upon purchasing would become interactive, for example use the Right Stick to move the Warthog around the Dashboard area or something of that nature; it appears to be a pre-set animation only, not interactive. Another thing I'm not keen on is the ability to easily see how many achievements I failed to get in all the game I've played, I really don't like seeing that for some reason, probably because it's giving me the urge to go back and play games I don't like, where as I quite happily had them burried at the botom of my Played Games list previously (which is where the majority will be staying).
I like, or liked the idea of the number of years that you've been an Xbox Live Gold member for, being displayed next to your gamertag. I figure mine is correct as it's displaying "3", although I've actually been an Xbox Live Gold Member since before the Xbox 360 came out. I assume it's only counting on from when the Xbox 360 launched (or shudders: from when I paid 800MSP to change my gamertag some years back), and not counting on from the classic XBOX days. I actually prefer it if it's counting from the Xbox 360 launch, for one reason, and one reason only; back in the days of no achievements or gamerscore, myself and I'm sure others who fancied a good old fashioned gamertag name change would simply create a 'new' account when the old one expired, which would probably tick some people off if it counts from all the way back when. Although no doubt those who stuck with their first gamertag since its birth all them years ago, well, they'd probably think differently.
Posted By: Wayne Julian
Date: 2009-07-29
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