Not one of the more exciting features, sure, but if you're the type of gamer who enjoys seeing their games boot up a few second fast than usual it's gravy. [Kotaku]

During his last podcast, Xbox spokesperson/kind guidance counselor Major Nelson revealed that a "faster" dashboard update would be coming later this year with "a lot of very cool new features." (We're guessing those features include apps like Twitter and the capability to stream 1080p content—both shown off at E3—though some other unexpected goodies would be welcome.)

Of course, many have already forgotten that NXE promised to end these seasonal dashboard updates, allowing new features to unroll all year. Apparently that's just not happening. But hey, a faster dash in 2009! [Major Nelson via CVG via Kotaku]

Starting with HAWX and MLB2K9, Xbox 360 titles will ship with NXE on their discs. And as soon as you load the game, THWACK, NXE clamps your leg like a bear trap. It then slowly drags youfrom your cave of obsolescence and makes you dress in cute clothing, stream Netflix movies, install full games, and sure, see a few more ads than before. [Darkzero via Kotaku]

To review, when the NXE hit late last year, some Xbox 360 owners who had connected the console to their HDTV using an HDMI cable were greeted with silence. The response from Microsoft at the time was something along the lines of "we're looking into it," while others reported tech support indicated it was an older TV- or hardware-related issue.

Since then, 23 pages of discussion over the issue have sprouted up at the official Xbox forums, and still there has allegedly been no response from customer support. A rumored—a completely unconfirmed rumor—indicates this may be addressed with a February update.

We'd say HDMI and HD gaming are *somewhat* important parts of the Xbox 360 user experience, so we hope that's true, at least for the hundreds of users allegedly without sound for their Xbox 360 games and movies. [Xbox Forums via Boy Genius Report] Update: A fix is coming February 3.

Many screens look like little more than an enlarged, green-filtered version of the original 360 dashboard, but the company developed an "immersive 3D environment" (probably seen in that first shot) to navigate much of the system. My favorite screen is actually the simplest—where all of your games span your television. Screw the folks with tiny displays who'd have to squint. I have a big TV. [Gridplane via Kotaku]

SCEA's John Kohler explained:

We've concentrated most of our efforts on our download service, both rentals and downloads of movies and TV shows. Our efforts will continue to be there, because our customers want to own the content...[In regards to the Netflix streaming on NXE,] there are certainly some positives for the Xbox 360. But there's also some confusion. It goes further into the argument of "owning the content" [versus renting or accessing it].

Yeah, that almost makes a lot of sense. Except, Sony, you let people rent movies through the PlayStation Store—movies that no longer play after an arbitrary period of time. That's somehow less confusing that streaming? Really? [GamePro via PS3Fanboy]

According to Xbox Scene, the new 256MB chip will allow to install the entire new NXE dashboard without requiring the hard drive or any external flash memory unit. It will also allow you to store XLBA games, save gamesave information, or whatever you want. The rest of the motherboard layout stays the same, except for the RAM memory configuration, which changes from the previous version. [Xbox Scene]

• Turn off the Xbox 360.
• Remove the hard drive.
• Turn on the Xbox 360.
• When the Dashboard loads, put the hard drive back.

Apparently, the fix is only temporary. If you turn of the Xbox, you will have to receive the process. [Xbox360 Fanboy]

NXE Review
10 Things You Should Know About The New Xbox Experience
Netflix HD Impressions on Xbox 360
Major Nelson's Top 10 things to do when you get the New Xbox Experience

The New Xbox Experience, a.k.a. the new Xbox 360 Dashboard, hits tomorrow. If you've got an Xbox 360 that's connected to the internet, you're going to be prompted to update your console as soon as you turn it on. No exceptions; this is what your machine will look like until either it dies, you die, or Microsoft decides to make ANOTHER Xbox Experience. Unfortunately, unlike Batman, you didn't have time to prepare. Here are the ten things you should know about the new Xbox experience so you can be set for tomorrow.

1) Installation is quick. Owners with hard drives that aren't 100% full will be able to update with no problem, but Xbox 360 Arcade fans that rely on memory cards can get in on the free 512MB card deal from Microsoft. We'd recommend you go for the 20GB hard drive for $20 if anything. The update won't be as fast as the 10-second patches you're used to for standard Xbox Dashboard upgrades, but clocking in at somewhere between five to ten minutes, it's still faster than standard PS3 firmware refreshes. And this changes the entire UI!

2) Avatars are neat, but need some work. They're not necessary in the sense that you've still got the option of using your old gamerpics to represent your gamertag to the rest of Xbox Live, but everyone can create a Nintendo Mii-like avatar. Because there are only a handful of clothing options and customizability selections, your Mii will only kinda look like you. They're neat, though, and can be used in future games so you can control a virtual you instead of, say, Venus Williams or Marcus Fenix—the second being extremely unlikely.

3) Performance gains are found everywhere. One of the things Microsoft with the new Dashboard was lift restrictions about how much resources it could use, resulting in a much speedier and more fluid browsing experience. For example, your Xbox Live Arcade game list loads instantly, instead of one at a time in the order you downloaded them. Other time savers are the ability to bring up the Xbox guide from wherever you are and jump into another game, bypassing the need to reroute from back in the Dashboard.

4) Everything is much more usable because it's organized better. By putting in a game and going to its info screen, you can look at its achievements, all its possible downloads and access game details like whether or not it supports 1080p and co-op. In fact, you can do this for all the games in the marketplace, giving you an easy way to browse around and learn whether or not Fable 2 supports online multiplayer (it does).

5) Blades are still there if you want them. Although you're "stuck" with the new interface in the actual Dashboard, you can hit the Xbox guide button on your controller and hop around the console that way. There really isn't a reason to dislike the new interface, but if you're one of those weirdos that hates things because they're new (why are you on THIS website again?), you've got an option.

6) Netflix movie and TV streaming look great. As Mark covered in his impressions, Netflix streaming to your Xbox works fantastically as long as your connection is fast enough. HD streaming requires 8Mbps for their highest tier quality, but Mark was fine with 5Mbps in their second tier. This all requires you to have an actual Netflix account to be able to access the feature, but the convenience of movies on demand, directly to your TV should make you at least sign up for a trial.

7) Hard disk game installs save time, save wear-and-tear on your DVD drive. As bingegamer details, installing a game on a hard drive usually cuts down load times and improves streaming from the disk in sandbox games. It's very rare that installing actually makes games slower, but it's been known to happen in Halo 3 and a couple other titles. The other benefit, besides speeding up gaming sessions, is that you eliminate DVD noise. You still need to have the disc in the drive when you play, so you can't go rent games, install them and return them.

8) Media Center and media playback still work. No change in Media Center or DivX/XviD playback functionality in case you were worried about compatibility issues before upgrading.

9) Ads are basically everywhere. You know how there's space set aside in the current Dashboard for ads and promo content? Well, in NXE, promo content can be mixed into the regular menu system, which makes it more difficult to tell at a glance whether you're firing up your own copy of Gears of War 2 or clicking to the Gears of War download page where they want you to download themes. It's not too horrible, on the whole.

10) The future looks good for NXE. Instead of sticking to the Spring/Fall update cycle, NXE allows Microsoft to roll out incremental updates for your Xbox whenever they're ready. This means more timely feature bumps (stuff like Netflix, for example), and special one-off changes that can skin your interface based on whatever hot game is due out soon. And hell, who wouldn't want to be able to download a Gears of War suit for your avatar?

Our final verdict is that NXE is a good thing. It's great of Microsoft to be devoting precious resources to revamping a usable interface (you won't see a new Wii Experience anytime soon) three years into a console's lifetime because they think they can do a better job the second time around. Get ready to install a whole new Xbox tomorrow. [Xbox Coverage on Gizmodo]

How could we possibly miss the HD content, you ask? Well, it's not marked anywhere as HD. Neither Netflix's site nor the Xbox 360 is showing any discernible "HD" label on content until the moments when clips begin to buffer. Seeing as many of us may choose what we watch based upon the quality of feed, we hope this issue gets addressed soon. Right now it's a "feeling lucky?" situation.

According to Netflix, streaming in HD requires a connection of 8mbps or greater. That's a problem for me as my connection maxes around 5mbps. So while I was still able to stream HD, I was in their second quality tier, not first.
But still, the quality was very good. Compared to Netflix SD streaming, it's much sharper, but maybe even more important, the frame rate is far better. Netflix SD has noticeable breaks in motion, like a web feed. Simple footage I watched in Netflix HD was as smooth as television.

As for sharpness, it looks like compressed HD normally looks. That means it's not as sharp as a good Blu-ray or OTA HD. But it's better than DVD. It looks like a crappy HD movie transfer, actually, somewhere between fine upconversion and best case scenario HD, probably leaning toward upconversion at my second-tier connection speed.

But since buffers take only 15 seconds, I mentally deemed the quality excellent, and definitely light years ahead of Netflix SD streaming.

There is one big catch in the user interface, however. Fast forwarding and rewinding have been completely disabled. Instead, you can only "skip" in 10-minute intervals. Ouch.
Also of note, those who convert HDMI to DVI into non-HDCP compliant displays may have issues (as in, the video will not play). However, all of my streaming was performed fine through component cables, so there are definitely some strange exceptions going on with certification.

So in terms of quality, the most important issue, we're quite pleased with Netflix HD streams so far. But as for supporting features, like fast forwarding and an easy way to differentiate HD content, there's some definite room for improvement.

Well, maybe they don't. But Engadget confirmed that when NXE hits on November 19th, 300 HD movies will be available to stream from Netflix (as opposed to just the movie 300). That's obviously not every movie in the Netflix digital collection, but it's a start.

Seeing as I found SD streaming flawless on the 360, I'm really curious to see if Netflix and Microsoft can deliver the same short buffer times and easy fast forwarding in high def. [engadget]

This November, the Xbox 360 will turn three. So far, it’s been a profitable and successful system for Microsoft, capturing the attention of developers, snatching exclusives away from the PlayStation 3 and gaining lots of street cred from hardcore gamers.

But in spite of this success, Microsoft has chosen to make an aggressive, totally unprecedented step. They’re completely overhauling the Xbox 360 firmware with a free update called the New Xbox Experience (NXE) that hits consoles on November 19th. Functionally, it's hiding at least one killer app. Visually, it’s a bigger jump than Windows XP to Windows Vista. Given that NXE is a mandatory update for anyone on Xbox Live, it's a good thing we really, really liked it.

Navigation
The NXE Dashboard looks entirely different from the old sliding blade system. In fact, it looks a lot more Apple than Microsoft, with sharp image-based navigation and a subtle icon reflection on the Cover Flow-esque surface where 360 content sits.

And you’ll notice immediately, it’s fast. Animations are very smooth as you flick through content, with little to no noticeable caching. Those occasional hiccups from the old blade interface have been burped out.
You might not understand how to get around NXE at first glance, but after a moment the system sinks in. Despite all those pretty icons on the right, the primary folder navigation can be seen on the upper left. It's a simple vertical list. Up and down changes your folder. Right and left selects the content from that folder.

• My Xbox is your home base, leading to your games, profiles, media libraries and settings.

• Friends shows all of your friends and their avatars.

• Inside Xbox links you to Microsoft-sponsored 360 videos, games and previews, from gaming tips to movie trailers.

• Events houses all of the scheduled 360 online events, like family play nights, “Gamerchix” girl nights and game-specific marathon play fests.

• Welcome introduces you to the main features of NXE, and it can be removed when you’re done with it. It's the only folder that can be removed on NXE.

• Spotlight is sort of a mix of My Xbox and Inside Xbox. It’s actually completely superfluous given the other categories, as well as misleading because it looks so much like My Xbox with your avatar there. And yes, icon two is a Subway commercial—or any ad Team Xbox wants to serve up.

• Game Marketplace is all about new DLC and community games.

• Video Marketplace is like the Game Marketplace but for movies. This is where Microsoft tucked the one and only Netflix icon. Why isn't Netflix in My Xbox if you're a subscriber?

The categories do feel a bit heavy, and unfortunately, you can’t tweak folder contents in any way. So say you want to stick Netflix into My Xbox since you have a subscription…too bad. It can’t be done.

What's great is that when you are buying arcade titles, browsing movies or sorting through other long lists, the interface shifts from the large Cover Flow icons to a nifty three-sheet page layout, allowing you to access more information easily.

So that’s the pretty view. But there’s a whole other (faster) way you can navigate through your 360. In fact, you could operate the entire device by hitting the Xbox button and pulling up the Quick Launch Bar.
The QLB is gray and blue (and for some reason, the text is a bit soft—I wish it were sharper), and it brings back the blade interface of yore. Not only can you pull up the QLB from the main menu, but you can pull it up from anywhere at any time, even in games.
Why is that access so convenient? Well, say you are playing Fable II. You can pull up your QLB and find a list of your most recently played games. Select one and you’ll hop from one title to another without tediously returning to the main menu. The same rubric applies to music, downloads and pretty much everything else you want to do on the 360. Oh, and it’s the best way to circumvent Microsoft ads and promotions because it has none.

New Features

Avatars
Yes, we get it, Microsoft totally stole their avatars from Nintendo. Whatever. Good consoles borrow. Great consoles steal. Moving on…
The NXE avatars reach a whole different level of sharpness and detail when compared to their Wii counterparts—though that’s a good and a bad thing. The clothing, hairstyles and facial features are far more, well, impressive. They look great in HD, like a Mii after it hits some sort of technological puberty. You don’t just slap on a generic red shirt, you dress realistically in a pair of cuffed jeans and felt blazer. There’s just a whole different level of detail going on here.
But that detail, mainly regarding hair, face and eyes, means that it’s far harder to make your avatar actually look like you. NXE’s avatar art package simply doesn’t promote the universality of Nintendo’s Mii. My Mii looks just like me. My wife’s Mii looks just like her. Our NXE selves look like siblings, cousins or just some weird people who dress like us.

Also, as you search through lists of noses and beauty marks for your character, you might catch one of Microsoft’s notorious streaming delays as you wait for all of your options to load. It's no deal breaker—really this was the only time during the review I actually noticed it—but it can be annoying.
And clothes…we need more. Lots more. There’s no doubt that Microsoft will microtransaction these to death—in fact they're bringing in a whole avatar store—and that’s fine. But there are 33 shirt options for men right now. That selection may sound like a lot until you realize that you cannot alter colors or designs in any way. Ever see that 90210 where Brenda and Kelly pick out the same dress to the dance? Well it’s going to be even worse for Halo fans.

Multiplayer Parties
One of the biggest updates in NXE was multiplayer matching—under-the-hood adjustments that allow groups of friends to travel together from game to game with extreme convenience. Sounds good, but we were unable to test the feature because none of our friends have the new firmware.

Themes
Yes, you can use your old themes on NXE. No, it’s not quite the same. One wallpaper is used for a majority of your navigation (pretty much the whole time that you’re within the main icon-based interface, which is why that Fable backdrop is in every photo of this review). Other wallpapers make their way into submenus, like the Games Library content, but those moments are few and far between.

Full Game Installs
I began installing Fable II at 10:14pm and it finished by 10:25pm. I'm not sure that the game loaded any faster—maybe you could catch it with a stopwatch, but I couldn’t with casual observation.
But I did notice that Fable’s auto-guidance system reacted more quickly to my directional changes. Pop-ins may have been a little improved as well, though I was able to duplicate a few problems I experienced with the disc in.

The biggest benefit was that the DVD didn’t spin nonstop. In fact, it didn’t spin at all. Since my test 360 has gone through two optical drives already, I was happy to have the option to lessen the wear and tear on my 360.

Netflix
Finally, we get to my favorite update of NXE. Gold subscribers with Netflix subscriptions can instantly stream movies and tv shows right to their consoles.
You download the Netflix app on your Xbox, which takes about a minute. Then you go online with a 5-digit activation code, which takes about another minute. Add movies to your queue on netflix.com, and they appear on your Xbox in 1 to 5 seconds presented in sharp and vivid box art. (Even though you build a playlist on a PC, you can still check out queued movie ratings and summaries on the 360.)
That’s, what, three minutes of setup time? To begin streaming any film in your queue, it's just another 10 seconds.

Testing clips, video automatically formatted to our widescreen television. Of course, the determined by your bandwidth—it should look just like the quality in the $100 Roku box that's been available for some time. But as long as you have 2Mbps or faster downstream, you should have a positive experience. The picture is softer than DVD but sharper than Amazon Unbox. The only thing that bothers me is the noticeably lower frame rate than either. Still...I'm not looking this gift horse in the mouth. It's very watchable, and free (with subscription).
Fast forwarding brings you to a screen with 10 or so stills that you can cycle through to pick your spot of choice. You can quit watching a film and then resume it later with no problem.
All in all, it's a fantastic interface that makes for a trouble-free user experience. Microsoft nailed it. And we feel bad for Roku. They made a great product, and in one step, Microsoft made it pretty much obsolete. UPDATE: Especially because NXE will debut Netflix HD streaming.

At the End of the Day
Ultimately, it doesn't matter whether or not you like NXE, since we're all going to be forced to update the firmware to connect to Xbox Live. But luckily, NXE is an all-around upgrade from the old 360 OS—which really wasn't so bad in its own right.

NXE is faster, prettier and more functional than its predecessor. It brings us avatars and Netflix, full game installs and more robust multiplayer. Truth be told, we could have been shown NXE as the operating system behind the Xbox 720, and life wouldn't have been so bad. Instead, we get it a few years early. And we consider ourselves lucky.

"In fact, if you want to get your hands on it, let me just say this: keep an eye on my blog next week. If you want to get your hands on it early, that's all I'm going to say." If we're really lucky that means getting our New Xbox Experience (beta) on later that week, though it might be the week or two after that (since three weeks would be a little late for an early taste).

Even if you do wait until Nov. 19, you probably won't be disappointed, unless you know, you're a miserable person and just hate everything. [Destructoid]

All Microsoft has to do is "build that app, drop it in, party enable it and we’re good to go" says Xbox senior strategist Rob Gruhl. So while the movie party feature isn't specifically planned on, since "those types of things are certainly the aspiration," according to Xbox marketing head Albert Penello and they've discussed photo sharing, it looks like we can definitely expect to see some social app action like that in the future. [MTV Multiplayer]