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Major Nelson continues to clear up New Xbox Experience

by Justin McElroy on Jul 21st 2008 9:00AM

Considering how much time we spend looking at Xbox Live waiting for someone, anyone to accept our Cloning Clyde game invite, it's understandable that we'd be pretty trepidatious about some of the planned big changes coming to the service. Thankfully, Xbox's Major Nelson is there to hold our heads to his audio bosom, stroke our hair and promise us that everything's going to be OK.

His new podcast features all kinds of reassurances, chief among them: We won't have to create an avatar and transferring Xbox 360 games to the hard drive will never be required, something we were paranoid about. What other comforts will you discover inside? Only after a click here will you know for sure.

New Xbox Experience

Source

Tags: e3-2008, major-nelson, new-xbox-experience, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (78)

Agreed, the system allowed you to choose a gamertag and icon that did not defy your gender.

Now women will be forced to make a cute "Bratz" look-a-like avatar and all the stupid attention that comes with it.

Lame.

i let my sister play rainbow six and the amount of friend requests she gets are stupid. guys that cant even speak english. i decline all the requests and ill be playing COD a few days later and ill get some more, along with messages. they honestly stalk

"Agreed, the system allowed you to choose a gamertag and icon that did not defy your gender.

Now women will be forced to make a cute "Bratz" look-a-like avatar and all the stupid attention that comes with it."

Except that they JUST said you don't have to create an avatar. Seriously, like 500 pixels up above this.

Duke

"all kinds of reassurances, chief among them: We won't have to create an avatar"

Regular gamerpics FTW! So no worries buddy.

I never thought about that, my fiance doesnt play games (she just gets annoyed when I do). It would certainly bother me if that kept happening, perhaps her avatar can have a wedding ring (or engagement ring).

I can imagine that xbox live is not a very friendly place for women or minorities for that matter.

Guys, I know they don't have to create one. I read that too. The fact is that many girls will make them when the update shows, because they dont all read gaming blogs like us. They will see the new option and do it not thinking about that side of it. Then they will be targets as always.

I think there should be a way for women to block men from contacting them if they want. They already have women forums at XBox's site, now they should expand it. You may not notice on the day to day, but this is a real problem for some women. These guys also sift through other people's friends lists and see girl type names and then send them invites and stalker messages. Thats pretty freaky to me.

Guys, you do know that having a "fiance" means you're engaged to a guy, right? (not that there's anything wrong with that)

A female spouse-to-be is a fiancee, double-E.

@Duke: When it comes to life, I think girls have to put up with tons of shit so I know what you're talking about. When I used Myspace (and I had a normal, non-artsy, non-whore profile picture), I got many requests...one was even by this 43 year old guy willing to pay me using Paypal to take pictures of my feet. Then I stopped using Myspace. I don't mind internet nerds, however. They are usually pretty harmless since their skin burns when they touch women in real life.

THOUGH I can see how it could be quite dangerous for girls new to gaming and unfamiliar with the craziness of their male counterparts on Live to fall prey to all of that. Since I am a veteran (worked at EB Games, kept an anime blog, frequented webcomic forums, played on Battlenet, played on Live, etc.) I guess I am just desensitized.

I agree with saria...as a "veteran" I'm desensitized as well.

I don't really care when random guys send messages/invites. I deny it and go on my merry way.
… It does annoy my husband though. ;p

Though it never ceases to amaze me what some people will say behind the cover of internet anonymity.

Things (I would hope) they would never say to someone’s face. however... would explain why they didn't have a 'real girl'.

I had a guy tell me that he would give *anything* to go “south”. And then proceeded to say he ONLY liked giving and *Hated* receiving…..

I couldn’t stop laughing.

Mark my words Every xbox owner will make an avatar at one point or another. I think it is a natural evolution for the xbox360. I bet this will be a huge hit once it rolls out next month.

when is it coming?

Sega superstar tennis!!! allright.

All that clean space is great for themes. Major Nelson's site already has pics of what your current themes will look like with the new dashboard.

Woohoo!

Anyone else notice the "order by" - Most popular in the top corner, Yay!

"transferring Xbox 360 games to the hard drive will never be required"

Yeah right.

Why yeah right?

You fail at an explanation.

Yep because we're required to do that now already? /sarcasm

The PS3 needs these because of the lack of a decent amount of ram and also the extremely slow load speeds of bluray.

Sony likes to make it sound like the reason is the size of the disc.

Already forgotten about the games will never need a HDD to function properly part?

I think anyone who buys the HD-less xbox realizes that even if the game doesn't "require" the harddrive, it still "requires" it.

Are you slow or something?

The feature lets you cache a DVD to the hard drive for
- Faster load times
- no spinning DVD drive noise

It WILL NOT be required to do this to "function properly"

First of all, it is not a mandatory $50. If you dont want to pay, don't play! Another thing, who the hell can not afford $50/year. C'mon... that 50 dollars a fucking YEAR! That around 14 cents a day... WOW... that is way tooooooo much No one is forcing you to pay the fucking fee douche.

Get off you fucking ass, get a job at publix and you wont have to worry about where you will ge that 14 cents, cuz you'll hopefully be making 50x the amount per hour!

Also you cheap bastards, how do you expect to pay your internet fee of over $50 a month if you can even affor 50 a year!

I have more to say but i guess you get my point.

paying for the internet connection is why people feel that live should be free. when it first launched with the head set and moto gp i believe, i didn't think it was a bad deal as my roomates and i at the time didn't pay that much for internet and plqyed alot of pso. but having played alot of multiplayer for free on pc and ps2 i think the base $50 a year msrp is ridiculous. i feel that basic multiplayer features should be free like the pc and let the game companies pay for it like it has been for years. if a company wants to charge for extra stuff let them and see if they succeed or fail. i will say that all the coming features make the price not as hard to swallow.

@unclebob: I definitely agree that $50 is affordable but I also agree with j.howlett; just because people can and will dish out $50 a year for a service doesn't mean they should have to. I think online gaming should come free for first paying out your ass for a speedy internet connection, then paying out your ass for a game system that is already capable of connecting to the internet, then paying out your ass for a multiplayer game. I think they can still charge for downloadable content, games, etc., but playing online should not require a fee at all.

"Agreed, the system allowed you to choose a gamertag and icon that did not defy your gender."
"Now women will be forced to make a cute "Bratz" look-a-like avatar and all the stupid attention that comes with it."

There are plenty of cutesy and girly gamerpics. How is that any diferent than
a girly avatar? And the point of this podcast is to inform people that you will not be "forced" to do anything.

all women avatars will come with a tramp stamp.

I'd be more interested in avatars if I could import one from anywhere. So a Batman avatar or your favorite game character. But these, though ok, don't really draw me in.

Previous 50 Comments

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Reader Comments (78)

Posted: Jul 21st 2008 10:02AM Obienator said

Posted: Jul 21st 2008 10:29AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 21st 2008 10:45AM Vcize said

Posted: Jul 21st 2008 10:50AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 21st 2008 10:57AM Dirty said

Posted: Jul 21st 2008 11:01AM Duke said

Posted: Jul 21st 2008 2:02PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 21st 2008 4:27PM Saria the Cat said

Posted: Jul 21st 2008 4:29PM Saria the Cat said

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Posted: Jul 21st 2008 10:45AM GenGrievous said

Posted: Jul 21st 2008 11:06AM DericLee said

Posted: Jul 21st 2008 12:10PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 21st 2008 12:52PM Tiptup300 said

Posted: Jul 21st 2008 12:58PM GenGrievous said

Posted: Jul 21st 2008 2:06PM Tiptup300 said

Posted: Jul 21st 2008 7:50PM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 21st 2008 11:31AM (Unverified) said

Posted: Jul 21st 2008 12:11PM jhowlett said

Posted: Jul 21st 2008 4:14PM Saria the Cat said

Posted: Jul 21st 2008 12:48PM MaulerX said

Posted: Jul 21st 2008 3:03PM Dirty said

Posted: Jul 21st 2008 12:59PM jumpshot said

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