Destination Arcade: New Xbox Live Arcade 'visual browser'

That looks pretty sweet

Very nice!

Slick looking interface. I like it.

Yeah! Love the HUGE borders all around the screen so that the actual content is tiny! Looks just like PSN now. Maybe they can make the text unreadable just like PSN?

I always did like the Gametap interface.

Hope it works out.
XBLA is seriously underrated. I own all the consoles, but XBLA blows PSN and WiiWare(non-VC) out of the water from everything I've seen. they put a good bit of budget in that thing.

Great update! I don't like the look of the interface though.

I was hoping that the Arcade thing app that came out would be a hub for Arcade games. But this makes up for it not being. This looks nice. I just hope I don't need to launch this app to play an arcade game.

Too bad they could do this for the entire marketplace.

I won't be satisfied until they bring back the ability to actually SORT my own Arcade games by genre. You know, like was available 2-3 years ago?

Looks pretty cool. I like it

Sweet. I have relatives that find the navigation for content to be a bit burdensome, so hopefully this will make it more functional and easier.

How about the ability to fully customize your Dashboard, i.e. remove channels and streams you don't want (like the Spotlight) or add your own shortcuts to features you use frequently.

Looks cool, but who cares... bring on IPTV, hulu and more features like that than just making things more visually appealing.

That looks much better than the clicky tabs that I have to go through currently. Anyone just getting into the XBLA would have a hard time finding most of the stuff they'd be interested in.

Its not a dashboard update this is an application like Waypoint or the music stores.

That is slick.

The 'Game Recommended By Friends' is a great addition.
The 'Tweets From Xbox Arcade' could be awesome if it's actually integrated. Tell us about upcoming deals, games etc.

The 'Find Similar Games to ____ ' is an excellent idea.

All in all.. that looks like a great update... Here's hoping there's more to it as well!

Yay more in-your-face marketing!

I can't stand that they feel the need to shove as much content as they can into every page you want to look at. It clutters up the interface *so* much and is not especially helpful (for me at least).

And I still wish we could go back to the original interface. The new ones and all these updates are so lifeless and derivative. I like the updated look of the new xbox, now let's see them come up with an interface that has an equal amount of character.

/gripe

Slick looking.

Neat MS. Very neat. Nice to see a bit of that XBL money going to good use. I look forward to the changes.

*I think they also might be changing the Xbox startup icon to the one shown at the start of the E3 conference, but that's just hoping.

It didn't look that nice though, it could do with a visual overhaul even if the mechanics were all solid.

THe 360 Dashboard sucks now. It sucked 2 years ago and then the NXE came out, which was trumped as a big upgrade, but few publications and journalists were willing to speak the truth: It sucked. It's unuseable, it's unmodifiable, it sucks.

Two simple changes would make the system infinitely better, they require no design work, no expensive PR firms, no extensive useability testing:

1) The Ability to hide categories/panes/levels in NXE.
2) The ability to hide something from displaying

NXE is incoherent. It forces you to begin on the most useless pane: "X-Box Today" or "Spotlight," I forget which one it is exactly because they are both completely useless and seemingly the exact same thing. You should be able to set which pane you want to begin on... In almost every circumstance, I turn on my 360, then have to go "up" or "down" to find what I'm looking for, which is almost always, without fail, "My X-Box." Because I don't care what stupid ads MS wants to put up on the "X-Box Today" pane, or who the "Gamer Spotlight" is, or any of the stupid shit that every pane and every level and everything on NXE is filled with. Basically, there are two things that matter to me: "My X-Box" and "My Friends," and the five or six other panes aren't something that should be primarily displayed, they should be displayed if I want to look at them... if I WANT to go to "X-Box Today" to see some stupid interview or promotion, then I will. Same thing with Spotlight. Same thing with Community.

And further, what the hell is the difference between any of these? Community, Spotlight, and X-Box Today basically cycle between the same few stories... except some of them display slightly different stories than the others. Just give me the damn option to hide them because I do not care about the Community Play Date for some game that I don't own. Further, Microsoft has all of this money, a huge development team, and they also gather all of the information about the games that I play. Amazon.com realistically predicts what products and services I am interested in, and displays those on my Amazon homepage... Yet I give Amazon a lot less concrete information than I give Microsoft. MS knows exactly what games I play and when, what I'm into, what I do not use, why can't the X-Box Dashboard have some sort of realistic tailoring option for me? Notice how I don't own any of the games for the community playdate, why even show me them?

But, nevermind these paragraphs: 1 change would be a huge improvement: The ability to hide things you don't want to see. That's it. Two buttons ... LB: Hide. RB: Show. And that's it. It starts on "My X-Box" and I am happy. Instead of being on "X-Box Today," the useless pane, and having to cycle up like two or three levels/panes to get to My X-Box just to start a game, or play a demo, etc.

There are scores of other useability problems with NXE... dozens and dozens. It's probably the least useable consumer device UI I've ever really used for an extended period of time, but those two changes would be simple and effective.

Looks good...I actually feel that Microsofts STRONGEST selling point of the system is XBL and XBLA and they should more of an effort to really make them more of a priority...

Sort by price??? YESSSSSSSSSS

Nice. Could be better but I'm not complaining.

Also it's US only, for now :(

http://twitter.com/AceyBongos/statuses/17945243323