Video: Xbox 360's new dashboard, Avatar editor

by Richard Mitchell on Sep 14th 2010 8:35AM

We had a peek at the upcoming Xbox 360 dashboard update back when the Kinect beta began, but the video after the break represents one of the most detailed looks we've seen so far. Apart from some aesthetic tweaks -- dig that swirly new boot sequence -- the interface remains unchanged for the most part. There are a few additions, notably the Kinect setup area in the system options with settings for the sensor, microphone, voice recognition and something called "Kinect tuner." The new dashboard is also rocking some new sound effects and, good news for theme hoarders, it supports current NXE themes.

The video also shows off the new Avatar editor, which has seen significant visual overhaul, featuring new menus that seem designed to accept Kinect hand gestures. The background music has also been altered and is now -- dare we say it -- a little more Kondo-esque.

Via: Engadget
Source: YouTube - gearsification

Tags: dashboard-update, dashboard-update-fall-2010, Kinect, microsoft, xbox

Reader Comments (64)

It looks too bland, I liked it better with more color, not sure what themes will do. I must say that the avatars do look more human now though.

SO MANY TABS!

(Honestly I still like the blades better)

@Lerkero Yeah man, blades were teh sh*t. I miss that dash.

@Lerkero
i gotta agree. NXE came out like a month after i bought my 360 and the blades were gone. i enjoyed it while it lasted though.

@Lerkero
The Blades was not better IMO.
I like the NXE

Pretty neat update. I know its no big deal, but must they stand so.....fabulous?

@logicplay You've never put most of your weight on one leg?

@Petebot330

You mean like a flamingo? I don't do that to be honest. I have a what I consider a ' regular stance', 4 years in boot camp will do that to you.

@logicplay

...Who on Earth did you piss off to spend FOUR YEARS in boot camp?

@logicplay dam dude u so hardkore

@wcarnation

It was my step parents that sent me there.

And thats not being hardcore, trust me. Any branch of the Army, is hardcore.

Its funny because people were celebrating the removal of the gray blob...
Now its a gray square

Actually that's not funny at all =(

Also, why don't they have a separate menu for games you own?
You could scroll through the games on your hdd and the disc with large cover art rather having to dig through sub-menus (My xbox>games>all games).

After all, isn't Xbox about gaming?

The blob is gone, so when you have a theme on you will see more of it in the background.

That's my biggest gripe with the current dashboard.

As for this update, Microsoft seems set to roll out Metro on everything it owns.

@BlackedOut
It's still there. Notice when he's changing the theme and you can see the whole thing? Then he just exits back to the dashboard and literally half of it is hidden behind blandness

@Premature ejaculation man yeah.... that's how it's set up. You click games and see all your games that you own. I'm confused. Do you even own an xbox?

@Mirhderer Indeed. It looks even worse now. Hope they address that before release, but I kinda doubt it. Heck, even on the blades dash themes looked better.

@Integral I think he meant a separate tab for different kinda games, instead of the submenu way it works now. Even the blades dash had a separate tab just for arcade games, it was neat.

@Integral
Yeah. I mean a main menu. Say instead of "My xbox" where its got disc game, then music, then your games etc. Its just a menu for all games to scroll through. The my games you speak of doesn't list all games, just the most recent off memory unless you go into "all games"

They need to get rid of that gray blob at the bottom. I used to love custom themes, but they ruined it with the whole NXE "BS MARKETING" Business.

No more rounded squares? I'm disappoint.

Looks fine. Performance looks improved which is most important.

Yep. That would be too obvious. I wish they would do it. I'm tired of looking for my arcade games the hard way.

Maybe a "slide" under My Xbox for "My Arcade" or something.

That said, this update doesn't upset me much. I'm not a fan of the squared off edges or the stretched avatars but we'll have to learn to live with them I guess.

Is this not a bit too... Wii?

Already the repeated swish/bleep noises are annoying me. I wish that you could FULLY customise the dashboard.
And turn off Avatars completely.

I wish the Blades would come back.

@Alex R not to mention the lame music playing in the background

Performance definitely looks better now, but it does look more bland. I guess they were looking for a more "holistic, synergistic user experience" or some crap like that.

It's really not all that different from the PS3's XMB now, ironically.

Well, it looks like it responds faster (fingers crossed), but the UI still sucks out of control.

Why so many changes to the Dashbord? Wii only added SD Card submenu and even the PS3 crossbar menu is largely unchanged since day one.

@Co Honestly, these are pretty superficial changes. It looks like it works the same to me...

@Co

Because improving user experience is less important than keeping things exactly the same until the end of time, right?

The same could be said of Windows. I mean look at Win95 to XP to Vista to Win7. Each of those got a major graphical change to better the user experience.

It's not always about the number of updates, but about the quality of the update.

@sonicspike41 Yes but Windows Vista/7 suck compared to XP and 98...give me back my simple yet effective version over this over stylized and confusing crap anyday. The same goes for Xbox dashboard. The old blade style was SOOOOO much easier to browse and it was actually unique. Now it looks like an Iphone/XMB hybrid wannabe with some Wii gayness mixed in. Microsoft has gone so far down hill in the softwar department it's not even funny.

@DWilson8504
first off, the blades are still there, hit your guide button. secondly, the old blades were not that great set up withint their respective blade plus having random add placement blcoks within them. i think if they advanced the way the blades are now, that would be pretty nice for all of the people wanting to old setup back. also, keep in mind this is for the kinect as well. its got to be bold and flat so you can wave your hand at your windows i guess.

I hope this is a bad joke, cause I'm starting to feel Xboxed in.

The only thing I am not cool with is the navigation sounds. They just sound so wrong.

@DarkHeroZark

Isn't there an option to turn the sounds off?

@DarkHeroZark I hope there is an option for reverting sound.

Hey remember when they would update the avatar marketplace with FREE stuff? Yea, it's been a while.

Really not digging all the white in the menus.

Or the look of it in general, why flatten everything out and go from 3D to 2D?

Anyway, I'm sure after using it a day or so I won't even notice the changes anymore, but I like the look of the current one much better.

I feel the same way. I like how currently the panels appear to go off into the distance. This just looks flat and blah.

@343 Guilty Fart
well they had to flatten it because of kinect

@Vcize
I think they want it to look like the WP7 instead of a MacBook. It makes sense to me.

lol@ freestyle dash at 0:31... jtagged console? running latest dash? that's far more interesting imho.

Performance is much better. The interface is crisper and more responsive imho.

I much prefer this more streamlined interface as opposed to the lame cascading panes that we have now. If anything, that was more "Wii-esque" in comparison with its rounded square windows and anatomically incorrect Avatars. But that's just my opinion.

What I'm most interested in is the seemingly improved performance increase. There is no real slow down in menu navigation, but then again there were hardly any apps in his "Game Library". Seeing Zune open up more quickly would be a godsend, and perhaps if Facebook was more fleshed out... it's truly an abomination at this point.

Also a really important overhaul that we have yet to see is the user-friendliness of the Live Marketplace.

Yes it is still there... and I hate it with a passion.

I don't see why they can't just remove the stupid thing. It does no one any good by blocking the only customizable visuals, save for the Avatars.

I don't care if it's the "floor for the Avatar", it would look fine without it. Have them sit on the damn profile pane if you're so concerned with the Avatars needing a floor to prevent gravity from doing its job in a virtual UI...

@Doctor Septapus

I couldn´t agree more, I hate that F****** gray floor.

So what's the date?

That looks terrible.

Is it me or does every avatar look like a douchebag?

You gotta hand it to MS for how much they have evolved the 360 over the years. You just dont see Sony or Nintendo altering their system software like this.

@Alturis why fix it if it aint broke?

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Video: Xbox 360's new dashboard, Avatar editor

Reader Comments (64)

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 8:48AM loveassassin13 said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 8:48AM Lerkero said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 1:35PM Cafecito said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 5:27PM SoCoolCurt said

Posted: Sep 15th 2010 10:47AM pkilla0412GT said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 8:52AM logicplay said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 9:30AM Petebot330 said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 9:33AM logicplay said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 10:40AM R Planteer said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 11:04AM wcarnation said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 11:42AM logicplay said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 8:53AM Premature ejaculation man said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 8:58AM Premature ejaculation man said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 9:33AM BlackedOut said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 10:04AM Mirhderer said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 11:43AM Integral said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 1:41PM Cafecito said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 1:44PM Cafecito said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 7:50PM Premature ejaculation man said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 8:54AM Doc McFish said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 8:56AM Arsenic13 said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 9:47AM Styli said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 9:19AM Alex R said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 10:34AM DWilson8504 said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 9:22AM Nova Hands said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 9:23AM TasticBycrom said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 9:29AM Co said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 9:32AM Petebot330 said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 9:38AM sonicspike41 said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 10:37AM DWilson8504 said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 12:20PM Coml said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 9:42AM hyghwayman said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 9:43AM DarkHeroZark said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 10:40AM Uncle Jesse said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 3:12PM MarkHawk said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 9:47AM Dlord said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 9:56AM Vcize said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 11:36AM 343 Guilty Fart said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 12:17PM Coml said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 2:44PM SuperWoody64 said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 9:59AM StarChildHR said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 10:12AM zorniki said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 10:22AM Doctor Septapus said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 10:29AM Doctor Septapus said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 12:19PM justagamerr said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 10:34AM Anticrawl said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 10:54AM zdope said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 11:03AM wcarnation said

Posted: Sep 14th 2010 11:23AM Alturis said

Posted: Sep 15th 2010 5:50AM Jacksy said

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