Xbox Live's Major Nelson has posted a new video, showing just how we'll go about creating tiny, polygonal and considerably more handsome versions of ourselves when the New Xbox Experience (that's fancy for "dashboard update") arrives this Fall. If you've been wondering how you'll outfit your Avatar with virtua-threads or which button elicits a burp (yes, really), peer past the break.

Of course, if you're the impatient type and just want to get back to your space mareenz, you can skip the whole process by simply selecting a random Avatar. Just don't blame us if you wind up as Shane Kim.

The announcement of Netflix for the Xbox 360 was certainly one of the major highlights of Microsoft's press conference. Inside Xbox has a video, featuring Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb, walking through how Netflx will work on the New Xbox Experience. The standard definition movies seem to load and begin streaming instantly. This is a feature we imagine many Xbox Live members, who are also Netflix subscribers, will be taking full advantage of later this year.

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.

Microsoft's Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb has settled it. "It" being the question of whether Xbox 360 Dashboard themes downloaded (and even purchased) before the upcoming New Xbox Experience rolls out later this year will be rendered useless with the switch to a different UI. The answer's a welcome one: they'll work just fine with the new Apple TV-esque interface.

To (literally) illustrate the point, Major Nelson uploaded images of the NXE with an existing theme applied to his flickr gallery. It isn't explicitly stated in the accompanying captions, but we'd venture a guess that the background image will change as you page through the new category "frames." With this mystery solved, you can now go back to complaining about all of the things you actually wasted money on.

[Via X3F]

Major Nelson just updated and offered a bit more detail about the upcoming Dashboard update for Xbox 360. Some of the cooler things:

• Play from hard drive. You'll be able to copy game discs to your Xbox 360 hard drive. Installing the games will prevent wear 'n tear on the disc drive, and will shorten load times. You will still need the disc in the disc tray to prove you own the game. Hopefully, installing things on the Xbox 360 will come with sage advice, a la Metal Gear Solid 4.
• Access Xbox LIVE Marketplace on the Web. If you're not near your Xbox 360, you can still use this "Internet" thing to browse and purchase things from the Marketplace. Once you purchase something from Xbox.com, it will download automatically to your console while you're away.
• Xbox LIVE Primetime. This is a "whole new category of games" that not only supports Achievements and leaderboards, but will also offer real prizes. Games are played throughout the Xbox LIVE network and each game is "broadcast simultaneously" so that everyone is partaking in the same activity. These events can feature live hosts, "calling the shots as they happen."

[Thanks, Glitch W.!]

Curious how Microsoft's now available Xbox Live DRM tool works, but don't want to futz through it on your own? Well, we've got two solutions: first, sift through our gallery of the service's various screens by clicking on the above image; second, have the affable Major Nelson hold your hand through the entire thing, in video format after the break. Two great tastes that taste great (or at least show you how to fix DRM-isses on a video game console) together.

Day 1: Well, the team and I just shipped off Dark Messiah: Might and Magic Elements and we're going to start on the DLC while we await the reviews. People are going to love it!

Day 7: Early reviews have been ... mixed. But we're trying hard to stay positive. We'll bet the true fans are just going to love the new maps, classes and weapons that we're creating. ... Right?

Day 14: Becky came in to give us the latest sales numbers today. "Seven," she said. After a while we asked her if she meant seven thousand or seven million. Then she sort of did this half cry and ran out of the room. Work continues.

We brought you rumors of it last week, but now it's been confirmed by Microsoft that the Xbox 360 will be receiving across-the-board price cuts this Friday, making the Arcade version of the console cheaper than the Wii. Straight from Major Nelson (along with our own exchanges into U.S. dollars) here's how it shakes out:

• Xbox 360 Arcade – was €269.99 / £199.99 ($414) now €199.99 / £159.99 ($307)
• Xbox 360 Pro - was: €349.99 / £249.99 ($536) now: €269.99 / £199.99 ($414)
• Xbox 360 Elite - was: €449.99 / £299.99 ($691) now: €369.99 / £259.99 ($566)

If you'd like to see how that compares industry-wide, the Wii will cost you € 234 ($356) on Amazon's UK site, while the 40GB PS3 is €370 ($563). Now we'd like to hear from our European friends: If you haven't bought a 360, is this enough to motivate you to do it?

Sometimes, news is just dumb. You can try to spice it up or cover it in jam, but it won't change anything. It'll just make the news all sticky. Take, for example, Major Nelson's recent revelation that Microsoft can't talk about Xbox Live's status thanks to a lawsuit currently pending in Texas. You know what that is? Dumb.

We're not even sure who the dumb party is, the legal system for gagging Microsoft, or Microsoft for not just buying Texas and settling this old school. Boy, first The Alamo and now this. Will Texas ever stop letting us down?

[Via X3F]

Microsoft's Trixie (Christa Phillips) released a list of the top 25 Xbox Live gamertags in 2007 over the weekend. The list is compiled "anytime the gamercard or profile is called up," with more "hits" resulting in a higher placement. Topping the list is obviously none other than Major Nelson, known in real life as the vowel-deficient Larry Hryb, Xbox Live's director of programming, the guru and go-to man for Xbox related issues and announcements -- especially when things go horribly wrong with the service.

We're not exactly sure who a lot of the people on the list are (which can also be found after the break with an appropriate video clip), but Ms. Trixie comes in at number three behind other Microsoft personality Eric "e" Neustadter. Xbox Live "cheater" Gilbert Arenas bounced in at number six, while Call of Duty 4 and Halo 3 developers made eight and nine respectively. Also, former X3F writer David "Knuckles Dawson" Dreger made number 19. Now, let's see if you all can fill in the rest of the names behind the gamertags.

Microsoft wants to say "sowwy" for the intermittent Xbox Live issues plaguing the service over the holiday, and they'd like to apologize with a free Xbox Live Arcade game. Major Nelson posts a letter from Marc Whitten, general manager of Xbox Live, which has a lot of customer service filler in it until the line about a free XBLA game for "all our Xbox Live members around the world" -- India is going to be psyched!

The letter says specific details are forthcoming, so now we're left wondering if there'll be a couple options or if it's just gonna be free Frogger for everyone. If that's the case, then someone is gettin' thrown under a car! Get it? Sigh.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Your friend and ours, Xbox Live, has been going through some tough times lately. In the past week, the service that many of us pay roughly $50 a year for has been up and down more frequently than a bipolar groundhog. If you want to tap right into a live feed of the Xbox Live operation, Apollo 13 style, sign up for Major Nelson's Twitter feed, which has devolved into a play by play of the network's status (last update: "Things were a bit wonky, but they appear to be getting better.").

But, since many of us are paying for the privilege, there's a growing sense that we deserve some sort of compensation. While we at Joystiq won't be satisfied until Bill Gates himself writes us each a check for $1, TheBitbag.com claims that an Xbox insider told them: "we will definitely be doing something for our Gold members that weren't able to get online over the last week." Though we can't be certain precisely what that is, our inside sources are telling us "footrubs."



[Via Xbox Scene]

Many of you might have noticed a bevy of problems facing Xbox live over this past week: An unresponsive marketplace, the inability to recover a gamertag (or even sign in), and aggravating matchmaking wait times, to name a few. Major Nelson issued a statement last night explaining that while there have been no complete outages of the service over the past week, "problems like this are not acceptable," and that they are working to get the service back to normal. Sadly, no time frame was provided on when repairs to the service would be complete.

There's been no official statement on why the service has been so shoddy lately, but if we were the guessing type, we blame it on the holiday season. We're sure that tons of people found a 360 under their trees (or candles), and immediately tried to hop online; only to collide with the millions of vacationing gamers who were already playing. Technology has come a long way, but the internet can still only hold so many racial epithet-slinging Master Chiefs before things start breaking down.

Rocking in his comfortable, leather office chair, Microsoft's Larry "Major Nelson" Hyrb scours the landscape viewed through his widescreen computer monitor, his hand gently resting on an enormous and ominous banhammer.

... okay, maybe it's not Major Nelson personally banning accounts (although we love the scene we've envisioned), but the director of programming for Xbox Live has delivered a rather stern message to the community about the consequences of sharing and/or tampering with Xbox Live accounts. We're not sure what exactly prompted the public warning, although there is a specific reference to people sharing gamertags for the purpose of earning Halo 3 skulls (tsk, tsk people).

The short answer: just don't do it. If you need more motivation, Major Nelson outlines what will happen should Microsoft have to go to the pain on you.

[Via X3F]

Over at the house that Major built, Larry Hryb has alerted gamers to a Microsoft pow-pow taking place early next week. Those in attendance include Ray Ozzie, Chief Software Architect, and David Vaskevitch, Chief Technical Officer, just to name a few. Hryb wanted to know, "What would you say to the leaders of services at Microsoft?" So far, the post has received over 400 user comments, with a variety of topics being broached by readers.

The discussion has focused on such lively topics as the "shafting [of] Canadians," general "price of Xbox Live," and ever-so-broad buzzword "innovation." However, some folks appear so damned excited that they're unable to issue coherent suggestions -- tried spell checker? Case in point: Tobe (USA) writes, "u should say that, in the next dashborad update, trails and full games should be seperated in the catagory section of XBLA games." Maybe someone should suggest that Microsoft get up on some educational games, eh?