Have a nice idea for an article I want to write that likens politics (US) to game consoles, but this isn't it. Instead, I wanted to give out my first impressions of the NXE (New XBox Experience).
One of the things I absolutely love about the 360 is that they've been pretty good about keeping the system "fresh" with feature updates (usually twice a year). When I first bought my 360, there were annoying issues like the inability to queue more than one download, download when the system was off, and it lacked features like the video marketplace--but these were all later added. The NXE is another one of these updates and is perhaps the biggest so far since it not only contains a few new features, but a whole new user interface to the system. Basically, they just handed everyone a new OS this morning for free.
New features (that I'm aware of) with my impressions:
_Interface Overhaul
Lots of people loved the "Blades" interface--it was simple and sleek--but as they added more games to XBLA and more features to the console in general, it started to get to be a cluttered mess. Thus, they completely redesigned their interface to something they felt was laid out better.
I was nervous about this change, but now that I've played with it, I do enjoy it. Can't tell so far if I enjoy it MORE, but there's some definate improvements that I'm glad they've made. But it feels like a mixed bag. I love how they list a lot of the information now, and it's a LOT faster and more responsive, but I don't know where anything is anymore (fuck, how do I change my theme?!). It's like someone came in and cleaned my room. I love that everything's easier to get to now, but I don't know where the fuck anything is anymore!
_Installing Games to HDD
If you're one that was bothered by the noise of the DVD drive or just want things to run a little faster, Microsoft now allows you to copy your (retail) 360 games to your hard drive making it both a lot quieter and a bit faster to load. For protection purposes, though, you are still required to have the disc in the drive to play the game even though it's running exclusively from the HDD.
So far I've only installed Fallout 3 to my HDD and have tried to play it. I noticed a bit of a speed boost, but not too much (I'm told it's more significant with older titles that had a larger load time). It was, however, VERY quiet. The noise never bothered me. But those who want to use this feature are going to be happy, I'd imagine.
_Community Games
This is a big one. Sure, XBLA (like PSN and most recently VC) houses some indie games, but there was a fairly lenghty approval process to get into the store. Also, not every small company out there could afford to go through said process. The new community games section of the 360 lets indie developers put up whatever they want on the system. It doesn't get approved or monitored by Microsoft (they take a percentage of the profit though), instead they've put in place a system that lets the community police themselves.
I saw a few games already this morning, but none of them looked very good. Of course, this is what I expect. It's going to be a LOT of school projects or teams with big dreams but very little polish or (let's face it) talent. However, I do expect there to be some pretty amazing diamonds to show up...it just might take a while for the community to get there. Still, I absolutely LOVE that indie developers have this outlet and sometimes even horrible games have really interesting concepts.
_Avatars
Avatars are...well...avatars. Yes, they're just higher polygon Miis and yes it does feel like a rip off. But it's not like Nintendo was the first to market either. Like the Miis, they represent you in SOME games (some older titles have been updated to support Avatars) and you can also take photos of your Avatar to use as your GamerTag picture.
A lot of what I saw with Microsoft Avatars is what I WISHED the Miis where. They actually have a real body now and aren't just a head on a glorified stick figure. They wear ACTUAL clothes, they have arms, they'll have downloadable outfits in the future (I never understood why you'd pay 80 points to get new gamer pictures, but I could maybe see paying to get a pack of new body/clothes options in the future). It's the Sims meets Miis, and I kinda like that (they also have my power button shirt :) )
What I dislike, though, is what the Miis have that Avatars don't. You can't adjust where your eyes/mouth sit on the face, so there will be less create "alterations" of the Avatars to make Girl Hitler or space aliens. I guess it's not a big deal. There's plenty of opportunity to get special outfits so instead of hacking the system to make your guy look like Gabe from Penny-Arcade you could probably just download the Penny-Arcade avatar set or something. What IS a bigger downer, though, is you don't have that stable of Avatars like you can with Miis. As far as I can tell, anyway, it's one per customer.
As a side, Avatars do speak a lot to Microsoft's approach this generation. They're trying to be that middle ground to the Wii and the Playstation, so it seems to fit that Avatars look like a mix of Miis and what I've seen of Playstation Home.
_Party System & Netflix Integration
Okay, I have NO impressions of these because I haven't tried them (no one was playing at 6am and I don't have Netflix anymore). Instead I'll just tell you what the features are:
The Party system is a way to let you stick with your friends when you're on XBox. Some apps, like a photo sharing one they have up right now, let you view everything as a "party" to share with friends, but mostly it's just an easier method to make sure you're voice chatting with your friends even if you're playing completely different games, decide what you'd all like to do together, or just sticking together once you decided what game you're playing.
The Netflix integration lets you stream their online collection straight to your Xbox--which sounds pretty sexy to me...since they're website was sometimes a pain in the ass. I'm not really sure what else it lets you do (I think you can edit your queue from the XBox), but if you have a Netflix account and an XBox, it sounds like a really nice addition.
