Xbox 360 Metro Update Dashboard Impressions

Well, despite the fact that it didn’t quite roll out early in the morning as planned, Microsoft has finally provided Xbox 360 users around the world with a bold new interface, the first one being introduced for the system in three years. But this isn’t just a basic menu upgrade that features a bunch of gimmicky stuff. No, believe it or not, it’s actually quite useful, especially if you’ve been looking for new ways to exploit the usage of your Kinect. That said, it isn’t quite perfect, but Microsoft is certainly getting there. Once you download and install the new interface (which prompts automatically and only takes a few minutes at best), you’ll notice a screen featuring a big window in the middle and four smaller windows, two on each side of it. Usually, the bigger screen is saved for highlights, while the smaller ones indicate games that just came out, or other advertised content. Now, it’s no secret that Microsoft has become notorious with ads and promotions, and the new interface has plenty of them. That said, they don’t entirely clutter the space here, and you can skip through menus rather easily.

Now, how do you access your content? Well, near the top half of the screen are a number of options, which you can either say with voice commands or pick manually using your controller. These include Social, Video, Games, Music, Apps, Bing and Settings. Settings is pretty self-explanatory, as you can change system settings and other items there. So let’s get to the others:

• Bing- easily the best new addition of the bunch. Here, you can use Bing Voice Search to find content quickly on your Xbox. This feature didn’t have any problem with voice recognition, as we found everything from “Dragon Age” to “Cowboys and Aliens” to “The Guild” in a matter of seconds. Quite a remarkable tool. However, some searches won’t give you anything – like, for instance, “boobs”. (Mainly because Xbox Live doesn’t have porn content, ya silly.)
• Home- your home page, where you start
• Social- your place for hooking up with friends, checking what they’re playing live or chatting via Video Kinect, or accessing your Twitter or Facebook accounts for quick posting. This tab did have a few minor problems with hang-ups, and the Beacon settings can’t be accessed through here just yet (you have to prompt the main menu to get there), but it’s nice to have these features in one place.
• Video- movies and other movie-related programs.
• Music- Last.fm and other audio programs, as well as access to your music playlist, should you have them stored on your hard drive.
• Apps- the home spot for such apps as Netflix, ESPN and other future apps, including the forthcoming HBO Go and UFC on Xbox. It kind of sucks that these features couldn’t be ready for the interface’s launch, so we could see all the nifty stuff that Microsoft has in mind for its users, but the promise of what’s to come is still there, and we won’t have to wait too long to access our fights and Game of Thrones repeats, thankfully.

Now that we’ve explained the menu, let’s point out a couple of other options available with this update. The first is cloud saving. First introduced on the PlayStation Network (well, to PS Plus subscribers) a few months back, this enables you to take game saves anywhere you want wherever you sign in. You won’t need a USB stick or flash drive anymore when you want to bring your game progress to someone else’s house – simply sign into your profile and your saves align automatically. This is very cool, not to mention helpful – especially to competitive gamers who constant challenge friends locally.

This look at the new Xbox LIVE dashboard update concludes on the next page, please click Page 2 below to read more on the new interface.