At last year’s E3, Microsoft announced that a new update for the Xbox 360 would come out called the New Xbox Experience (NXE). Featuring an overhauled aesthetic and the ability to take advantage of the Netflix streaming video service, it was easily one of the biggest announcements at the Microsoft press conference. While it isn’t exactly ‘new’ anymore, the NXE has become part of most Xbox users’ lexicon as an alternative word for what it actually is: an updated dashboard. And, while the update improved some problematic areas and created a whole bunch of new ones, it was generally received well critically.
With E3 a thing of the past and no news regarding the 360’s inevitable, next software update, one can only guess what could be in store for the Xbox community. While it may not be a complete revamping of the current system, there are still some major changes we would like to see when we boot up our Xbox next year.
#1 - Improve/Change Party Chat: Party chat is easily one of the most frequently used aspects of the NXE that us and our friends use, but it has a few inherent problems. The first of these problems is that it has singlehandedly segmented the Xbox Live community into a bunch of silent groups, which has further resulted in potentially game-breaking results. Joining games of Halo 3 are now very quiet affairs, with most players displaying a speech bubble next to their name, indicating that they are talking exclusively to their friends, making the Xbox Live community seem much more exclusive. As for game-breaking, perhaps the biggest example of party chat’s ability to destroy a multi-player experience is Chromehounds. With the ability to communicate to squads even when out of the game’s dictated radio range (in the case of Chromehounds) and to point out enemies as a deceased observer (in pretty much every game that has a ‘shoot’ button), many a game experience have been damaged because of the ability to talk to other players in game without any interruption or penalty whatsoever.
Proposed solution: Either do not allow party chat with players playing in the same match or allow developers to choose when party chat can and cannot be used in their games. This way, players in the same game can still talk to each other, but can’t take advantage of ways to circumvent the rules of communication dictated by the game. Players in different matches and games however, can still choose to talk to each other if they want. This may raise the complaint that some people only want to hear some of their teammates while ignoring the trolls and griefers, but this problem is already easily avoidable in most online games through the inclusion of ‘mute player’ buttons.
#2 - Customized Startup Options: As of right now, one of the biggest complaints about the NXE is the lack of startup options and customization. Currently, the only real options for startup are setting up the auto profile sign-in and whether or not the system immediately boots up games in the disc tray or not. While these are nice features to adjust to your liking, wouldn’t it be nice if you could do more?
Proposed solution: Offer more customizable startup options. Here’s an easy one: Sometimes the thought that—whenever someone boots up their system—they are immediately be bombarded by ads courtesy of the ‘Spotlight’ section does not seem too appealing. An option that would allow a player to choose which tab of the NXE appeared would be nice. Additionally, options like starting to load up the first Netflix title in your queue on startup or other useful, customizable features would make for a more enjoyable experience every time the 360 boots up.
