The New Xbox Experience is here - your thoughts

[Hermiod]

I'm going to fight the urge to make a female Mii60 simply because I don't need to be called a fag online.

Me neither.

Especially after I did not create a red-haired, female, t-shirt and jeans wearing character named Kari in Guitar Hero World Tour's Create a Rocker mode. Nope.

 

[firehawk12]

Yeah, who would do that?

 

[Hermiod]

Yeah, who would do that?

Definitely not anyone obsessed with anyone from Mythbusters, certainly not.

 

[JonathonWally]

I'm lame, I just made my Mii360 guy look like me.

 

[gh4chiefs]

Certainly there are games that cross systems (like Grand Theft Auto), but those games aren't really a signature of a system. For Nintendo, the signature is Mario; for XBox, the signature is Halo; for PS, the signature is less defined, but the best candidate is probably Metal Gear; and Metal Gear is a teen franchise in my eyes (somewhere between Mario and Halo).

I've only played the last MGS game and it didn't feel that way to me. Like you said, I guess it's just a matter of opinion.

But I think we can agree it's a bad fit for XBox to drift toward something cutesey that Nintendo popularized. XBox shouldn't be cutesey; it goes against its brand.

Absolutely we can agree on that.

 

[gh4chiefs]

To me the PS and XB are the same.

Well see that was my point. To me, these consoles pretty much give you the same experience, especially from a single player campaign standpoint. But as I've said many times, I give kudos to MSFT for XBL and the 360 online interface. (I never warmed up to PSN and the PS3's online interface, but maybe that's because the 360 was first.)

In the end, I ended going up with PS3 primarily because I was an early adopter of blu-ray, plus I had a little animosity towards MSFT over the whole RROD fiasco. (Not only did my original 360 RROD, the replacement I bought to replace it that was later sold to a friend did the RROD thing too.)

 

[MyCylon]

Just updated a few minutes ago. I've created an avatar, browsed some of the interface and installed Halo3 to the harddrive (which is great because that particular DVD is REALLY loud in the DVD drive for some reason).

So far, I'm really liking it. The Blades were pretty cool back when the system was realed. But the new interface feels a lot fresher IMHO. It looks like it's pretty easy to use as well. It's also fast and responsive from what I can tell, which is all really good.

The avatars, well, they look better than those on the Wii, that's for sure. Plus they've got a better range of clothing (not to mention they HAVE a range of clothing ). I think they're nice. They certainly don't bother me since, as someone mentioned above, you don't actually have to work with them after creating them if you don't want to.
I'll be curious to see what kind of games might integrate the avatars in the future. I always thought that was actually a pretty cool thing on the Wii (in the suitable games, of course). For example, there's something really cool about racing around in Mariokart Wii, for example and seeing one of your friends (read that: their avatar) as a statue, on a billboard, etc. It may sound weird but I always felt that was really nice to be reminded of those people in such a way. Plus it could be really funny in some games to see your friends of family with a hula-hoop, for example .

I don't think MS run the risk of losing their core gamers. It's the games first and foremost as well as XBOX Live capability that will bring them in. For adult gamers, again, it's the games, really. And I don't see MS giving up on games for core gamers and/or games for adults. I think they're simply trying to add more people which might just work in combination with the lower price point for the machine.

 

[The Evil Dead]

I had no problem with the old GUI, but if this one has faster loading and generally seems like an improvement it's not a big deal to me. I could care less about having a stupid Mii though, I wish that was optional or instead of making one I could just use a guy that looked like a character from whatever game I'm enjoying at the moment (Niko Bellic Mii, Issac Clarke Mii).

I might pick up a larger hard drive at some point so I can have a few of my favorite games installed at a time. I'd like to see how Mass Effect runs when it is installed.

 

[Lonemagpie]

Well, this is my Mii60:

To get yours, just go to http://avatar.xboxlive.com/avatar/GAMERTAG/avatar-body.png and put your gamertag where it says GAMERTAG

Since you still can't transfer gamer points between tags (and I foolishly didn't realise they could be case sensitive and so ended up with all my points on an all-lowercase version of the tag, and it won't let me sign that one into Live because I've already got that tag...) I've deleted all my saves and scores, ready to start again.

So if you see me online and it says "score: 20" or so, that's well, a fib.

ETA_ sadly my tag isn't Lonemagpie cos someone already had that before I got my 360 18 months ago, so it's MouseOfEvil.

 

[Hermiod]

For those wanting to install Halo 3 on to the hard disk, I would not bother. Eurogamer ran some loading time tests on various popular games. Halo 3's load times actually got worse. This is because the game is heavily optimised.

The only advantage you'll see (or hear) is the decrease in noise when the console doesn't have to spin up the DVD-ROM drive.

 

[MyCylon]

^
The loading from HDD did seem relatively long to me. But then it was already long to begin with. It doesn't really make that much difference, I think. Especially since you won't have any delays during levels.

But the noise reduction is absolutely worth it no matter what, in my case anyway.

 

[Neeka Keet]

I created the Mii360 and I played around with the new dashboard. I love it!

 

[Bob The Skutter]

There's my avatar.

I quite like the new interface, has some new features that I like, I suppose it'll take a bit of time to get used to it, but overall I like it.

 

[Twilight]

Just installed and played with it a bit

I really, really like it.

I don't really care about the Avatar, but it didn't really bother me, either. I had some fun playing around with it, made a simple dude in a suit finally, and won't ever interact with the system again. Fine. They at least look really nice in HD, and are far more detailed than the Miis.

Anyway, the interface is solid and smooth. I set up my Netflix, which took all of 20 seconds, and it works great.

I like!

 

[firehawk12]

I'm installing my first games. Fun.

 

[JonathonWally]

There's me.


So far I installed Fable 2, Fallout 3, and Oblivion. Those seem to be the games that make the most noise.

So far I'm really digging this interface. Looks nicer and easier on the eyes. I've figured out where everything is.

 

[Arthur Frelling Dent]

I set up my Netflix, which took all of 20 seconds, and it works great.

Yeah, Netflix was really easy to get going. I did notice that not all the titles in my Instant Queue show up on Xbox. Turns out Sony-owned Columbia Pictures titles aren't licensed for Xbox though, oddly, Sony Pictures titles are. Article

Edited to add: I saw some comments on Edge Online suggesting that the problem is that the blocked movies are also available for download from the Marketplace and having them also available from Netflix would cut into profits. If true, that's just silly. If I can't watch a Netflix movie on my Xbox, I'll just get the DVD from them. I would never buy it from the Marketplace.

 

[Raxor]

Its fun to play around with, but im a little indifferent to the whole change. The avatars look pretty good, though i didnt really have much time to create it to my satisfaction. Being able to delete game history is a nice touch.

One thing i noitced, was the speed increase of the whole interface, or that it feels faster. I liked the new themes as well, more pleasing on the eye than strong colours of the last version.

One thing that seems a step backwards to me, is when watching videos from a pc, when i go to play it it doesnt start, it loads annother menu up start as the only option. So it appears no matter what if you are starting a video from scratch or are resuming. Just a minor niggle to me.

 

[firehawk12]

Ack, anyone having problems getting some of the XNA stuff?

 

[Twilight]

Ack, anyone having problems getting some of the XNA stuff?

Haven't tried it - you develop using XNA?!