A new operating system is not the most exciting Xbox 360 launch this year. There are no hordes of eager consumers queuing outside GAME to get their hands on it. No outlandish launch party. There's a distinct lack of chainsaw-wielding monsters, super cars or spartan warriors. What we have are menus. Shiny menus. But menus all the same.
MAKING A DASH
Yet to dismiss Microsoft's Xbox updates for those reasons would be doing it a huge disservice. It’s these updates that have kept Xbox 360 relevant. The console doesn’t feel like a six-year old device and isn’t selling like one either. It’s a surprise the firm’s competitors haven’t followed a similar strategy.
"That's why we are market leader at the moment," answers Microsoft's UK consumer channels group lead Neil Thompson.I've gone on record before saying we will give you a new Xbox every year without giving you a new Xbox. That's what we’ve done.
"The reason we got into the traditional console business was because we felt, as a software company, that we could make a difference through these sort of innovations. You need content innovation. You need innovation around the interactive technology, which is what Kinect has done. And you need services to keep refreshing themselves.
“When you get all of those things working together, then the hardware will have a much longer life than what we traditionally understood in this business.”
The most obvious difference with the latest Xbox dashboard is how it looks. Microsoft has adopted a tile-system (or ‘metro user interface’ as Microsoft calls it), which is designed to make Xbox Live easier to navigate.
"The Metro interface is integrated with every single application on every screen,” says Xbox Live UK product manager Pawan Bhardwaj. “The pervious interface was quite overwhelming and you had two hubs, the Kinect hub and the controller-based hub. We have got rid of those two and now have one hub that you can control with gestures, the controller or with your voice.”
This tile look isn’t new. It is already used in Windows Phone 7 and Microsoft is incorporating it into its next PC operating system, Windows 8. The firm is making sure all its interfaces look alike. Why?
“We’ve found a consumer-friendly way for people to navigate devices,” explains Thompson. ”It’s intuitive irrespective of the piece of plastic and metal you’re using.”
Along with the physical changes, Microsoft has also added functionality, namely Bing search. Kinect users can simply say “Bing Harry Potter” and the console will list all the Harry Potter content found on Xbox Live – be it movies, soundtracks or games. And this can be broken down into categories.It goes some way, Microsoft hopes, to fixing the problem of finding content in the digital space.
Thompson adds: “Wherever you are searching for content, you need a facility to make it intuitive and quick. The ability to say what you want and Xbox just delivers it, that is a powerful element versus having to look through multiple menus.”
NEXT BOX
The new update offers some hints to what the future of Xbox might look like. Microsoft has introduced cloud storage to Xbox Live, which lets users back-up their saved games to the cloud and access it on a different Xbox 360. Surely it is just a matter of time before Microsoft launches an OnLive-style cloud streaming service?
“For full feature games? I think we are a while off,” says Thompson. “We need broadband speeds to become consistent and bigger. But the Government has announced a massive investment in Broadband capacity, so who knows. There will be a point where you will have those sort of facilities.”
The new dashboard also opens new advertising opportunities, and Microsoft believes Xbox Live can be a more effective ad platform than your typical TV channel.
“We are fairly unique as a company in that we cover the phone, the PC and the living room,” says Thompson. “The ad model is changing. Broadcast advertising is getting smaller and personalised digital advertising, based on behaviours and trending, is exponentially growing. And Xbox is the biggest entertainment service in the living room worldwide. There is no one bigger.
“You can imagine over time, as we learn more about what sort of content people like consuming, we can get clever in how we promote that content to individuals.“
ENTERTAINMENT GIANT
Microsoft has a dream. It wants Xbox to become ‘a true entertainment platform.’ And the success of this new dashboard will be defined by what consumers do with it.
“It is all about how frequently people are using the services and what breadth of services they are using,” says Thompson. “It is fair to say when we first started Xbox Live, it was all core gaming services – Halo match-ups and the rest of it. But it has moved on.”
And to ensure new services get used, Microsoft will add some 14 new applications to Xbox Live in the UK (40 globally) between now and Christmas, with LoveFilm, YouTube and 4OD ...

Networking-savvy gamers have figured out a way to disable the adverts in the latest Xbox 360 Dashboard overhaul.
360 users seem quite fond of the new-look Dashboard, but one major gripe on the forums points to the prominence given to adverts, and in particular how they take priority over the games and content.
Searching for a solution, the proactive users on Reddit have taken matters into their own hands and blocked 'rad.msn.com', the server Microsoft uses to beam ads to the 360.
The first method involves blocking the domain through your router, which will throw up a 404 if you try and access it from a PC. Alternatively you can use OpenDNS, a free service which can block specific sites.Here's how to do it (using this method will require you to re-download title updates):

1. Sign up for a free OpenDNS account.
   
   
2. Add a network for your current IP address.
   
   
3. Go to Advanced Settings and next to 'Domain Typos', check the box 'Enable typo correction' if it's not already checked and apply.
   
   
4. Go to Web Content Filtering settings and set the filtering level to 'None', and under 'Manage individual domains', put rad.msn.com and select 'Always block' and then click 'Add domain'. Screenshot.
   
   
5. On your Xbox, go to System Settings -> Network Settings -> (your connection) -> Configure Network -> DNS settings -> Manual, and enter the OpenDNS IP addresses for the primary and secondary DNS servers: 208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220.
   
   
6. You may need to clear your hard drive cache before ads disappear entirely: System Settings -> Storage -> Hard Drive -> press Y -> Clear System Cache (note that you'll have to re-download any title updates for any games you play after doing this).

We haven't tried any of this, so we can't guarantee that it works or that it doesn't mess with your online gaming/other network services. Use at your own risk folks.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...dashboard-ads/ ...

Microsoft has made Kinect voice and motion control a necessary requirement for all new Xbox apps.
According to Kotaku, Microsoft has confirmed that anyone wishing to publish their content on Xbox will need to include controls for that little sensor bar before it's given a green light.This is clearly a sign of MS further enforcing the importance of Kinect in its operations going forward.
It's also good for universal intuitiveness. Thenew Xbox dashboard arrived earlier this week, bringing with it revamped apps for all the previously available Xbox services such as Netflix. These new apps now adopt menus in line with the dashboard itself, bringing an intuitive sense of unity to the whole system.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...all-xbox-apps/ ...

It's a little good, a little bad with this year's November 2011 NPD results. While "unit sales grew for console hardware, as well as console, portable, and PC software," NPD analyst Anita Frazier warns that "a decline in average retail price in all categories" besides portable hardware resulted in dollar sales that were flat compared to last November. That said, November 2011 "marks the best November on record for sales of new physical content," besting the previous record holder, November 2008.

Unsurprisingly, the Xbox 360 was the top selling piece of gear for the month and Frazier notes that the "gap between 360 sales and sales of the next best selling platform was the largest we've seen since December 2008 when the Nintendo DS was the top selling system." For the month, Nintendo announced it sold more than 860,000 Wii systems, more than 795,000 Nintendo 3DS systems and more than 350,000 Nintendo DS systems.

In the software arena, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 took its perch at the top of the charts, besting Black Ops "by about 7%," while Skyrim managed "a five-fold increase over Oblivion's first month sales" coming in just a half-million units short of matching its predecessor's lifetime sales. Other newcomers include single SKU exclusives like Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception in seventh place and The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword in ninth.

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/12/09/no...-mw3-and-skyr/ ...

If you've actually heard of the WTV recorded TV file format, then you're probably a Windows 7 Media Center fan, and thus you're excited at any indication that Microsoft hasn't completely forgotten about you. That small gesture came this week with the new Xbox Dashboard update, but sadly it isn't much to get excited about. It's bad enough that it took Microsoft over three years to add support for WTV at all, but now it's here and it's one step above useless. Sure, you can play the files -- after waiting almost 30 seconds for them to load -- but you can't fast forward, rewind, skip around or even resume. The list of shows only displays the episode title and rather than the actual show name, and that's the only metadata you get. Speaking of the show title, that is also the only way to sort -- no folders or by date. So yeah, the new Dashboard supports WTV, but not in a way which actually makes it useful. Better than nothing, we guess.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/12/09/f...pport-but-don/ ...

Gesture and voice control 'to be integrated into all new content'

Apps for the Xbox 360 and future consoles will require Kinect support, according to reports.
Microsoft has allegedly told Kotaku that any developers looking to upload content must ensure users can navigate them via voice or gestures through the Kinect sensor.

Microsoft is also said to be providing devs making apps with tools to help index search terms and create a standard for voice recognition and motion control.
This could also potentially be transferred to PC and mobile.
If true the move would mean Microsoft are hoping to make its successful motion sensor a central part of the Xbox experience, rather than just an add-on.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/3...-Xbox-360-apps ...

Developers share their concern as software update throws all XBLIG games into single list

A number of independent developers have responded angrily to the latest Xbox 360 dashboard update.
Many are angry over what they see as the indie marketplace being “hidden away” again.

Discussing the issue on a Microsoft developer forum, one of the main gripes is that it apparently takes 17 button presses from the home page to access the top indie downloads – a section seen by some as a vital source of revenue and publicity for devs.
“Everyone knows the top downloads list is where the good money was made, if you landed high enough you could have sales for a few weeks if not months,” said Monster Talk creator Neil Jones.
“If people can’t get to this list easily then things don't look good. Even if your game gets top rated it won’t help that much if it takes the user 16 plus button presses to find the indie game top rated list.”

http://www.develop-online.net/news/3...-new-Xbox-dash ...

Peter Moore, the high-profile COO of publisher EA, has insisted that its recent release Battlefield 3 successfully captured a slice of Modern Warfare 3’s market share.
That’s despite Activision’s game becoming the fastest selling entertainment product of all time.
In EA’s favour, however, the game failed to best the week one sales of predecessor Black Ops in the UK. And Battlefield 3 is the fastest selling EA game ever released.
“It's early days and we're only a month in – we feel very good about it,” Moore told IndustryGamers. “Two entities have benefited from Call of Duty and Battlefield being on the market: gamers and the industry.
“Together we've grown the genre enormously. 10m [copies of Battlefield 3] sold in and 5m sold through doesn't come out of nowhere – if we haven't gained share, that means in the first week we've added 5 million new FPS gamers.
"I think when the dust fully settles, maybe when we're looking at this at the end of our fiscal year (March 31, 2012) we'll do an analysis and I think we will have taken share. I don't think there's any doubt about that, unless everything BF3 sells is just incremental."
Remember – 95 per cent of statistics are meaningless.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ea-ba...rfare-3/088350 ...

New UK boss talks up the potential of service partnerships

OnLive appears eager to end its direct competition with the established home consoles, with one of the company’s executives openly encouraging Sony and Microsoft to incorporate the cloud game tech.
Bruce Grove, OnLive’s newly appointed general manager for the UK, said the company is willing to talk about provide cloud gaming technologies on both PlayStation and Xbox.

"If they decide they want to use our technology, that would be a great discussion because we've already got the infrastructure," he told Eurogamer.
"We know how to do it. There are a lot of things we could bring to the table and they could bring to the table. It would certainly be a discussion we would love to have. It would be very interesting.”
But Grove appeared less interested in OnLive being outright acquired by Sony and Microsoft, but instead provide a branded service for either company.



“For us, it broadens our market,” he said.
“Look at in the same way the Xbox is becoming a media hub. It's becoming more than just a game system. OnLive is a service that could quite easily work through their service and would work quite nicely, to be honest."
During OnLive’s launch across the US, the firm had positioned itself as a direct rival to Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft, promising a service that supersedes what consoles offer.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/3...ox-integration ...