For those who downloaded and installed the new Xbox Dashboard, what do you think of it?

Ooh that’s today! I can’t wait to get it installed.

Tell me about it. 27% of people avoided me for “language”. I’ll check it out and let you know.

And I’ve played online quite a bit. That’s no small number of people.

Haha! Y’all gotta tone it down. I hope you weren’t dropping slurs over the headset.

I downloaded it, and I’m sure I’ll get used to it, but right now I can’t find anything. Netflix is pretty slick, though.

I am really skeptic about some of the features on the new dashboard. I really like the “Blades” and the custom theam’s that i PAID for and downloaded. And the Avitar, oh I’m sorry, Mii knockoff? Lame! I mean come up with your own ideas! Netflix idea is pretty sweet. Unfortunately all the movie companies under Sony, are now blocking them from being downloaded on the xbox… but im sure with time nexflix will lay down the law… i hope…

I think that only Columbia studios is preventing their movies from streaming to Xboxes. Which is stupid. I also agree that avatars are really unnecessary, and are much harder to work with than Miis. My avatar looks nothing like me!

You can still use themes, they’re just… completely obstructed by boxes flying around the screen. I’m glad I only have free ones.

I quite like it. It generally feels slicker and easier to use than the blades (never was a fan of that). The avatars are blatant Mii knockoffs and seem to me to be relatively pointless until some more games come out which utilize them.

I love that you can install games on to the HD now. I just wish I had a larger hard drive now so I could store more than one game on it at a time ;)

I just with that you could pinky swear to Microsoft that you would only install games that you owned. Or that you’d have to register the game on their site or something to play it without the disk. That system is hella flawed.

Of course the new avatars are Mii ripoffs, Nintendo did it first in this generation of consoles, so Microsoft and Sony have to catch up. A company could choose to take time and develop additional features around the avatars, as Sony seems to be doing with their Home product, or you could release something quick so as to neutralize the advantage the other company has, as is Microsoft’s plan these days.

It looks nice so far, i keep getting “Can’t retrieve information from Xbox Live. Please try again later. Status code 80072ee2” when i try and look at some of the new stuff though.

whats everyones xbl name?Mine is Penes :P

OK, I installed it. Glad it didn’t take too long. I went in and made my avatar. I was disappointed at the eye selection, they all look weird. The clothes made my avatar look pretty cool I will admit, rainbow gloves! But I can see how Microsoft will “let” you $tock your wardrobe… Here’s hoping games come with free branded digital T-shirts and other stuff, it’s free advertising for them!

I haven’t actually looked through any menu options cause that’s when my dinner was done cooking. But I hated the blades so much, so anything’s an improvement IMO.

I gotta wait til Saturday. And as a Wii owner/hater, I am really excited for the Avatars. Mostly just to see what those faceless a-holes on my friends list look like.

By the way, I became a Wii hater after I bought the console. Damn I regret wasting that $250…

Resell it then, you can still make your money back, especially since it’s getting close to Christmas. I have to admit it’s lost a lot of its novelty, but I still go back to the fun group games when people are over and its always a hoot and a holler, so I’m not too disappointed.

I would put it on Ebay, but the internet doesn’t work. I was gonna ask Gamestop what they wanted for it when I picked up Banjo Kazooie, but I forgot.

Yeah ebay’s sketchy nowadays, and Gamestop will find some way to rip you off as they do with trade ins, but its better than nothing. If I were selling mine I’d ask friends if they want it or know anyone who does, I much prefer dealing with someone somehow related to my personal network.

@dynamicduo: The eyes! That’s the only thing holding me back grom avatar greatness. They all look freaky-deaky.

And @Enzo, when you picked up the wii, you should have known what you’re getting into: Zelda, Smash Bros, Mario, Metroid Prime. And that would be enough for me! But, luckily, I can still look forward to Punch-Out!!!, Cave Story, Sin & Punishment 2, and whatever else comes out next year. I think that it’s sort of not possible to know what the Wii would be like. If that is indeed the reason you hate it.

@tonedef, with regards to installing games, you still have to have the disc in the console to be able to play it off the HD. So you can’t rent or borrow games, install them on your xbox and continue playing once you’ve given the disc back.

@uber, I kept getting that error code as well but thought it was just my network acting up. I’ve had mine lock up when checking out friend’s avatars as well.

@damien same here. Im thinking the server was just overwhelmed with so many people checking out the NXE. Hopefully its not always like that.

Avatars = nice touch, and done better than on the Wii.
In game UI (when you press the Xbox button) = awesome, better than it used to be.
Dashboard UI leaves a lot to be desired. I much preferred the blade layout – it worked so naturally with the bumper buttons…

I hated the blades. So many times it would switch to another blade when I was using the joystick to simply go down and launch the game. So annoying.

I didn’t like the blades. They were functional, but boy were they ugly. Also, they seemed simpler, and you don’t have to try to figure out which boxes are tricksy ads. This new stuff is like a million squares floating around, and I’m not sure where some stuff is, yet. But again, I’m sure I’ll adapt.

ALSO, Fable 2 runs beautifully when installed to the harddrive.

It’s pretty cool

I just finished modifying my avatar a bit. It’s actually really cool how you can take a picture of your avatar for your icon. You can zoom in and out, pan, rotate your avatar, you can even turn their torso with the right joystick. After framing, you can press left trigger and it’ll go through an animation cycle of some type, and you can snap a shot of your avatar doing something funny. I have mine making some angry growling face. And you can change the BG color once you’ve snapped a shot to really spice it up. It’s pretty fun! I just wish you could save all of them, it seems you’re limited to one avatar making at a time which is dumb when they’re SO tiny filesizewise. And I don’t know what’ll happen once I make another one, if it’ll save or not…

There’s also no excuse for the sucky animation cycles, the sucky piece quality, the lack of big free wardrobe, the lack of background customization ease (I know there’s a way to change a picture of it for free but I can’t find it yet)... all of this they have experience with because of Windows, it’s not a matter of technology or filesize, they just choose to keep it all crappy and locked in. To profit later, in the case of clothes and backgrounds, etc. Here’s looking forward to nickle and diming you… sigh.

Yes, I know it’s a good business model, and yes you don’t have to buy these things. But I mean, they’re doing the SAME thing as EA did with Spore and locking out content that SHOULD be in for free, just to sell it to you later. Case in point: long hair. I wanted very long hair. There is no very long hair. There isn’t even medium long hair. There are tons of fancy hair but no long hair. But I will put money on this: once a new Tomb Raider game comes out, if it comes with accessories, it could possibly come with her hairstyle. Which is long hair braids. Sigh.

i think its pretty cool the only thing i dont like is the avatar things cause i have a wii and its sorta like those and i never really cared for them much