The New Xbox Software Is Here, And It’s Better

The latest Xbox 360 dashboard update brings some sports, some Zune integration and a fairly sizable UI change. Here’s how it works.

The video above gives you a good tour of what the updates bring. There’s the changed UI to match the flatness of Windows Phone 7 and Zune HD, the ESPN and Zune video features, Netflix searching and Zune music.

Other than the UI tweaks, there aren’t a lot of changes to the core functionality principles of the dashboard itself, other than perhaps the improved Xbox Live party chat and tweaked Avatars. The additions mostly focus on bringing other services to Xbox to beef it up, which is apparently where Microsoft thinks it needs to go to differentiate itself from Sony’s offerings.

But overall, we like the change. Stuff is better and more visible! You can watch things! Everyone gets it. The public preview starts today for people who were chosen for the beta.

Discuss

(3 Comments)
  • [–]

    Harry

    Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 8:17 AM

    The update hasn’t been pushed to my Xbox yet :(

  • [–]

    James

    Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 8:40 AM

    I believe it is still in the beta program stage/

  • [–]

    mario-182

    Thursday, September 30, 2010 at 11:05 AM

    Yeah, you had to be accepted into the Beta Preview Program to install it before the official release
    I’m really liking it!

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