Major Nelson has just dropped the details on how to get into the New Xbox Experience early. They’re looking for a “few thousand” participants. All you’ve gotta do is sign up and answer a few questions (click here) to be considered for the Preview Update. Gold and Silver Xbox Live members can apply, but Gold gets first priority. If you’re accepted, you’ll hear from them in about a week, meaning the preview should be within the next 10-14 days. AU: Haven’t had a chance to see if it’s available to Aussies… Anyone know? Share the knowledge in comments.
[Sign Up via Major Nelson]
The New Xbox Experience is, in a word, fantastic—I got to check it myself out last week, and was amazed by its totally smooth re-imagining of the Xbox UI. If you’re jealous, you won’t have to be for long. On his podcast, Major Nelson not-so-subtly hinted you’ll be able play with it early, maybe as soon as next week:
Besides just looking a lot snazzier, the New Xbox Experience uses a whole new foundation that’s server-based rather than sitting on your hard drive, so it’s easy for Microsoft to add on features and apps. One possibility is basically movie parties—you and your friends could all watch Indiana Jones on Netflix at the same time—or more likely, photo sharing. Update: A reader reminded us that movie sharing was actually supposed to be in the NXE in the first place, so you can probably count on it. But uh, where’d it go in the meantime?
It’s no surprise that The New Xbox Experience will squeeze within a memory card—Microsoft wants to make the software upgrade fit on removable flash storage for Xbox 360 Arcade users who lack hard drives. But the company has made it clear that Arcade users looking to upgrade will need a 256MB storage card, not the smaller 64MB model. So in other words, not every user will find themselves able to make the upgrade free. But this sort of situation is exactly why you shouldn’t buy a 360 without a hard drive. [Xbox360Fanboy]
The New Xbox Experience is ready to go live soon as part of the Xbox fall update, and after getting some quality face time with the UI and it’s new features, I’m pretty impressed. The update addresses the core Xbox software on two levels: most notable is that the design of the UI received a complete overhaul, (mostly) eschewing the blades for a more immersive, intuitive, Media Center-like experience. Secondly, it adds new functionality, allowing for Netflix streaming, group-based gaming, heavily customised avatars, ripping games straight to HDD and an all new quick menu that comes up when you hit the home button.
Microsoft’s New Xbox Experience, the upcoming dashboard system that’ll let you create avatars and social network, now has a set date for its worldwide launch–November 19. The guys from Redmond showed a completed version of the NXE at the Tokyo Game Show, and included a little Xbox-avatar Bill Gates announcing that he’s “a PC.” Cute.
The New Xbox Experience will provide 360 gamers with the option to preload entire games onto the system’s hard drive. Because of its faster data transfer rate, this should translate to faster load times, especially for earlier generation titles. In this clip, we see a side-by-side of GTAIV loaded on DVD vs. the hard drive. The result? The game loads, according to our unscientific counting, about 12 seconds faster from the hard drive. If you’ve got the space, we’re guessing it’s worthwhile. But our 20GB model only has about 3GB free at a time. [via Maxconsole]
Microsoft has launched a site all about the New Xbox Experience which gives you a feel for what it’ll be like in motion by simulating the new dashboard. It also has some videos of new features in addition to the avatar creation one we already saw, like Parties, deeper social networking and more community content. I’m pretty excited about it. Too bad the site doesn’t mention a date, though Major Nelson swears it won’t be right after that massive outage on Monday. [New Xbox Experience via Kotaku]
