August 11th 2009 360 Dashboard Update

[Eversor]

On Tuesday, they released an update for the Xbox 360 Dashboard. They added a ton of new stuff for it...

- Avatar Marketplace. You can buy stuff for your avatar. Not alot of stuff available so far and the prices are pretty outrageous. $5 for my avatar to swing around a lightsaber when its idle? Screw that. But with the next part, theres hope...

- Awards. Certain games will unlock new clothes and toys for your avatar to use. Dunno which games will unlock content but I like the idea of my avatar being able to rock gear that I earned.

- Netflix upgrades. Dont use it personally but they upgraded what Netflix does. The only new thing I noticed was that it actually shows what you are watching on Netflix in your friend list (and you on other people's lists).

- Full 360 game downloads. You can purchase 360 games and download and play straight off your hard drive. Some of the prices are decent while others are very expensive (CoD 2 I'm looking at you).


I'm sure there are some stuff I'm forgetting but its another step toward making the Dashboard a much better desktop compared to the PS3 or Wii.

[Grey Jorildyn]

I'm sure there are some stuff I'm forgetting but its another step toward making the Dashboard a much better desktop compared to the PS3 or Wii.

And another step closer to destroying retail stores!

[Brill Weave]

Meh. It's a nice bone to throw to the masses. But the fact that they are actually charging people for avatar clothing is a bit ridiculous. It would be pretty damn cool if you were able to get game specific avatar clothing though. Picture your avatar in CoD 4 gear or Fallout 3 threads. Might be kind of cool.

[Kaisha]

I'm sure there are some stuff I'm forgetting but its another step toward making the Dashboard a much better desktop compared to the PS3 or Wii.

Except PS3 already has all 3 of the above?

Avatar Marketplace: PS Home has shit you can buy for your dude.
Awards: Crap from games for PS Home
Game Downloads: PSN already has had the option, just next to no devs made use of it other than EA for Burnout Paradise.

No idea on Netflix though as all the media crap is USA-only as far as North American is concerned. (yay for living in Canada >.>)

[melbufrauma]

Xbox Live still owns the shit out of Sony online. fucking laggy hellhole. i have both and have played Battlefield: Bad company on xbox and on ps3 online. xbox takes cake by far

[Kaisha]

That's what you get for paying for Gold membership, you're ensured non-shitty servers (long as the game isn't badly coded), PSN relies on the publishers to foot the server note, just like PC games do. Not really Sony's fault if a game has a bad server.

[Tekki]

Ya actually it is their fault and thats why they are looking into a pay service. You can't release a product in the wake of XBOX Live and tell publishers "Oh we are going to be free and its up to you to support it"

[Zosi]

It's a shame that the initial set of games-on-demand games is... underwhelming, to put it mildly. I guess they're alright if you only have an Xbox and can't be bothered to go to the local Walmart to buy them for the same/cheaper. A lot of them are also available for PC on Steam, which is a lot more convenient for me personally.

[Insanecyclone]

I like the COG armor and helm + pom poms = win

[Ragnell]

im not buying any of that bullshit

[Effluo]

The netflix upgrade lets you add to your queue without having to go to a computer. It's a little different to navigate, and I haven't spent a whole lot of time with it yet, but I like not having to be near a PC to add to my queue.

[Tyche]

Ya actually it is their fault and thats why they are looking into a pay service. You can't release a product in the wake of XBOX Live and tell publishers "Oh we are going to be free and its up to you to support it"

Sony isn't looking into a pay service for the particular use that you're referencing, at least I didn't get that vibe from the rumor posted on BG in another thread. All the gaming will still be free. Personally, other than fat princess (which was patched quickly), I've never had any of the mysterious "lag" issues that people mysteriously have. Only problem I ever had with my PS3 as far as online play was random disconnects with wireless. I think I can safely say that playing online games with wireless sucks for the PS3. I wired it, and all my problems have gone away.

[Brill Weave]

You shut your hole Tyche 360 > ps3!

[Mizango]

lolps3. YOU TELL EM WEAVE

Remember all the hype Killzone had and how it was supposed to destroy Xbox? Yeah...

[Roranora]

I like the new tab with progress bars for total gamerscore and total achievements. I also like that it shows and tallies the games in which you've earned all achievements; however, I wish this were readily visible to other players on XBL. I only have 6700/12900 with 6 (Alien Hominid, Castle Crashers, L4D, Assassin's Creed, BioShock, Halo Wars) complete games, which is nothing special, but I still want it to be seen!

[izembo]

their pricing on games on demand is horrible, most are either what they cost at retail, with the worst being 4x the cost of the game(perfect dark zero going for 4.99 in store now)

[Fallyn]

It's all ALOT smother and faster now, very smooth in menus. Nearly everything loads alot faster.

Avatar clothes and GamesonDemand are pretty overpriced though imo, most of the games i can get in the store i work ALOT cheaper (£8.00>£19.99 for NFS:C) but yeah.

Step in the right direction.

[edit] yeah same as above with PerfectDark0. Like £4.99 at work, £19.99 on GOD.

[viperlasson]

does anyone have a ixtreme modded xbox? Would this update mess with it?

[Zumi]

Update also lowered the install sizes of most games, if you install them.

For the most part games on demand is pretty fail seeing as most the games they have are in bargain bins at stores for like $10 only they are charging like 20-30 for them.

[BRP]

Ya actually it is their fault and thats why they are looking into a pay service. You can't release a product in the wake of XBOX Live and tell publishers "Oh we are going to be free and its up to you to support it"

Hell yeah lets have the consumers pay more

FUCK YEAH, I WANT TO GIVE YOU SO MUCH MONEY MICROSOFT I LOVE YOU SO MUCH I FUCKING LOVE YOU

Well Tekki, what you say is false because people will continue to tell publishers to supply their own servers because that's how it works on PC. In the end it will work this way no matter what.

Remember all the hype Killzone had and how it was supposed to destroy Xbox? Yeah...

It was hard because the Xbox kept on destroying itself.