The "New XBox Experience"

Well it has been a few days since the "new experience" update for the XBox 360's dashboard. At first I thought there was going to be an option to revert to the old interface. I was wrong! So having said that I downloaded it not realizing that I was being forced into this "new experience". Needless to say felt like a kid that has been duped out of his allowance by a cheap toy at first. I was lost and it took me a good hour of just flipping through the pages of reorganized content before I could fumble through it like a drunk.


After I got over the frustration of being lost on a system that I have owned for a few years now, it wasn't that bad. The avatar system that opened at the first login was intuitive and fun to use. The fact that I could use my controller to interact with my avatar held my attention for longer than I would like to admit.


A few of the new features include parties and calendar events. These are not totally new ideas with parties just being an improved and enlarged version of the private chats that were on the old interface. Also calendar events has always been on the Xbox Live website and has just been made accessible to users on a live enabled system.


Finally, the old "blade dashboard" interface is still integrated so that system settings, messaging, and media access is always at your fingertips. The cover flow handles the marketplace, friends, parties, and calendar events.