If you've only recently dropped into the Xbox with the advent of Kinect, you'll likely be unaware of how Microsoft enjoys completely redesigning their dashboard - otherwise known as the console's home screen/menu - seemingly at the drop of a hat. When the console originally launched, it came with the "blades" menu, which was usable, practical, and efficient - but didn't cope all that well with the amount of content it ended up having to handle. And so, Microsoft invented the NXE, or New Xbox Experience, which is pretty much the same as what you have today, with a few minor adjustments here and there. And now, as of some un-named time "this fall", or Autumn in proper English, this is what we'll be greeted with:
Ta-dah!
To be honest, we're not entirely sure how it's going to work. There now seems to be even less room for things on the home screen, as other than what's in your disk drive, and the "recent" channel, we have three adverts. Below the main box, there's a grey bar which seems to suggest that several adverts will display on rotation, but how you'll scroll amongst them remains to be seen. In fact, it seems a bit of a navigational headache to begin with, seeing as you'll need to navigate left and right amongst both the main boxes of the menu, and the category tabs at the top, which may make navigating with a controller harder than it is at the moment. Now that we think of it, that may be why Microsoft have announced they'll be adding voice search to the console, letting you (slowly) navigate around the 360's menus, and find things using your voice, and Kinect.
Along with other new features being added to the dashboard, Microsoft at its E3 press conference announced that it would be bring YouTube to the console - although whether it'll only be available to people with Gold subscriptions (most likely) remains to be seen. In other items of note from the NNXE, we have a new Apps channel, which Microsoft didn't actually touch upon at the press conference. Could this be the start of the Xbox 360 becoming a more open platform for developers? Will we be seeing the 360 flooded with hundreds of Apple style apps that let you track anything and everything you could ever want? We certainly hope so.
In possibly the most interesting news (which would also presumably why it wasn't mentioned at the conference), Microsoft have announced that the Autumn update will bring with it support for cloud storage. While you may have images dancing in your head of a new lighter-than-light hard drive, cloud storage is actually a really interesting idea, as it'll do away with memory cards altogether. Storing your profile, and save games on a central server, so long as you've got a 360 connected to the internet, you'll be able to access your profile and games from any 360, anywhere, making going round to a friends house, and playing in split-screen on their console a whole lot easier. Hopefully, Microsoft won't remove support for memory cards altogether, though, or else people who don't have their console connected to the internet are going to have a few headaches.
The New New Xbox Experience will launch this Autumn. Hopefully, we'll be able to go hands-on with it before then, and will tell you how it feels.
