I’m a hardcore gamer and XBLA games do not really interest me at all. MS knows that despite the high volume of games, very few are even worth a demo download. They promise to change that all this fall with the new dashboard update. After watching this, I have to say that I am interested where I couldn’t give two shits before.
Just in case you have an Xbox Live Silver account, I don’t know why, its like 6 bucks a month for Gold, anyway, you will have to wait for the new free content to hit the Marketplace such as demos. Your penance? 1 week. Just another small caveat of the fall update. I think if you have a silver account you should have an auto update for a Peter Moore theme of him sitting naked in a beanbag chair eating cheetos.
Next time you turn on your Xbox 360, you’ll be prompted for the ever loving Fall Dashboard Update. The update definitely speeds up the dash and adds some nifty new features. But it also had one slightly annoying change that I wanted to let you know about.
The dashboard update resets your global game settings. So if you set your Y Axis as Inverted in the dashboard so all your games are auto-set to Inverted, you’re going to have to go back and redo this. Any other changes you made in here will have to be redone as well.
To make this change, click on your gamertag at the top of the screen, then go to Game Defaults. The Y Axis setting is under Action, but make sure to check everything else in case you had changes you forgot about.
I’m finally able to auto sign-in to Xbox Live again for the first time since the Spring Dashboard Update, which is a plus. Let us know of anything else the dash update changed that you’re a big fan of (other than divx people).
After careful reading of ALL the features and noticed that parents can now limit the time their kids are playing. The feature will allow the parents to enter a passcode which will enable a shutdown timer either daily or weekly. This timer would have warning countdowns that will let the gamer know exactly how much time is left. The Family Timer will also disable startup until the clock has expired. I am not totally in disagreement with this because childhood obesity is at an all time high, but how many parents actually know how to use the Xbox 360 let alone know that a dash update is available. I would like to see some statistics on how many Family Timers are used. It would be a good prank if your roommate hogs the tv with Mass Effect while you are trying to watch The Real World. Thought’s anyone?
Here is what is in store for the big fall update for Xbox Live. These are some of the highlights. There is also added divx and xvid support as well. Very cool if you use the 360 as your media center so you can stream…well… you know.
- Improved Video Library.
- Improved visuals and descriptions.
- Users can now sort movies and TV Shows in the video library by Title or (Download) Date.
- TV shows can now be grouped by Series .
- Group video and game trailers .
- Art associated with personal video files on a portable device will now be displayed.
- Easier to use media areas and improved metadata .
- Improved source selection for video, picture, and music libraries, making it easier to switch between console/digital camera, computer, portable device or disc.
- New “Suggested Items” link for downloaded movies.
For the full list, click here.
