New Xbox Live Dashboard Re-Invents TV Viewing, Interface, Search And Storage

The number-crunchers at Microsoft know the reasons you turn off your Xbox 360. It's to surf videos on YouTube, to tune in a pay-per-view fight or to catch the new episode of a TV show you want to watch as soon as it airs. Being Microsoft, they don't want you turning off their console. The new dashboard update being pushed out to all 360s this week is their bet to keep you plugged into Xbox Live for as long as possible.

The dashboard update — which adheres to the Metro design language seen in Windows Phone 7 and coming to Windows 8 — hooks into new entertainment partnerships by offering more robust navigation options than ever before. It sports a new user interface that allows you to swipe through different content categories and uses Kinect to execute Bing voice searches. Some of this functionality was teased at this year's E3 but at the cusp of launch Microsoft's revealing more about how the Metro update looks and feels, and just what TV and internet outlets you'll be able to access through your 360.

When the update starts rolling out on December 6th, console owners will notice reorganized tabs and that they can now switch seamlessly between gesture, voice or controller to get to where they want to go. Simply saying "Xbox, Bing Star Wars" brings up every TV show, movie or video game tagged with the title of George Lucas' masterpiece. The new search protocols comb through metadata and multiple services, too, so you'll see results from Netflix, Zune content and other providers on Xbox Live Marketplace like Comcast's Xfinity On Demand (which comes to Xbox later down the line). A YouTube app will also be launching on 12/6, with a My YouTube menu that ports over your profile from the video hosting network, complete with subscriptions intact. However, voice search won't be live for YouTube until some time later. As previously shown, you'll be able to use the Xbox Live Companion App on Windows Phone 7 phones to navigate through the new dashboard, too.

Microsoft wants to accomplish three key goals with the 360 moving forward: to offer more entertainment in one place, make it easier to find what users want and introduce interactive social elements to TV content. Their internal research reports 300% growth in non-game Xbox 360 use and that when users log out of their consoles it's for live TV. The UFC app stands as the exemplar of what Microsoft's trying to do in their integration of TV content on their console. Users wwill have the option to pre-order a fight, see fighter stats, make picks as to who'll win and monitor leaderboards. Microsoft described it as a fusion of app and game, with the TV content available elsewhere changed by virtue of being on the 360.

But the Metro update isn't just about turning the 360 into an alternative set-top box. There are also features that will tweak the way you play games on the machine, as well. Microsoft's implementing Cloud Saves for Xbox Live users, where you can choose the cloud as the save destination for game saves as well as being able to migrate existing save files online. If a person's Gold membership lapses, you can still access your files but won't be able to upload any further saves. This feature will require a Gold membership but there's no word on how many gigabytes users will get with their portion of the cloud. This feature will go hand-in-hand with another new firmware change called Roaming Profile. As the name implies, Roaming Profile makes it easier for your gamertag to live on separate machines. You'll no longer need to download your profile each time you use a non-home machine. With Cloud Saves and Roaming Profile, your gaming experience on the 360 should be more portable than in previous iterations. And when it comes to playing with others, there's change on the way there, too. Soon, you'll be able to schedule virtual social appointments via dynamic reminders called Beacons. They're basically messages that get pushed out to Xbox Live or Facebook friends, request that they join you to play, say, Gears of War 3 at 10:00 p.m. Monday night. You can set up to three Beacons and friends will see them as soon as they log into Xbox Live.

Microsoft representatives say the Metro update will feel like owners have gotten a brand-new Xbox. While that remains to be seen, it does point at how the technology giant wants to evolve their signature game hardware as a home entertainment portal to various types of media experiences. Voice search, increasing amounts of TV and video content and social viewing will be waiting for you on the Xbox 360 this week. Will this evolution change the way you where and how you watch TV? Microsoft sure hopes so.


    I can't talk about how much I like this improvement.

    The Beacon feature is what I really only care about.

      I misread this as the "Bacon Feature". I would have liked a bacon feature. :(

    All I read in that is that we finally get youtube. YAYYYY

    Unfortunately, unless you are in the US, Canada (or UK?) the voice search as described 'Simply saying “Xbox, Bing Star Wars” brings up every TV show, movie or video game tagged with the title of George Lucas’ masterpiece' won't work. It's not enabled.

    I don't really mind so much (you can TYPE 'Star Wars' in the search box and it works Ok) but the experience is terrible, unless you know that it's not enabled.

    Say 'Xbox Bing Star Wars' and the bing app starts, it just doesn't search. you just get presented with the search box, with no indication why that hasn't worked. So you say it louder STAR WARS!. no? maybe i am saying it wrong. 'Ster wers'? no. Typical MS. Awesome functionality, only 90% executed.

    Maybe in the next update. *sigh*.

    Slow clap the hacks here for not even bothering to filter this and re-edit so it's relevant to the Australian audience.

      Now we know exactly what we're missing out on! :P

        Agreed Tracey.

        Beb, just because it's irrelevant to Australians doesn't mean people don't care... people really need to stop being such douchebags and realise the news world doesn't revolve around Australia.

          It doesn't?

          I'm now incredibly confused now. When is the update happening for Australia?

            maybe reread his comment- this is kotaku AU, so instead of just copypasting the post from the US site, it would have been nice of them to at least put a footnote at the end of the story saying something like 'unfortunately us Aussies do not have access to many of these features etc.'

              This. It's the complete lack of re-editing for Australian audiences that is the issue. Adding a few extra sentences isn't going to hurt especially since these people are PAID to write.

                Yes they are paid to write... their own articles.

                My point is more stop treating Tracey and Mark with disrespect for forwarding content from the Kotaku US site without removing/editing/adding footnote for the content irrelevant to AU. They're generally very busy doing their own work to bring you entirely new articles that are very well written (especially compared to some of the single sentence crap that comes from the US kotaku)

                Maybe I'm the only one intelligent enough to filter what would be for American readers only by using my own brain, not relying on someone else to spell it out for me.

                  Are they also not paid as editors?

    The only thing I care about is... how many more clicks is it to start your game now? How many more ads will I have to wade through to get to my friends list? etc... I use the 360 for games and the marketplace, I really wish we had the ability to turn things off in the menu, I have no interest at all in the music or video side of things so would love to be able to hide it...

      Assuming you want to start the game in the disc tray? None, except the one to start the game. The default start position is right on the game in the tray. Quickplay is available 1 tile away.
      As for your other question/issue, you should love this dashboard. Don't want to look at music or video or whatever? Then never look at the music or video 'pivot'.

      Because having to press Up and A is such a terrible burden. AFAIK you can still set the xbox to launch games as soon as you put the disc in/turn the console on. Unless you're using marketplace more than the game how is this not the best option?

    There really should be an option to use a previous dashboard.

    Blades was my favourite dashboard by far. Nice and neat and only 2-3 ads.

    At this present time you are given 512MB for your Cloud Save.

    I also turn off my console incase it suddenly springs 3 red lights on me! However YouTube on my TV may convince me otherwise!

    I want to be able to sign in in "Appear Offline" mode automatically by default, because I hate most of my friends.

      +1. Not the 'hate' part, but the signing in part. Sometimes I just wanna play Skyrim and not get hassled to play Battlefield.

    Will this redesign load any faster than the current design where it can take minutes to load the list of recent players, for example? I somehow doubt it. Microsoft keep cramming more & more in while the hardware just can't keep up anymore :/

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