Interscription

Hello all!  I was going to finish out the last few items in the New Xbox Experience before doing this, but Major Nelson is set to do a couple of demonstrations today on the NXE, so I figured I’d pull out one of the more obscure reviews first.  Namely, the new Xbox Guide, or also known as, “Where did my dashboard go?”  I will circle back to those features later on, hopefully with some additional information from today’s demos.

To access the new guide, you will simply press the Xbox Guide jewel in the center of your controller as you do today wherever you are in your Xbox 360 playing experience.  However, instead of the normal Guide blade sliding out from the left of the screen, the overlays you see below will come up.  Let’s start off with the Marketplace blade.

Probably one of my biggest complaints about the current Xbox Guide blade is that Active Downloads were hidden under Personal Settings.  In my mind, being able to quickly check on my current Active Downloads while I’m idling time away playing a demo or watching a movie is a natural expectation.  I’m happy to report that this has been brought to the top of the new guide!  In addition, the Marketplace option seen above is rumored to be context-sensitive, meaning it will automatically bring you to the current game’s Marketplace page instead of having you sort through the entire Marketplace.

Moving on to the Games blade, you can see the Games Library (”what you own”) and the Game Store (”what you can own”), both of which are fairly self-explanatory (no word on whether or not the Game Store will also be context sensitive, but I’m assuming not).  The What’s On feature relates to the Primetime section of the NXE we discussed yesterday.  While we haven’t seen it yet, this will either show you things you’ve currently subscribed to, or a mini-program guide of Primetime events you can switch to and their times.  Finally, a link to your achievements is available.  It seems that there is a Geometry Wars 2 logo above, so this might indicate that the achievements link will default to showing you the achievements of the last game in which you earned them.  One would hope there is also an option to review them all from the same location.

Next is the gamer’s personal blade (branded with your Gamertag).  From here you can launch back into the main NXE (kinda redundant considering you can simply hit “Y” from any blade, but I digress), check your profile (one would think this holds similar options to the current Profile page on your Xbox), Quick Launch, Connect to Xbox Live, and Open Tray.  Quick Launch hasn’t been detailed yet, but it may be similar in functionality to the Recent Games screenshot we presented in our My Xbox 360 NXE review.  Connect to Xbox Live and Open Tray probably don’t need any introduction. 

The Media blade holds some unexpected but welcome options for a Guide-like experience (I thought the same thing about the Marketplace being accessible within the new Guide).  The Video Library (again, “what you own”) and the Video Store (also “what you can own”) purport to allow you to access your video content from anywhere in the NXE.  The Video Store access (as with the Game Store I’m sure) will most likely allow you to queue up an Active Download from the Store, while the Video Library will allow you to access your video content.  For the latter functionality, one would have to imagine that you will need to exit a game if you are currently playing, but what isn’t clear is whether or not you will be able to see networked video content from here as you will most likely be able to do with the music in the next option, Select Music.  Select Music seems to be very similar to our current awesome custom music feature, even down to the somewhat limited shuttle controls.  Of particular note is the Connected Media function that is greyed out.  My supposition is that this is for connected USB devices such as USB hard drives/jump drives, iPods, Zunes, or other media devices and storage.  This may be a place to simply manage or list the connected devices, with the Video Library and Select Music functions carrying the responsibility of playback.

Finally, the Settings blade, the place to break stuff.  :)  While there isn’t too much here that isn’t obvious in its functionality (I won’t bother talking about the Personal, Family, and System settings as they are already in existence), there are some intelligent choices here.  One is the top-level inclusion of the Notifications feature.  This one, much like the Active Downloads, has always been too buried in the settings of the current Guide.  Simply put, the desire to change these options has come up from time to time before settling in for a movie or game (the Xbox 360 is a media hub for us in our home), and depending on who is going to be watching the movie, getting notifications will be more or less preferred.  To be able to change that at a top level menu is great (my current preference to be able to see notifications everywhere but during video playback is the best option I have at this point, but it’ll be nice to change that easily going forward).  A top level Shut Down is also nice (I wonder if holding in the Guide button will allow you to shortcut to the Shut Down Console and Shut Down Controller functions?).

There you have it, folks.  Stay tuned to the PAX coverage today blasting the internet (might I recommend some Joystiq lovin’) for Major Nelson’s demo.