What's everyone think of the new update? For those with a Kinect(I'm not one of them yet) how easy or difficult are you finding it to navigate the dashboard and everything else. It's neat I like what they did with Hulu Plus and Netflix. Also the becons and recent friends activity can come in handy when trying to get some gaming done with friends. The addition of being able to post directly to facebook about what game you are wanting to play or a particular achievement you got to gloat and make your e-pen grow. This is one update I haven't seen the downside to yet I have no complaints here even without a Kinect it's a good update.

I'm still playing around with it but so far it's alright. I don't have Netflix due to crappy content they give Canada but it is easier to follow/join friends and see if someone is playing the same game you are.

I'm annoyed that they made the games so needlessly difficult to get to. You have to scroll to the 4th page to get to them since videos come up first now. Quickplay is okay, but the games list before did the same thing and you had the option of selecting all of your games from it.

I don't like it to be honest. It's too cluttered. They've also designed it so you have to see an ad almost all of the time when on the dashboard. They've gone and made certain things more complicated now like joining parties and going through your downloaded games. Everything just feels like you have to dig deeper now for things you're looking for.

This was designed to be easier to use for Kinect users than for controller users.

Also...what's with the lack of apps? Why was it necessary to launch this new dashboard if they barely had any apps ready for it?

I didn't think the "NXE" dashboard was perfect, but I did like it better than the original "blades" dash and I definitely liked it better than this new dash we now have.

I'm liking it visually. I can't really make a final decision on whether it's better or worse in terms of use, but I'm currently leaning toward worse.

So can you have themes on the dashboard or are all those premium theme useless now?

You can still use your themes, but because the interface takes up so much space in the middle of your screen it kind of sucks. And the friend backgrounds are still there, but you have to dig further to get to your friends list now to even see them. So your theme is still there, but it doesn't work as well as it used to.

I still don't understand why there are no options to change the interface in any meaningful way.

I won't pass judgement on it just yet but I'm not as excited about this as I was the NXE. I need to relearn where everything is.

Well of course we can't change the colors ourselves...how else could they force you to pay them to customize your dash for you...and then later update the dash so it will then make the theme you bought become obsolete?

On my PS3 I love the fact you can customize everything and download themes for free. I have some great space landscapes that pop up everytime I start up my PS3.


Makes me feel like this guy

i don't know if it's a coincidence or not that this update came out a few days before the latest episode of black mirror >: )

Ok how the heck do I watch a downloaded video without going into zune?

if it's anything like the last dashboard you can't

You could on the last one by going to game>videoes or you could sign off of live and go to zune and it would just take you to your library rather than the marketplace

you can still go straight to your video downloads if you wait for the active downloads bar to fill up and select play now but there has to be an easier way

Whoa, whoa now!

Seriously though, I'm not really liking this new dash. Yeah, it's got better visuals, but it's a bitch to use. It should never be a bitch to use considering it's the foundation of the whole damned thing.