New NXE Information

[Fletch627]

The New Xbox Experience’s launch is impending and the hype is building. In the past few days, Microsoft has given more information about the Xbox 360 revamp, including possible movie and photo sharing, the structure of updates (Fall and Spring?) and the size of NXE.

Movie and Photo Sharing

Microsoft has stated that although movie and photo sharing is not currently their focus with the launch of NXE, things could change. Here’s what Albert Penello, Xbox Director of Marketing, said in a recent interview with the MTV Multiplayer blog regarding movie sharing:

MTV Multiplayer: There’s the idea that if I downloaded a movie, or say I had Netflix and all my friends had Netflix, is is theoretically possible that if we all wanted to watch “Michael Clayton,” that it’s possible you could create an application that allowed you to do that?

Albert Penello: Yes, those types of things are certainly the aspiration.

In a different interview, Xbox senior strategist Rob Gruhl said this about the possibilities of photo sharing on NXE:

You know, we talked about photo sharing. That’s something that, hey, if we want to do photo sharing, we just build that app, drop it in, party enable it and we’re good to go. If we wanted to do movie sharing, build an app, party enable it, drop it in. Really, it’s [the new dashboard] just laying the foundation for our next wave, our next step. Continuing to fill it out, continuing to build it.

So all Microsoft would need to do is update the new dashboard with a new application. Speaking of updates…

Update Structure

In the past, Microsoft was restricted to two major updates a year, the Fall and the Spring update. However, the NXE is server-based allowing Microsoft to update the dashboard on the fly. In other words, whenever Microsoft adds a new tab or application to NXE, it will just appear whenever you boot the console up, no patch required.

This on the fly updating means that this could be the last major update that NXE receives for some time. Speaking to 1up, Xbox Live corporate Vice President John Schappert said:

I don’t know if we are going to tie ourselves to a spring/fall release schedule as much… it’s pretty hard to make a new dashboard because you have to certify it against every revision of the hardware, and there’s a bunch of different specs. It’s a pretty time-consuming and challenging thing to do. Which is why we only did it twice a year.

I like staying focused on bigger and more impactful releases, so maybe it will be twice a year, maybe less frequently.

This is a huge advantage over Sony because although the Playstation firmware is updated regularly, it takes a very long time to download and install. With this server-based system, Microsoft could keep perfecting their firmware in no time at all.

Size of NXE

Unfortunately for those people who still have an Xbox 360 without a hard drive or 256 MB memory unit, this update, clocking in at 128 MB, will be too big for your memory-less 360’s to handle. Another problem arisen because Microsoft wasn’t forward-thinking enough to make hard drives in every SKU. However, Larry Hryb, Xbox Live’s Major Nelson, said that Microsoft was working on a “storage solution”. He said to Xbox 360 Fanboy:

The new Xbox experience will require 128MB of free space. A hard drive is recommended for the optimal experience, to take advantage of some new features, and to be able to enjoy the great movies, TV shows and games available on Xbox LIVE. While we expect the majority of consumers to download the New Xbox Experience without a problem, a small percentage of Xbox 360 owners do not have enough memory to accommodate the update. To help ensure all Xbox LIVE members are able to download the New Xbox Experience and enjoy its new features, Microsoft will be offering storage solutions to the Xbox LIVE community. We are not sharing details of this offering yet. Be sure to check Xbox.com for more details in the coming weeks.

So far, no information has been given about what the hell this “storage solution” would be. Could it be a free memory stick? Whatever it is, one thing’s for sure: a hard drive is really the only way to properly enjoy the Xbox 360 experience.

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