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Eric writes "BetaNews has some screenshots up of the new Xbox 360 user interface, which appears to be greatly refined over the original Xbox Dashboard. The new UI can be customized by the user and offers access to four main screens: System, Games, Media and Xbox Live. The big focus seems to be on tying Xbox Live into all aspects of the console, be it gaming or entertainment. Consequently, Xbox 360 will ship out of the box with a free Xbox Live Silver-level subscription."

I guess this is the UI we'll have to live with until modchips come out, and we get a dashboard that allows us to do what we want.

I hope that MS learned from the modchips of the past to find out that people want to fully harness the power of the machine, and not be limited to playing only XBox games on it. If they provided a dashboard that allowed for more customization, or the installation of emulators that would be great. I don't ever see that happening.

I'll probably wait to get the new xbox until Team Xecuter figures out the new platform.

I hope that MS learned from the modchips of the past to find out that people want to fully harness the power of the machine, and not be limited to playing only XBox games on it.

?... PROFIT!

You hoped that they would give the box and games away for free of course, and maybe line up so you could smack them with a bat just for kicks, but alas, they didn't. What a woefully unenlightened company. Seriously, they do not care about the.0001% of their market who isn't inclined to actually buy a single game.

I hope that MS learned from the modchips of the past to find out that people want to fully harness the power of the machine, and not be limited to playing only XBox games on it.

Why would Microsoft learn from mod chips? Especially not in a positive way, as far as the modders are concerned. Microsoft are in the business to make money, and they do that by selling games. Xbox Games. They don't make any money from PS2 games someone tries to play on a modded Xbox, so they aren't going to make it nice and easy t

I'm GLAD they're cutting modded Xboxes off of Live. Why? Because modded Xboxes make cheating a HELL of a lot easier. There have been a lot of problems on Halo 2, for example, with people using hacked a hacked profile that elimiated reload times, and now there are hacked maps that allow people to have more poweful weapons than the other team.

If you're going to hack up your Xbox, just keep it off Live, and you'll be set. If you want to play Live, get an unmodded one.

Likewise. Apparently Forza Motorsport has suffered some problems with modded Xboxes cheating the system. Due to the fact that customised vehicle can be raced on Live, some people have tinkered with the profiles to let themselves run hugely souped-up vehicles on lower ranked games -- much to the annoyance of the players.

To be honest, something akin to the hardware hashes that Windows Activation uses should be put in place. Then, every time the user connects, the server queries the Xbox and allows connectio

Nowhere did I say anything about promoting piracy. Modchips can be used for piracy, but a lot of their features actually make the Xbox more useful. Don't forget that a large percentage of Modchips do nothing besided unlock the region code of an import. There is nothing wrong with that at all, assuming you purchased the original.

My point is that MS might actually reduce the amount of modding by giving us features we seek out in the modchips. Obviously they aren't going to support hacked games, but sup

Because of a bloody banner ad? The current Xbox already has these types of ads...they seem more like news to me then ads "oh the new forza game is out"...they are mostly ignorable. I agree in principle that you shouldn't have to see ads in a pay service, but its not like the banner pops up while you are playing a game or anything.

I also see a lot of other areas where they are turning their Xbox into a web-whoring machine. Banner ads are one thing. Take a look at the content they offer. There are downloadable games, kind of like the PopCap stuff on the internet. There is also some kind of iTunes feature that may appear in the future. Nice ideas, but I am assuming there will be fees to download new content.

All of this is targeted at teens that play video games and will rack up the bill on Mommy's credit card. Who wants to als

True, but the majority of the 20-30 year olds probably don't impulse buy things just because a flashy graphic pops up. A 14 year old might just purchase the game without caring that a parent is going to get billed. It's kind of like all of the cigarette ads. They might not be targeted directly at teens (even though they really are), but teens are the most impacted by them because older individuals already have formed an opinion one way or the othe

I was a child once (obviously), and we were not permitted to behave so poorly. I therefore assume it is possible for parents to control their children, although I'll admit this appears to be a dying trend.

What I want to know is who are the people that are clicking on them and getting information...at least with comcast, when you click one it just displays some horrible text...if it showed you a commercial or something maybe they would be useful, but its always like "ROGAIN. GET BACK YOUR HAIR NOW. CALL 18883335498 FOR MORE INFO". (Ok yes, i guess I AM one of the people that clicked the ads...but only to see what they showed)

You miss the point - Microsoft still get the same money, presumably more so over time. The advertisers are investing in place of a share of your payment in the hope that they can get more from you than they're shelling out to get the ads there in the first place.

I don't want to sort through a list of all of the Xbox Live Arcade games just to see if there is anything new- it is so much easier when they tell me about it...

On the other hand, here we are at Slashdot...right now I have a huge Vonage banner at the top of my screen. I am not interested in Vonage, nor does Vonage have anything to do with this section of Slashdot...but I keep coming back.

"Well, telling you that there is a new game available in Xbox Live Arcade... Is that a banner ad, or is it an 'informative message.'"

It's Microsoft, so everybody's on a witch hunt to find anything that's wrong with it. If it were Sony or Nintendo, everybody'd be jumping up and down at the implication that game teasers and demos would be avabilable through their on-line service.

Tell me, what is the difference between Advertisement and Information Message? ALL ADVERTISERS THINK OF THEIR ADVERTISEMENTS AS INFORMATION MESSAGES YOU FUCKING IDIOT.

The banner ad in the image shown by the grandparent (which I doubt you looked at) is actually a graphic advertising a new addition to a service you are already paying for. It's the best way to find out about new features on the service.

To me, it's not an advertisement if you're already paying for it. It's an informational message telling

Eh, it's just a graphic for a new game, and it appears to be showing up on a list of available games. I wouldn't really call it an ad, it's not quite the same as if it were a graphic for say, MSNTV or something.

I mentioned in my last post that J Allard looks like a pirate, which is incontrovertible. You only need to look at a picture [microsoft.com] of the man to see that he spends a lot of time swinging on rigging and generally being dashing.

The next generation of consoles are going to play games very well. But they are also going to do a lot more than that. The best use of the built in networking, storage, and HD capabilities is going to come via software.

I thought about that after posting, but I still think that the interface is something to be moved out of the way while you use the X-Box.

You don't want the interface while watching a DVD or using the machine for some video function. There's probably a remote for that, and that's a better interface than any on-screen one. You don't want it while playing games, although connecting to game servers will require it. You don't want it while listening to music, as it's good, but not *that* pretty - there'll be a

Judging from all the new downloadable content, it seems likely that Microsoft may follow a Halo 2 model when it comes to the new features. Any game that has any popularity at all has the possibility of being plagued by charges each individual new map, weapon, or character.

I'm not opposed at all to being able to acquire and even pay for new content. I've played enough Blizzard games to be familiar with the concept of the expansion pack. It's more some lurking fear about how Microsoft will implement what wou

You do realize that in a few months, all of the maps you have to pay for now will be free, right? I'm patient...I can wait until September and have all the maps that everyone else does. The only people who have to pay are the ones that want them sooner.

Then you should be familiar with all of the tweaks and balance changes and cheat fixes that Blizzard has been shipping for years, right? Any game with a huge online community will inevitably have exploits and cheats exposed by people. These are, as I said, inevitable. No amount of testing will expose every possibility for cheating. It's not skimping on QA, or cheapness that causes this, but the fact that these things will always occur in any system of moderate complexity.

1) Halo 2 isn't the first game to charge for premium content. I think MechAssault was the first, but I may be wrong.

2) As with almost everything people whine about on Slashdot, if you don't like it-- don't buy it! If a lot of people don't like it, it will go away. If a lot of people do like it, it'll stick around and you'll be in the minority. Sorry, that's just how a free market works.

Just as clarification concerning the excellent points made in response to me.

1) I do in fact realize the maps will be made free via Microsoft's Xbox Live service in a few months. It is notable that you have to pay for the Live service or ~$20 for the physical manifestation appearing in stores.

2) Concerning the tweaks and balances of Blizzard, those are availible for free without any additional cost save for what you already pay for an internet connection. I am not informed as to whether one can download t

CPU power; Both platforms are going to deliver a huge leap in power, but the cell is going to deliver more, and it's looking like a lot more.

GPU;Tough call. The PS3's Nvidia claims "twice the performance of two 6800 Ultras", and doesn't talk pipelines, the 360 says 48 pipelines + USA, whatever that means for performance. Both will look amazing, and I think the killer games this generation will be more about pushing physics and simulation than graphics.

The original XBox also has a network setting menu. It's useful if you want to hook up the XBox to the internet without going through a router or through a computer. From what I understand the network connection is fairly simple to set up - my sister did it on her own, and he's not very computer literate.

The XBox interface is useful when you want to use it to listen to some music or to edit settings. The Gamecube also has an interface which appears if you turn it on without a disc in the machine. You ca

As far as I know every disc based console has some sort of UI. Usually they have a memory card file manager, a CD player, and usually some basic settings like language, system clock and mono / stero sound so you don't have to set them in every game. If you have a disc in already, they all boot the game automatically, and starting the game from the UI is either simple, or automatic.

The Xbox also has network settings, but they're only there for enviroments that don't use DHCP, or need a specific MAC address.

All I have to say when it comes to the new Xbox 360 visualizations is...

HELL YEAH!

Jeff Minter is doing the things, and with what he's done on the Jag and the Nuon platform with lightsynths and trippy effects, it's safe to say that the visualizations on the 360 will be nothing like the poor things on the Xbox. They're sure to be amazing displays, and I'm really looking forward to them!

I think I used my JagCD more for the visualizations than for gaming...