NXE Sarie
After all the anticipation, the New XBOX Experience (NXE) is finally here. I probably spent about a half an hour watching my friends’ avatars appear, deciphering the different backdrops, and musing over small discoveries (e.g. you can see the avatars of those who are “in a party” with your friends and hitting LB before taking your avatar’s picture changes his or her emotion). Overall, I think the new Dashboard is visually appealing and extremely user friendly, however I think it is both smart and considerate that users may still reach a text-based menu by hitting the XBOX button on your controller, appeasing people like my boyfriend (You know what was a user-friendly UI? DOS.) who aren’t into the whole glitz and glam of the NXE.
The only thing I am really disappointed about is that the Netflix stream is only available to current Netflix subscribers, which I know is like duh, but does anyone else remember the fuss about “free Netflix” for current XBOX Live Gold members? Rumors on the Internet. I’d consider subscribing if Netflix had all the weekly TV shows I wanted to watch like Hulu, a FREE service, does. I could care less if the videos are in HD or not. If you aren’t already a Netflix subscriber and are kind of on the fence about signing up for it just to stream to your 360, I’d recommend considering the $30 license to Playon (you can try it free for 21 days first), which allows you to stream video from Hulu and Youtube to your 360.