Fall marks the return of apple cider, Halloween and, of course, the annual Xbox Dashboard Update. It’s a time when gamers all gather in the pumpkin patch, waiting for Major Nelson to appear and bestow upon them gifts of streamlined interfaces, new features and a few nifty surprises. This year Microsoft has gone ahead and outlined what we can expect in this year’s update, and it looks like we’re going to get a fine haul of goodies.
- Improved voice quality — the audio codec is being updated to improve Xbox LIVE Party chat audio quality. So grab your friends and jump into a multiplayer game, catch a big sports event, watch a movie or do all three.
- Improved experience for changing your Gamertag — choosing a new Gamertag? If the Gamertag you’re looking for is already taken, your Avatar will spin a wheel and we will provide five other Gamertag suggestions at a time for you to choose from.
- Streamlined in-dashboard virtual keyboard — we’ve taken the existing QWERTY keyboard in-dash and made it easier to use for scenarios that involve repeated text entry, for example when signing up for LIVE within the dashboard.
- Improved Xbox LIVE Marketplace UI and browse experience — the Games Marketplace has been re-organized to provide streamlined access to the games and content you want, reducing the number of steps it takes to get to a download.
- Avatar changes — we’ve made your Avatars slightly more proportional so you can better play Kinect games
- Easier to get on a wireless network — trying to connect to a wireless network? With the next update, you’ll see a list of all the wireless networks within range when you go into network settings. From there, you’ll be able to select a new network or further configure the network you’re connected to.
- Ability to sign-out other controllers in the sign-in UI — we’re adding the ability to sign-out profiles on other controllers in the sign-in UI within the Guide. This is especially useful when playing games like Rock Band.
- New browse experience for 100% completed games — you spent a lot of time and effort earning those Achievements, so instead of only being able to view your first dozen completed games, we’re giving you a new and better way to browse all of them.
While some of the updates are undoubtedly a bigger deal than others, all are nice improvements to the existing design. The upgraded audio codec is easily the banner improvement, so now maybe your friends won’t sound like ass when you play online. I’m also personally excited about the ability to sign out other controllers because I play a lot of rhythm games and signing controllers in and out can be a bit of a pain. It’s also no surprise that Microsoft is further refining the Xbox Live Marketplace to make it even easier to make an impulse buy.
So we’ve got a solid list of upgrades here, and that’s not all. Microsoft has already touted the addition of ESPN streaming video and a few other nifty features, and who knows if there are any other surprises in store? We’re still waiting on a firm date for the upgrade, but currently expect it to hit sometime in November. Rest assured we’ll keep you posted whenever we learn more.
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