November 8, 2008

Today I got a surprise email from Microsoft. I had been selected to beta test what is is possibly Xbox Live's biggest update ever. When I logged in to my account the fun began. 

It started out with a new looking interface. Gone are the ugly and intrusive blades. Instead, you get a blue square in the center of the screen that pops up when the tab on the left used to. It looks sleek on my 32" HDTV.

After the update installed, I was asked to create an avatar, or digital person representing myself. I was able to make him similar enough to how I am, but with way cooler clothes. Once the update reaches everyone else, you will be able to see the picture that I took of his head as my gamerpic. 

Everything else in the update functions just like you remember. It's just easier to navigate to. The descriptions are very easy to understand for the beginning gamer. If I had to rate the update, I would give it 9 out of ten because it should have been like this in the beginning. My one gripe is that the themes are now changed in the My Xbox Channel and not in System Settings. The change was made very unclear to a long time dashboard user like me. You can look forward to this update when it hits on November 19.