Xbox 360 users, get ready: Microsoft has confirmed that the Fall dashboard update is coming your way tomorrow, and with it comes a host of upgrades to your service in preparation for the big launch of Microsoft's motion-controlling add-on, the Kinect.
For starters, the core Xbox 360 interface is getting a makeover that's more in line with what you've been seeing from Kinect's big marketing campaign—prettier art and, in this case, square windows instead of the rounded one. But that's not all, thankfully. The speed of the interface itself has been pepped up—a "huge improvement," says IGN's Nate Ahearn.
"Navigating from window to window feels a step quicker than it did before and the same goes for the Xbox guide, which no longer exhibits a two-second delay between pressing the guide button and the guide actually opening," he writes.
Voice quality has been kicked up a notch as well, thanks to an upgrade to the audio codec that Microsoft uses for the headset-laden gamers logging more than one billion hours per month on Xbox Live—that's over 25 million members worldwide, to note.
Microsoft's also reduced the number of steps it takes to make various purchases within the service's Games Marketplace, which should make it a bit easier to navigate around and pick up new add-ons, downloadable titles, or what-have-you. The look and feel of the service's pop-up keyboard has been tweaked a bit as well—all the better for entering information like, you know, your credit card number… or the latest trash-talk you have to dish out to your friends.
We won't bury the lede any further: a brand-new connection to ESPN3 content joins the Xbox 360 with the Fall dashboard update. If your Internet provider has the right deals in place on the back-end to allow it, streamed spots will be at your disposal. The preexisting Netflix service has gotten a bit of a sprucing up as well—a new search functionality mimics Google's "Instant Search" feature by giving you actionable results as you type in various letters to find your favorite show or movie.
Other tweaks include the ability to see all active wireless networks within range of the console when you go to select exactly how you're going to connect up to Xbox Live. You can now sign out profiles on controllers-not-your-own via the standard system menu, which reduces the "who's who" problem found when trying to switch people around on group games.
And, for the Xbox junkies out there, Microsoft is making it even easier for you and your friends to check out any games that you've completed one-hundred-percent: That's every single achievement a game has to offer. After all, "You spent a lot of time and effort earning those Achievements," says a description from Microsoft.
