Xbox launched it's "New Xbox Experience" yesterday, and I have to admit it's a pretty nice update, even if it lacks in originality. It's definitely the largest upgrade to date for the 360. It seems to be some sort of mashup of Apple meets Sony meets Nintendo.
The new avatar system is nice even if it seems to walk the middle ground between the Wii's kiddie Mii's and the PS3's more realistic Home avatars. The selections are pretty thin at the moment (a common theme in the XNE at the moment), but it's a nice start. We'll see how long it takes for the microtransactions to pop up to buy new clothing and accessories for your avatars.
I tested out the Netflix integration and although I found it a little odd that you do your movie browsing on the Netflix site instead of the 360 I must admit the quality and convenience of the whole system was nice. The biggest drawback at the moment is the very sparse list of good titles available.
Of course the one new feature I was most interested in seeing launch was the XNA community games. I was thrilled to see that it wasn't buried two or three levels deep in some dark corner of the dashboard. I was a little disappointed to find only two games available. After Microsoft just finished up their "Dream it, Build it, Play it" competition you'd think they would have at least a dozen or so games available. Then again, I'm big on the "quality over quantity" theory. Hopefully we'll see more game launch in the near future.
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