Meet the new Xbox 360 dashboard [slideshow]

By Travis Brown
Published 6 months ago

On Dec. 6, 2011, Microsoft released the next major dashboard update for the 57.7 million Xbox 360 consoles that have been sold worldwide. With it comes a brand new Metro-based user-interface along with a number of fresh capabilities that not only improve the Xbox experience, but moves it several steps closer to being the jack-of-all-trades device of your living room.

The new Xbox 360 dashboard reflects Microsoft larger ambitions--a declaration that Xbox is much more than just a games console. It's a full-blown entertainment system that not only competes with the likes of game-industry rivals Sony and Nintendo. It also contends with Apple and Google.

In the new update, hubs are now displayed horizontally (left to right) across the top of the dashboard. They include Bing, Social, Video, Games, Music, Apps and Settings, with Microsoft introducing Live TV to the mix later in the year.

Quickplay lets you access and launch one of 7 of your most recently played games and applications. You can find this option in the Home hub under the ‘quick play’ tile in the bottom left.

Kinect updates include Bing voice search. For example, if you are in the Music hub and see a tile for Smashing Pumpkins, saying "Xbox. Smashing Pumpkins" will take you to the Zune artist page.

Avatars performing random movements definitely helps make the dash feel more "alive".

Beacons allows you to post alerts that can be viewed on Facebook or the actual Xbox 360 dashboard. These alerts let anyone viewing their friends list know that you would like to play a game or watch a movie.

Microsoft gives every Gold member approximately 511MB of online storage space. So now, there’s less of a need to carry your Xbox hard drive or a memory card when you want to continue slaying dragons at your friends dwelling.

The new dashboard now features a dedicated hub for apps. These applications consist of content providers for music and/or video.

Updated apps include the already established Last.fm, Hulu Plus, ESPN, and a much improved version of the Netflix app. Along with the existing apps come an assortment of newcomers such as Today, Daily Motion, SYFY, and dozens of others.

November 2005 -- Xbox 360 released to the world, and with it comes the blade interface.

November 2008 -- The subsequent dashboard, dubbed as the NXE (short for new Xbox experience) introduced much more variety in terms of accessible content. Added Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm, Zune.

November 2010 -- Microsoft tweaked the design of the dashboard to include their Metro design style with sharp lines. They also introduced many new features.