I also installed the New Xbox Experience. I was actually worried because downloading system firmwares are dangerous if it’s cut off in the middle of some kind of power failure. Living in Paranaque, Philippines doesn’t make you feel any safe from that. But then again, I can’t miss out on this since the new menu system has been hyped to the full extent, and a lot of my friends has loaded up the NXE as soon as it got up on November 19th.
The system update took 30+ minutes for me. I didn’t actually time it, but it’s around that time. There were 2 download updates. It went smoothly and there were no problems. Except that I almost thought my system broke because it hangged up right after my initial installation of the NXE. Good thing it didn’t.
The new menu is wonderful, I can’t believe that the system can totally make itself fresh and new. The first thing that pops out is the introduction of the new Avatar for your profile. The system reminds me of Mii, and it’s fun to play around. There are so much things to play around with your avatars looks. I just wish that there were more customizable options like changing the position of the freckles or changing the color of your plain clothes. But obviously, Xbox Live will charge for any new clothes in the future, since they charge for pretty much anything, like really small images that are used on their profile and themes too.
The menu system is not really revolutionary, since it does remind me a bit of Playstation’s Xross Media Bar, but NXE’s more refined and more visually stunning. The look itself is not the only change, there are other improvements too, like games can now be installed to the hard drive. Some games work wonderfully nice, since the system is more quiet without the disk drive spinning. Some games even load faster now once you install them. You still need the disk for it to boot up the game. The only problem now, is that 20Gb won’t cut it anymore.
There are also issues of banning. Everyone who has modded their Xbox360 units, even with stealth mode will have problems if they are online. Too bad that they will be missing out a lot of the good stuff that Live has to offer.
Anyway, I really enjoy the new menu, and for what’s its worth, It gives the 360 owners something fresh and feels like a new console all together.
