Major Nelson, the official mouthpiece of all things Xbox, has some numbers about the New Xbox Experience that might interest, like, 11 of you. There’s a tremendous amount of spin (“If LIVE were a U.S. city, it would be the largest city with over 14-million members. The equivalent of New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago combined.” Only it’s not a city, so…) being done to the numbers, but one or two look solid: Xbox Live Arcade sales have tripled in the first week since the NXE launched, and movie downloads increased 49 percent and TV downloads increased 30 percent after the launch.

Yeah, neat, but let’s not forgot that two big XBLA games launched in the days after the NXE in Street Fighter and Banjo-Kazooie. Those may have had something to do with the increase in sales, no?

Long, extended technical answer: If you really, really want to know then hit the jump for an explanation from Bungie’s “uber engineer and Chief Caching Officer, Mat Noguchi.”

The Xbox 360 HDD has a section for games to use called the utility partition. Games can use this section for whatever they want to; Halo 3 uses the utility partition to cache maps as they will load faster off the HDD than off the DVD. As a side note, the utility partition can be deleted when other games are played. This is why maps can take longer to load when you play another game in between various Halo 3 sessions. (As was the case with Halo 1 and Halo 2.)

So when Halo 3 runs, if a HDD is present, we copy maps from the DVD to the utility partition (on the HDD). Think of it as an on demand install of Halo 3 to some scratch space on the HDD. Halo 3 doesn’t actually know where it’s running from, so it always assumes it’s running from a DVD. This is an unfortunate consequence of new features (namely, install to HDD) being added to the Xbox 360 after Halo 3 shipped. And as a result, it means that even if Halo 3 is already installed to the HDD, it will still copy maps to the utility partition.

So then the real question is why is copying from HDD to HDD slower than copying from DVD to HDD? In the first case, you are reading from one I/O device (HDD) and writing to the same I/O device (HDD). In the second case, you are reading from one I/O device (DVD) and writing to a different I/O device (HDD). In the first case, because we are reading and writing to the same device, the total copy time is the amount of time it takes to read the map plus the time it takes to write the map. Ultimately this is because for the HDD, you read and write through the same mechanism, i.e., the hard drive read/write head, and those reads and writes cannot occur simultaneously through a single mechanism. (If they could, it would be awesome, and I wouldn’t have to document any of this. Unfortunately, it’s not easy to do for other reasons.) For the second case, because we are reading and writing from different devices, the total copy time is the larger of the total time to read the map and the total time to write the map. This is because we can read from one device (DVD) at the same time we are writing to another device (HDD). There is some overhead because you can’t start writing data until you read it, but it is dwarfed by the time to copy a map. (About 128k vs. 500 MB or a ratio of 4000:1.)

There are other factors that contribute to load times, such as preloading data from the map you are about to start so that you don’t have to sit through a non-interactive loading screen; the only difference in load times occurs when we copy a map that has not been cached to the utility partition or has been evicted from the utility partition because some other maps were run. Once a map has been cached, the time to load it will be identical to running Halo 3 off the DVD with a HDD.

Running into any problems or is everything smooth as butter? What are your overall thoughts on the UI redesign?

NXE coverage on CrunchGear

The New Xbox Experience is currently being pushed to all Xbox 360s. To celebrate (?) its launch, Major Nelson, the Xbox division’s chief of propaganda, has put together a snappy list of 10 things you need to “check out.” You know, create an Avatar (I shan’t be doing that), start a party (I shan’t be doing that), install some games to the hard drive (not worth my time) and just plain ol’ look around (nope).

Fun for all.

The most significant addition, obviously, is Netflix support. The rest is largely “oh, neat,” then you go about your business.

A round of applause for Eurogamer, which did the thankless task of testing out the NXE‘s HDD Install option and comparing it to normal method of playing games off the DVD. Several games of all shapes and sizes were checked, including Gears of War 2 (or should I say Gears of Bore, yuck), GTA IV and Halo 3, and found that, on average, you’re likely to shave a few seconds off your loading time by installing a game to the hard drive.

Take Gears of War 2. Running the game off the DVD, as you do now, the initial load takes 32 seconds. Running off the hard drive—each game is installed as a disc image, so it’s one big file per game—that same initial load takes only 24 seconds. So, you save eight seconds by installing to the hard drive.

Games like Half-Life 2, which can be found in The Orange Box, fare the best, as they’re not at all optimized to run off the disc; the game loads its sections as necessary with no fancy streaming to speak of. As such, loading the level We Don’t Go To Ravenholm (presumably that’s what Eurogamer meant with “We don’t go there any more”), which normally takes 47 seconds instead takes only 15 seconds—that’s 32 seconds saved, chief.

Games like GTA IV, which Rockstar designed in such a way that it’s constantly streaming data off the disc, minimizing load times, don’t benefit as much from the HDD install. Starting a new game drops from 26.5 seconds to 25.2. Loading an in-game mission dropped from 8.5 seconds to 7 seconds.

It comes down to this: if the game streams data off the disc as it’s played you’re not going to see much improvement (the GTA IV example). If, however, the game goes about its business the old school way, loading data as it’s needed (the Half-Life 2 example), then you’ll see a marked improvement.

You know the upcoming New Xbox Experience that has so many people excited for some reason? Turns out that Microsoft call centers are bracing themselves for NXE-induced red rings of death. So while you’re gaining a [fancy?] new user interface you may also be losing an Xbox 360. Fun!

It’s like this: Microsoft is afraid that its Frankenstein of a machine may have trouble “taking,” in a sense, the NXE update. The result of such a rejection could be (emphasis on the “could” as none of this is guaranteed to happen) mass RRODs. And when the system breaks down…

It gets better. You remember the extended warranty that Microsoft offered early last year in order to remedy the original RROD situation? It’s set to expire a few days before the NXE launches—meaning that if the NXE causes a RROD you’re SOL.

Please keep in mind that that is all speculation—there’s no reason to suspect that the NXE will cause mass RRODs. If it does, however, then we’re all in for a treat in the next few weeks.

If I get another RROD—I’ve already had one, last year—then that’s it for me, I’ll quit gaming.

via GameCenterOnline

The New Xbox Experience comes out in just a few days (or you can illegally download the leak, doesn’t bother me one bit), but did you know that Microsoft “pulled a Longhorn” with it? That is to say, lots of things that were initially promised have not made the cut, primarily due to time restraints. Speaking to CVG, the head of Xbox Live in Europe, Jerry Johnson, said:

Half the things we wanted to do we cut out of the service.

No, that was not worth quoting, never mind block quoting. No fourth wall here.

If you watch Peter’s well-directed review of the NXE, you can see just how great it is.

And after watching the review, if you’re left feeling a little underwhelmed know this: you’re not the only one. I tooled around with it for a few minutes and the one thing that stuck in my head was, “Um, ok, it’s a new UI. Nicer, yes, but don’t tell me this is going to REVOLUTIONIZE the industry or something.”

The biggest difference I noticed was: you know how in order to scan through all your demos and videos and whatnot using the current, non-NXE interface you have to scroll up and down a lot? Same thing with the NXE, except this time you’re scrolling left and right with Cover Flow-like icons providing that extra pinch of eye candy.

An improvement? Absolutely. But don’t think your life, or your Xbox-playing experience, will be dramatically different.

Lost in a flurry of caramel and processed sugar this weekend was news that the New Xbox Experience, also known as a user interface, has leaked online.

The fancy, I guess, UI for the Xbox 360 can be found at the usual places—you know what they are. Keep in mind that it’s merely a beta, the same one that was handed out to a lucky few in recent days. Gee, I wonder where the leak came from?

Oh, and here’s a warning: those of you who opt to illegally download and install the NXE will be banned from Xbox Live. That’s the threat, at least. I suppose that’s a big enough stick to ward of most of the would-be downloaders, but curiosity can get the best of you sometimes.

My advice: don’t even bother. Even though the install process appears to be dead simple, it’s still not worth the effort. In just a few days the update will be officially released, and then you can enjoy pressing left-right a lot to navigate your 360′s content (as opposed to pressing up-down as you do now). It’s revolutionary!

A lot of things are riding on this UI redesign for Microsoft and the Xbox team, but more importantly it’s quelling the frustrations that many of us have had to deal with since the beginning of time. The blade interface was a good start, but it was frustrating at times and it certainly deterred me from perusing the Marketplace. Streaming via Netflix has been rumored for almost a year and that feature will finally be unlocked come November 19th. I still think the whole avatar feature is childish, but I was once asked whether or not I made characters in my own image (like in Madden or whatever), which promptly made me shut my mouth.

The Xbox and Microsoft teams began working on NXE this past spring and seeing what they’ve accomplished in such a short time is pretty amazing. Most will be content with the addition of Netflix, virtual parties and creating their own avatars, but I’m most excited by the fact that we no longer have to wait for the spring or fall updates to unlock new features.

Video after the jump. I’m no Doug Aamoth and I apologize in advance.

The Marketplace is no longer a never-ending maze. Everything you could ever want to purchase whether it’s a game related theme or new map pack is accessible from just about anywhere in the dashboard. You don’t have to go the Marketplace to do it. If your favorite game is Gears of War then you can see what’s available for download from your games library. It’s simple and more streamlined. Of course, you will be redirected to the Marketplace channel, but the point is that you don’t have to go there to begin with. You can also search for items in various ways, but the inclusion of an alphabetical search is key. I can finally redeem codes and/or purchase content from my computer without having to be at home. Everything begins to download once I turn on my Xbox and sign into Live.

The Party feature is also fairly neat for many reasons. The 8-way party chat is great because you don’t all have to be playing the same game in the same room at once. You can all be doing different things and still be connected. The Photo Party feature is perfect friends and family because you can all share photos at once. Photos can be uploaded to the party over your wireless network, USB drive and/or CD/DVD. I like being able to snag certains photos and bringing them back up to the forefront. Sometimes those embarrassing photos you don’t want people to see get uploaded. You can also upload screenshots or share new maps with your cronies if they’re too cheap to shell out for them. It’ll be interesting to see how this feature evolves through time.

The Netflix feature can be seen in the video demo and it’s pretty straightforward. HD streaming will begin on the 19th as well. Woohoo!

Lovers of the blade system should know that you can still access a variation of it by pressing the Guide Button. This is a quick way for gamers to jump from one area to another while they learn the new dashboard system. It also gives you vitals like controller battery life, your Gamerscore, who’s online, etc.

Ripping games to the hard drive has made a huge difference in my overall happiness because I no longer have to listen to the thunderous fans of my Xbox. The actual difference was measured at 7db (this figure came from MS). Games load a lot faster, but I wish I didn’t have to have the disc in the drive simply because I’m lazy and don’t want to swap out discs when my ADD kicks in.

The next addition may or may not have been mentioned, but you can delete zero score games that you or someone else played once on your account so that it doesn’t affect your Gamerscore.

I’m pretty stoked on the New Xbox Experience, but like some of my peers have said, “it’s just a UI.” But it’s a UI that makes the overall experience that much easier to navigate and it can be updated on the fly. And don’t worry about the servers crashing on the 19th, MS assures me that it won’t happen.

If there’s anything else that you guys want me to check out or film then leave a comment and I’ll be sure to get to it this week.

Announced at E3 along with the rest of NXE, Xbox Live Primetime sounded pretty gimmicky with “live” game shows, but it’s being held up to ensure that the rest of NXE rolls out smoothly. I’d be more inclined to believe such a statement, but it’s being delayed until the spring of ’09, which leads me to believe that it’s nowhere near ready for primetime. So, will NXE be ready by November 19?

via Forbes

Major Nelson, doesn’t he look cool, is hinting that NXE may be coming as early as next week or this week (not sure), but it won’t be the full fledged update. It’s more than likely going to be a beta release or he’s just looking for page hits like Destructoid hints at. Either way, be sure to check out his blog for deets! Lame.

via Destructoid

Fret not Xbox 360 owners for we will all be privy to NXE with nary a problem. Those nasty ‘facts’ from earlier in the week about you needing 256MB of free space weren’t exactly true. However, you may want to have more than 128MB to enjoy everything that NXE will offer.

The New Xbox Experience will require 128MB of free space. A hard drive is recommended for the optimal experience, to take advantage of some new features, and to be able to enjoy the great movies, TV shows and games available on Xbox LIVE. While we expect the majority of consumers to download the New Xbox Experience without a problem, a small percentage of Xbox 360 owners do not have enough memory to accommodate the update. To help ensure all Xbox LIVE members are able to download the New Xbox Experience and enjoy its new features, Microsoft will be offering storage solutions to the Xbox LIVE community. We are not sharing details of this offering yet. Be sure to check xbox.com for more details in the coming weeks.

I bet MS will offer online storage solutions. Yeah, that’s what I think MS will offer.

That’s about a four to five second difference in load time. Is Microsoft going to start gouging us with higher capacity HDDs?

via Kotaku

Don’t forget to drop your guess off in comments, folks. The rumors are swirling about when the New Xbox Experience will launch and we’ve got plenty of gadgety goodness around the office to throw your way. If there are multiple entries that land within one day or the actual day, we’ll find a way to make everyone happy.

I just received the Mortal Kombat: Kollection so that’s one prize that’s up for grabs.

Check the original post for other details and leave your comments there!

Announced at E3 and coming to the Xbox 360 on October 28 in North America is Scene It? Box Office Smash.

“Scene It? Box Office Smash” also is Xbox 360’s first game to debut with the New Xbox Experience’s player Avatars. Players can literally put themselves into the game through personalized characters that respond to your play and interact with each other throughout the course of the game!

One might surmise from this excerpt from the press release that NXE is coming this month, but earlier reports are that it would be out in November. Microsoft is mum on an exact launch date other than “this fall.” The Xbox team has been showing off bits and pieces of the new dashboard over on the gamerscoreblog.

If anyone can get within a day of the actual launch date then I’ll send something your way. Maybe some Xbox 360 games or whatever else I have lying around the office. Leave your guesses in comments. We’ll cut it off when I see fit.

Fire up Xbox Live for a “glimpse” of the upcoming New Xbox Experience, Microsft’s latest update to the Xbox System Software.

The Avatars are still lame, sure, but the enhanced multimedia options are a welcome treat.