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.