Microsoft releases a new dashboard for the Xbox360 almost every year, and while last year’s User Interface upgrade made it a bit sleeker and added some hues of grey, the next update for the console will bring it in line with the “Metro” UI from Windows Phone 7 and Windows 8, and closely resemble it in look and feel.
The beta for the latest UI is due to start in October, but there has been no confirmation as to when the actual UI will go live. The reason for the change seems to be that Microsoft believes the way people play games have changed a lot.
“The definition of a game console is changing over time. What people expect and want is changing. This update gets us into a place where we can expand more rapidly without breaking the experience for people who are primarily there to play games,” Microsoft’s director of platform marketing, Albert Penello told Gamasutra.
At the moment, users have to activate the separate Kinect menu by waving their hand, but the new UI will integrate the controller and the Kinect interface, which should make things a bit easier. The last big UI came in the form of the NXE in late 2008, but Penello added that the new UI will be much bigger and more exciting. “(It’s) probably as big, if not bigger, in terms of what we did around NXE in terms of a significant change to the UI”.
But what will users get for their effort to download it? Penello said that the UI will lay the groundwork for more entertaining features, and added that the new UI will focus on three areas: “performance, consistent and easy navigation [and] ubiquitous search and voice.”
Currently users of the PlayStation 3 can search the internet through the console’s browser, but the upcoming UI will allow Xbox360 users to make use of Microsoft’s Bing search service “and aims to index content by name so it can easily be found by Xbox users.” Users won’t be able to search the internet though, as it’s only limited to anything on the Xbox market place.
“The goal is to solve a lot of those types of problems, through search, through just general UI improvements – making that stuff easier to find,” referring to the fact that there are thousands of bits of information on the market place, especially for Indie and Arcade developers.
Users will also be able to navigate around the new menus by using only their voice. “No more dead ends… If you can see it, you can say it,” said Penello. He also added that the new UI has been on the drawing board for maybe as long as two years, and was planned even before Kinect.
“Our big philosophy is, ‘the entertainment you want with the people you care about made easy,’ ” Penello concluded.
Charlie Fripp – Consumer Tech editor
