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Microsoft's Fall Update With Redesigned Xbox Dashboard Is Now Available To All (engadget.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the fresh-coat-of-paint dept.

Microsoft has released the next big "Fall" update for the Xbox One, which focuses on speed and simplicity. Engadget reports: The first "Fluid Design" interface comes with a redesigned Home page, which is all about simplicity and customization. The top-level section has four shortcuts (your current game, two personalized suggestions, and a deal from the Microsoft store) and a horizontal carousel underneath. The biggest change, however, is the new "Content Blocks" that sit below this screen. Scroll down and you'll find a series of large, visual panels dedicated to games and friends. These are completely customizable and act like miniature hubs for your favorite titles and communities. The quick-access Guide has been tweaked for speed, with small, horizontal tabs that you can slide between with the Xbox controller's LB and RB bumpers, D-pad or left thumbstick. If you launch the Guide while you're streaming or part of an active party, you'll also see the corresponding broadcast and party tabs by default. Other Guide tweaks include a new Tournaments section in the Multiplayer tab, which will summarize any official, professional or community tournaments that you've entered. In addition, Microsoft has overhauled the Community tab with a modern, grid-based layout. It's also tweaked the idle and screen dimming features that kick in when you walk away from the console momentarily. Larry Hryb, Xbox Live's Major Nelson and Mike Ybarra, the Platform Engineer, have posted a walkthrough video on YouTube highlighting all the major new changes.

38 comments

  1. Good by thereitis · · Score: 1

    The current XBox One dashboard is a train wreck - a usability disaster. Let's hope they got this new one right.

    1. Re: Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      LOL, no... they took the last version and added more designers.

    2. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Usability disaster is all they do now. Just look at Windows 10... I don't see any Microsoft UI getting better in the next decade. It's all one-size-fits-none.

    3. Re:Good by Bite+The+Pillow · · Score: 1

      I'm looking forward to using mine as a toilet and sending their UX / UI teams lots of inspirational photos.

    4. Re:Good by Xest · · Score: 1

      They seem to change the dashboard at least twice a year and it's getting tiresome now. The one we had about 9 months ago was pretty good, then they replaced it with a turd that was a massive retrograde step because you have to now press like 5 buttons to do something like quit a game that previously took two. Hopefully if nothing else they've simply reverted to the previous one that worked and was fine.

    5. Re: Good by leonbev · · Score: 2

      Or, they took the last version and found a new way to add more new game advertising.

      If I ever meet "Major Nelson" in person, I'm going to punch him in the face!

    6. Re:Good by Zaphod+The+42nd · · Score: 1

      MS is the absolute worst at UI / UX design. They don't understand their customers at all.

      --
      GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
    7. Re:Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nobody cares. Nobody even uses "xbox", whatever the fuck that's supposed to be.

      Only idiots use Windows 10.

    8. Re: Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The top-level section has four shortcuts (your current game, two personalized suggestions, and a deal from the Microsoft store

      Emohasis mine.

  2. What if I don't have an xbox? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do I have to go out and purchase one now? I sure hope not.

  3. That's nice, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can it run Crysis?

    1. Re:That's nice, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, you can buy the Xbox 360 version on your Xbox One....I believe both Crysis 2 and 3 are available.

    2. Re:That's nice, but... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or he could get the graphically superior PC version.

      Either way, the Crysis games are fucking awful.

  4. Stuff that matters? by manu0601 · · Score: 1

    News for nerds indeed, but does it really matters?

    1. Re:Stuff that matters? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Matters" is subjective, you dope.

      Very little of what comes across this website actually matters in that it changes lives.

  5. Xbox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Yawn

  6. more like the 'fail update' by vux984 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "The top-level section has four shortcuts (your current game, two personalized suggestions, and a deal from the Microsoft store)"

    So... one game and 3 ads. Thanks but no thanks, this is why i don't own an xbox.

    "The first "Fluid Design" interface comes with a redesigned Home page, which is all about simplicity and customization. "

    Ooo... customization! So, can I remove the useless top section that is 75% ads, and is wasting around 30% of the dashboard real-estate?

    Guessing not.

    1. Re:more like the 'fail update' by iampiti · · Score: 2

      Came to say exactly this.
      It seems in modern computing devices we must accept ads no matter what. They don't even have an ad free Windows 10 version (maybe the enterprise one?) even if you're willing to pay for it.
      I just want the control of my devices back (like it was until Windows 7)

  7. Does it by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does it remove all the ads for media and live gold? All I need is a link to whatever disk in the system, grid of apps and games I picked, a link to all the rest. I'll put the various media stores on the home page if I want it and sign up for emails if I care about sales.

  8. Am I the only one that remembers the 360 Blade UI? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When I first bought a launch Xbox 360, it came with a great UI. It was clean, simple, and easy to navigate. All the screen real estate was dedicated to whatever section you were currently viewing. It might have been a bit gaudy, but at least it worked and stayed the hell out of your way.

    I sold my 360 after they updated it to the new style dashboard and it started showing me ads and tiles for crap I didn't yet own.

    Kinda sounds like they're still pulling the same old shit. This is one of the reasons why I don't own a modern day console. I don't care for the advertising, the massive 0d downloads, and the always online connectivity along with the disc and account restrictions (even though it sounds like you can't even play most games OOTB because of the initial required downloads).

    What the hell happened to just throwing in a disc and playing the goddam game? Wasn't that supposed to be the entire point of a console? Throw in a disc and go?

  9. UIs downhill... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Media UIs have been going downhill since what, pre-bloatware winamp? Almost all modern media interfaces basically take what should be a quick-to-sort, quick-to-search linked list and turn it into a slow-to-sort, slow-to-search, crippled user experience.

  10. Has Game Mode Been ported to it yet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So when Game Mode for the creatures edition for Windows 10 was announced, Microsoft also announced that they would port this mode to the XBox.

    Has that happened yet? Because Rockband 4 is unplayable with stuttering when networking is enabled.

  11. from-the-msft-gtfo-department by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Am I not filtering this tripe?

  12. Less is more by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Things I enjoy doing with my Xbox:
    - Minecraft
    - DVD
    - Getting Minecraft updates (hello mutton)

    Things I don't enjoy doing with my Xbox:
    - Waiting for spinning disk to reboot to apply update
    - Waiting for my slow internet to download large updates
    - Finding the new location of the Sign in + Minecraft buttons after an update

  13. Fall? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If Americans insist on calling Autumn "Fall" (because the leaves fall I guess) can you also call Spring "Grow" instead. And while at it Summer "Hot" and Winter "Cold".
    And your "yor" to match with colo[u]r

    Just for non-americans reading Fall in the title above didn't quite make sense at first. ;)

    1. Re: Fall? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We can do that when you start calling down escalators "drops" (you call elevators lifts), call a full battery inflated (you call dead ones flat), and you call the roof of a car the tits (since the two ends are referred to as the bonnet and boot).

    2. Re:Fall? by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1

      It's spring here.

    3. Re:Fall? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think you have it backwards. While Autumn (autumnus) has been around for a long time, and "fall" as in the "fall of the leaf" and harvest as the term for the season between summer and winter both originated in England.

      England also brought us "spring" as in "spring of the leaf". You could be asking why autumn has survived while primetemps did not.

      So really what happened is after the US kicked England's ass in the war, there was a shift in the common vernacular as the word "fall" was being associated as an Americanism and England went back to autumn in the 1800s.

      On a side note, who would of thought that paper I had to write on word origins in college could ever hold useful information.

  14. Poland - Xbox Live is down for last 4 days by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    While in Poland Xbox Live is down for last 4 days (started in friday) - http://downdetector.pl/status/xbox-live (comments there).

  15. Stop changing the user interface!!!!! by HalAtWork · · Score: 2

    This is what, the third time in 3 years? Stop it!!!

    The only change we need is to remove the ads on the user interface, and default to showing the list of games when you start the system. That's it!

    --
    Twinstiq, game news
    1. Re:Stop changing the user interface!!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > The only change we need is to remove the ads on the user interface

      I don't use a console so I wouldn't know, but hasn't anybody figured out what ad servers to block right at the router, or use something like Pi-Hole?

    2. Re:Stop changing the user interface!!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Might you also be blocking access to the game network at the same time? But even if it can be fixed it's a shabby way to welcome customers who pay to get online and even buy into your platform in the first place.

  16. I can no longer Snap apps by TheCastro1689 · · Score: 1

    And that means I can't snap twitch and view it while I'm gaming and read comments. Pretty annoying. I'm also still mad that Netflix stopped using the Kinect.

  17. MS never learns by Zaphod+The+42nd · · Score: 1

    Its really funny watching MS repeat the same EXACT UI mistakes with every version of Xbox. They release an overly complicated interface that nobody likes, change it a lot, it gets bloated, and then they end up re-doing the whole thing from the ground up to be faster. Every time.

    --
    GCS/MU/P d- s:- a-- C++++$ UL++ P+ L++ E+ W++ N o K- w--- O M+ V- PS+++ PE Y+ PGP t+ 5- X R++ tv+ b++ DI++ D++ G+ e++ h-
    1. Re:MS never learns by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 1

      and then they end up re-doing the whole thing from the ground up to be faster. Every time.

      Except with more ads in prominent spots on the home screen. Sort of funny how that ends up as their top priority. Every time.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
  18. When is the dashboard that fast? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Maybe Major Nelson should demo on a real Xbox One, like a first release model, instead of a virtual machine. Microsoft is full of shit.

  19. Re:Am I the only one that remembers the 360 Blade by imidan · · Score: 1

    I bought a 360 well after launch, but before the ads got too obnoxious. Then the Xbox updated and we got video ads with sound. That evening, I reconfigured its DNS to a custom server that I set up to sabotage all requests for the MS ad servers. I was pretty happy with that. There were still some ads, but they were static and easy to ignore. If I couldn't have gotten rid of the video ads, I might well have gotten rid of mine, too.

    Anyway, I've never upgraded to the new generation, and the 360 has been in a box in the closet since I moved a year and a half ago. I've been thinking of buying a PS4 (pretty much to play The Last of Us and FFXII Zodiac). Maybe they'll get cheap for xmas...