Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. News

Microsoft Xbox 360 update comes to all, introducing disruptive changes

Anthony John Agnello
By

The Oct. 16 roll out of the new Xbox 360 dashboard was a little confusing for Microsoft’s customers. Some people were able to download the update immediately, while others were forced to wait. “To ensure a stable release, this will be a gradual deployment across subscribers and regions over the course of the next week,” said Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb. The wait’s over. Microsoft made Tuesday the final release roll out for the new Xbox 360 dashboard for all.

Just to recap what’s new in this package, there’s a new layout for the dashboard, which is now customizable thanks to “Pinning,” a tool for marking which apps you most want on the front page. Zune Video has also officially been changed to Xbox Video, and the Bing-fueled Xbox 360 version of Internet Explorer is in as well. All of these new features are really secondary to the real role of the new interface, which is creating greater parity between Microsoft’s home entertainment business and its PC business which is undergoing a major overhaul with the Friday release of Windows 8. Microsoft wants its products to be as broadly familiar, and idiosyncratic, as Apple’s mobile and PC products.

Recommended Videos

There’s a fly in the proverbial ointment, though. The update removes some features from the Xbox 360 that Microsoft was all too proud of just a few years ago, namely the Twitter and Facebook apps. A Microsoft rep told IGN last week that the company was “retiring the Facebook and Twitter apps” in order to “streamline” app functionality on Xbox 360.

Related

On the one hand, those devoted apps aren’t wholly necessary anymore thanks to the introduction of the Xbox version of Internet Explorer. This is still a television-based living room device, though, and tailored apps are guaranteed to be more usable than the basic web pages, no matter how streamlined the new console web browser is. So why remove the apps?

To better prepare Xbox users for a console that uses Windows 8. The Xbox 720 is said to use the greatly changed Windows platform, and since that’s the case, Microsoft will naturally want Xbox users to leverage Windows 8’s patented “People” app for social networking rather than individually branded apps. That will presumably help strengthen the Windows ecosystem for users. Whether that will work depends entirely on how users cotton to Windows 8 on PCs first. If Microsoft’s new OS is met with the same sort of scorn as past refreshes like Windows Vista, it may have to reconsider these changes.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Anthony John Agnello
Anthony John Agnello
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Anthony John Agnello is a writer living in New York. He works as the Community Manager of Joystiq.com and his writing has…
How to draw on Google Docs to add doodles, sketches, and more
The Google Play Store, YouTube, and Google Docs installed on an Amazon Fire Max 11.

Word processing software isn’t the kind of tool that most users would consider exciting, which is why we’re glad to see companies like Google adding a little flair to its own products. We’re talking about Google Docs, a free-to-use word processor that’s part of your larger Google Account ecosystem. Basic formatting options and other familiar word processing functions are front and center on Google Docs, but the ability to add doodles, sketches, and other entertaining media to your next Docs file requires a special bit of know-how.

Read more
AMD’s upcoming APUs might destroy your GPU
AMD CEO Lisa Su holding an APU chip.

The spec sheets for AMD's upcoming APU lineups, dubbed Strix Point and Strix Halo, have just been leaked, and it's safe to say that they're looking pretty impressive. Equipped with Zen 5 cores, the new APUs will find their way to laptops that are meant to be on the thinner side, but their performance might rival that of some of the best budget graphics cards -- and that's without having a discrete GPU.

While AMD hasn't unveiled Strix Point (STX) and Strix Halo (STX Halo) specs just yet, they were leaked by HKEPC and then shared by VideoCardz. The sheet goes over the maximum specs for each APU lineup, the first of which, Strix Point, is rumored to launch this year. Strix Halo, said to be significantly more powerful, is currently slated for a 2025 release.

Read more
Hyte made me fall in love with my gaming PC all over again
A PC built with the Hyte Nexus Link ecosystem.

I've never seen anything quite like Hyte's new Nexus Link ecosystem. Corsair has its iCue Link system, and Lian Li has its magnetic Uni system, and all three companies are now offering ways to tie together your PC cooling and lighting devoid of extraneous cables. But Hyte's marriage of hardware, software, and accessories is in a league of its own -- and it transformed my PC build completely.

I've been using some of the foundational components of the ecosystem for about a week, retailoring a build inside of Hyte's own Y40 PC case to see how the system works. It doesn't seem too exciting at first -- Hyte released an all-in-one (AIO) liquid cooler, some fans, and a few RGB strips, who cares? But as I engaged more with the Nexus Link ecosystem, I only became more impressed.
It all starts with the cooler

Read more