New Xbox 360 Dashboard Shown in Leaked Video, Game Installation Demonstrated

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Continuing the recent trend of leaks, a new video showcasing the revised Xbox 360 dashboard and its game installation functionality has appeared on the internet.

In addition to game installs and Netflix streaming support, the new dashboard--dubbed the New Xbox Experience--will pack customizable Avatars and the original blade interface when it arrives this fall.

As previously reported, and demonstrated in the footage below, installed games will still require the disc to run as a result of piracy concerns. [videofeature]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQMAz1qIWvs [img]/extras/faylor/xboxleak.jpg[/img][/videofeature]

Chris Faylor was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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  • reply
    August 11, 2008 9:14 AM

    Other than the loud as fuck dvd drive I don't see what this really does. Maybe some loading times decrease, but you still have to have the dvd in the drive to start the game which makes this pointless really imo. That would be so awesome if we could just install it and never need the dvd in the tray again.

    • reply
      August 11, 2008 9:18 AM

      but then a group of friends would only have to buy 1 copy between them

      • reply
        August 11, 2008 9:23 AM

        I'm sure there will be a unique identifier on each dvd to prevent this. I highly doubt the notion eluded anyone at Microsoft. ;)

        • reply
          August 11, 2008 9:36 AM

          No, OrkO is saying that because you have to have the disk in the tray, it prevents this. Ejecting the tray resets the 360.

        • reply
          August 11, 2008 9:38 AM

          I don't know... I wonder if they went that far. If you are actually in the same room with multiple 360's... I don't think that is going to hurt anybody. How often does that even happen in the grand scheme of things? It probably wasn't worth the effort on their part. I bet it just checks for a disk once on startup... I wouldn't be surprised if this worked.

          • reply
            August 11, 2008 11:38 AM

            But as soon as you press eject on the 360 does it not reset the console, therefore making you do a recheck.

            • reply
              August 11, 2008 1:04 PM

              Nope... I'll have to test it when I'm home... but if you are playing a game off the HDD (like a live arcade game) you can open and close the tray with no effect (I think). The only thing I could imagine would be a problem would be if you close the tray with a game disk in there... it will probably read the disk and try to load it. You could either leave the tray open while you play (which I've done before) or just close it with no game in there.

        • reply
          August 11, 2008 1:09 PM

          DVDs today don't allow for that, but I can definitely see the next generation of consoles requiring some method of activation which will allow you to do just that.

          CD-Keys just like PC games, with online activation required in 2012. Bring it on.

    • reply
      August 11, 2008 9:20 AM

      You will not here the DVD drive, the DVD check is just to see if you have the actual disk other wise everyone could install each others games on each other 360's.

      SO basicaly this allows you to play your games and not here the freeking loud drive, that to me is worth it 100%. Thank god I have a elite the 120 gig will come in handy for sure.

    • reply
      August 11, 2008 9:23 AM

      i think load times will be significantly less with this...

    • reply
      August 11, 2008 9:25 AM

      How does it make it pointless? It's not installing the whole DVD to the hard drive, and even if it was, how does having the DVD in the tray or not matter? You don't even need to use it if you don't want to, it's a feature that's there if you want to make use of it and I'm sure many people will

      • reply
        August 11, 2008 9:27 AM

        I'm upgrading to an elite or at least a 120GB harddrive just for this feature.

      • reply
        August 11, 2008 9:31 AM

        it's not installing the whole dvd to the hard drive, what? isn't that the whole point of the feature?

        with my 360, even having a disc in the drive when doing nothing made noise. and idle spin vibrated the console more than read speeds. it was annoying :(

        • reply
          August 11, 2008 9:38 AM

          It's doubtful they would have you install the entire DVD to the drive, probably just the frequently used texture/video/ other art files and some game data. If you were to install the entire thing, most 360 owners could only "install" one game at a time given the small the 20 GB drive (<13 GB really).

          • reply
            August 11, 2008 9:41 AM

            Well, maybe that's why they are coming out with 60GB as a standard. Plus they want to get people to buy 120GBs if possible, not that people should or would for the price they are selling it, but it's an option.

            How would they select only certain data to install for every single game? The only practical solution would be to install it all, and they've done it with Xbox Originals Downloads, they can do it here too. DVDs aren't bigger than 8.5GB or whatever, and games rarely use up all that space.

            • reply
              August 11, 2008 9:49 AM

              Again, the whole point of the install feature is to bypass any disc loading. If it only installed certain data, you'd still need to read from the disc sometimes for somethings. From what i understand, it installs everything and the disc is only required to start the game.

              Their setup seems similar to mounting an image of a disc in your computer's operating system, rather than something like the a PS3 game where only certain parts are installed.

              • reply
                August 11, 2008 7:26 PM

                you are comepletely correct... it basically makes an image of the disk on the system. that will be the only way it work especially with older games. there is no patch to tell it what files to copy from games... it just makes an image.

            • reply
              August 11, 2008 9:56 AM

              Well as to what files would be installed, that could probably be handled in a patch for each game (not incredibly practical, but possible). And true, not all games use the 8.5 GBs, but best case scenario you could still only fit two or maaaaybe three games on the standard 20GB drive.

              Yes, they do have a 60Gb drive as standard now, but that doesn't help the 360's huge installed base of mainly Premium/Pro owners. Until they lower the insane price on the 120GB drives, this is mostly a bullet point feature.

              • reply
                August 11, 2008 10:02 AM

                Like it or not, it's brilliant move by MS, if only to sell of their overpriced hard drive accessories. People will buy them, maybe not you, but people will. Some may even trade up their old consoles for Elites.

                My 360 was an Elite, and it was more than worth it the extra $100 or whatever it was. After using it for a few months, I couldn't understand how anyone could put up with a 20GB.

                • reply
                  August 11, 2008 1:07 PM

                  They did what people asked them to do. For this, they get a huge kudos, whether lots of people want it or not. I for one, do. HDDs are quieter, quicker, and will prolong the life of the DVD drive.

                  Huge props to MS for doing this.

              • reply
                August 11, 2008 7:27 PM

                thats the entire point.. to make people upgrade their drives or buy hard drives.. granted they need to drop the fucking price so i can get another 120 gig drive, but it definitely will make people buy the hd..

          • reply
            August 11, 2008 10:34 AM

            It's not doubtful, how would they know those files for each game? They're probably just copying over the whole thing then making sure you've got the same game in the drive before running.

            • reply
              August 11, 2008 12:23 PM

              I guess it's not really doubtful, it's just a bit ridiculous considering how small most 360 hard drives are out there.

              I have a hard time imagining MS wouldn't make more than double the amount of money (including DLC, XBLA and Xbox Originals) by reducing the HDD to half it's current ripoff price. I know I'd buy one if it were $80-100, and I'm sure there's a lot more people out there that would do the same if it weren't so unreasonably expensive.

            • reply
              August 11, 2008 1:10 PM

              I can see games post-dashboard update being able to tell the installer what it needs to copy over (leave video files/other languages out of the installation) but for the older stuff, a mandatory disc to disk copy will be required.

      • reply
        August 11, 2008 9:40 AM

        I'm pretty sure it IS installing the whole DVD to the drive because they are doing this with GTA IV which was developed before this feature was available. In order to be selective about which part of the game are installed... the game would have to be made to tell the system "only take this part and this part". The DVD check is only to make sure you have the disk and don't just install the game then return it.

    • reply
      August 11, 2008 9:30 AM

      It's all about load times, and for games like GTA4 where you can easily run into invisible objects when driving faster than the DVD can provide details, the added speed should increase playability.

      • Ziz legacy 10 years legacy 20 years
        reply
        August 11, 2008 9:43 AM

        Yeah can't wait to play it again and see how better it runs.

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          August 11, 2008 8:04 PM

          I can't wait to see how many hard drives start failing...

      • reply
        August 11, 2008 9:49 AM

        Exactly. I imagine games like GTA 4, Mass Effect, and Oblivion will benefit greatly from this feature. That's what I would install on it, anyway...

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          August 11, 2008 10:21 AM

          Hmm, I hadn't even thought about Mass Effect, I was thinking more of Oblivion, GTA, Burnout Paradise, and other open worldish games that stream from the disc. It would be great if this took care of the texture pop-in problems though.

    • reply
      August 11, 2008 9:42 AM

      No more fear of a disc read error makes this a much welcomed update.

      I'm so terrified of a DRE that I haven't played any 360 games that weren't Live Arcade in a while.

      Really looking forward to this update so I can finish Mass Effect (and GTA4)!

      • reply
        August 11, 2008 10:09 AM

        That's the reason I never got the 7-day Survivor achievement in Dead Rising... Got to Day 4 and then the DRE hit. Never attempted it again after wasting so many hours to something like that. I will definitely do it once I can install the game to the HD and not worry about that.

      • reply
        August 11, 2008 10:13 AM

        Same. Can't wait for this feature. Waiting to finish GTA4 until then because I constantly get DREs.

    • reply
      August 11, 2008 2:04 PM

      I am happy about it purely because it will reduce the ridiculous DVD drive noise. Everything else (load times or seek times for sudden data reads) is purely a bonus.

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