Xbox Live update details announced, includes Games on Demand support, Netflix Movie Parties, game ratings
By Nilay Patel 
posted July 16th 2009 8:44PM
posted July 16th 2009 8:44PM
What does this Xbox LIVE Update include?
Netflix Updates
Now you can watch movies with your friends no matter where they are and manage your queue from the comfort of your couch.
- Movie Parties – Xbox LIVE Gold members can sit together in a virtual theater with up to seven friends no matter where they are while your Avatars watch a movie, flirt or even throw popcorn at each other.
- Manage Your Queue – Browse the Netflix Instant Watch video catalogue, choose from the most popular movies and genres and add to your queue all from the comfort of your couch – no computer required.
- Enhanced Playback Experience – Enjoy a smooth viewing experience when your internet bandwidth fluctuates.
- Friends Info – Richer information is now displayed in the Friends channel and in the Guide showing what you and your friends are doing.
Express yourself! Deck your Avatar out with the latest clothing and props from the top brands and game franchises. Please note that only limited content is currently available in the preview.
Clothing
Download premium items, including branded apparel from your favorite fashion labels and Xbox 360 games such as "Halo."
- Props – You can now equip your avatar with animated items they can carry around and interact with.
- Awardables – The ability to earn Avatar clothing and props as rewards within games has been added. Please stay tuned for an update on supporting titles.
Enjoy 24 x 7 access to a growing online library of popular full game titles on Xbox LIVE whenever you want them, in the comfort of your living room.
- Purchase Options – Browse and download a great selection of full Xbox 360 games using Microsoft Points, direct debit, or credit card.
- Game Manuals – Game manuals for Games on Demand titles can be viewed, downloaded or printed on Xbox.com.
- It's Yours Forever! – As with other Xbox LIVE content, Games on Demand titles are linked to your Xbox LIVE account, so you can delete and re-download anything you have already purchased to the same console or another console.
User ratings help you find games that other people think are awesome!
- Rate it – You can now rate every game on the Xbox LIVE Games Marketplace using a 5-star system.
- Sort and Find it – Now you can easily find the games that everyone's been raving about by visiting the Top Rated games in the Browse All category of Xbox LIVE Games Marketplace.
Everyone loves to Party! Check out the new and improved Xbox LIVE Party features.
- Party Reconnections – If you are accidently disconnected from your party, Xbox LIVE will automatically reconnect you.
- Streamlined Party Invites – Invites are now just one click away! No need to click through multiple screens to get all your friends together.
We've made it easier for you to see your entertainment in the highest resolution possible on your TV using an HDMI connection.
- Display Discovery – Make sure you can see and hear your entertainment in the highest resolution and sound quality possible with the option to override and select audio and video formats independent of the information your television sends to your Xbox 360 console.
We're always listening to you for feedback, and this Xbox LIVE update will include numerous dashboard updates.
- Gold Member Veterans – Xbox LIVE Gold members get to show it off with a stamp on your Gamer Card that tells people how long you've been a Gold member.
- Indie Games – Xbox LIVE Community Games has been renamed Xbox LIVE Indie Games. We feel this new name better represents the independent spirit of these titles.
- Achievement Browser – We've revamped the Achievements browser so it's now easier to read through all the achievements while playing a game. You can now also launch a game directly from the browser.
- Achievements Tracking – A new view inside the profile panel which includes a summary of Achievements earned across all the games played, and shows of all your completed games.
- Streamlined Navigation - Streamlined navigation, including new entry points in the dashboard for Active Downloads, redeeming codes, recovering Gamertags and more.
- Voice Messages – No more blank voice messages! When recording a voice message, a warning will pop up if no audio is detected.
- Friends List Sorting – It's now easier to find your friends! Find and sort your friends by activity, Gamertag or online status by pressing the Y button while viewing the friends list in the Guide.
- Memory – Time stamps now appear in the memory area, which particular handy when managing saved games.
We've made some changes to make your life easier.
- Subscription Notification – If your Xbox LIVE subscription is about to run out, you will now be notified when you sign into Xbox LIVE.
- Updates for Invalid Windows Live IDs – If the Windows Live ID you provided has expired, you will now be prompted to update it the next time you sign into Xbox LIVE.
- Account recovery – We've enhanced the account recovery process to make it faster and more reliable.
The following features will be coming in future Xbox LIVE updates, which we'll be sure to let you know about.
- Zune video and 1080p Instant On
- Last.fm
hello again!!!
Games on Demand is going to be awesome.
I'm gonna eBay all my games on disc and re-buy them as a download. That way I can flip between games without even getting up and changing the disc! I'll probably end up doing the same thing with my books once the Kindle comes out in the UK too.
Any word about whether this update includes the 'Sky Player' update for Sky TV users in the UK?
Hi,
...Ok, there is a big update what what about the Sky TV package Microsoft said was coming soon, it says nothing in the update notes and still says nothing on other sites, where is the info on sky TV for the (UK) and when is it coming, if it is still coming that is.
Thanks
so pissed i got the RROD and am forced to play ps3. I'd rather buy another xbox lol.
What about improved dashboard speed?!?! It takes about 30 seconds to load the marketplace and an additional 30 seconds to load every item you pull up. These new features are decent, but fix what you already have first. By the time these "Games on Demand" 6.4 GB files actually download, I could easily have gone to the store and bought a disc which I can resell when I'm done with it. I'm going to stick to physical copies until they boost the hard drive space for a reasonable price and allow the resale of downloaded content (sure this will never happen).
You are bashing MS, unecessarily. My marketplace loads in 5 seconds. It seems your internet speed is slow so try considering a upgrade. Then you can download games faster then going to a store. I agree with you on the HDD issue.
@starsfan ---- AHEM BROTHER!
@I Squid I ---- The dashboard has known issues of being really slow regardless of your connection speed. MS on (Major Nelson's Blog) has acknowled this. This seems to happen most to people with a lot of friends.
my friend has 512kbps internet, and we often play xbox at each other's house.
though his speed is very noticible whenever we want to download a demo or an arcade game
the marketplaces, spotlight and video marketplace loads almost instantly as the xbox starts
infact, (it starts at normal speed) when the spotlight comes up, its usually fully loaded.
as for the dashboard, the only thing that takes time is the primtime chanels,
or waiting for everything to load before you can click "get trial" or "buy"
i really think the problem is with your internet,
maybe too many neighbours on the same one, or too far from equpiment?
check it out with you ISP. or run a bandwidth test online and post results.
sorry for the double post, but i cant believe i didnt mention the friend's chanel
that one takes a good 15 seconds.
well ive got over 75 friends, and when my friends comes over his acc has the limit (99 or 100), all the items load really fast. but i have a 10,000kbps (10mbit) and a 120gb modded hdd that i spent 50$ on. i noticed a huge performance increase when upgrading my hdd, because now almost everything is stored in the cache instead of loading it from other spots. but when ingame and i open the guide, it freezes for about 30 sec a lot, they should work on that
I have Time Warner Road Runner Turbo and have used it on multiple connections all which have been slow. I'd love to make mine that fast.
PS: I don't know how I'm Microsoft bashing when it is the only console I have and play all the time :/. I just wished the new marketplace would work as fast as the one I had at launch.
Twitter = Win
The 360 needs iPhone support to play music and movies (it only supports pics).
yeah agreed but thats completely apples fault, the iphone and touch, unlike other ipods, are locked for disk use, so they only come up with a camera, windows and xbox both recognize them as that (at least they have that) the xbox could not take the iphones files out unless apple unlocked them
What about Canada?!?! We keep getting the shaft with all the digital downloads. I cant stand it. when are we going to be able to get a netflix account? I hate going to the movie store, and buying physical copies, but Canada is not on the radar apparently. Someone please tell us when!
Although we'll probably never get Netflix here (thanks in part to licensing deals with the likes of Rogers and Bell Express Vu), Zip.ca recently signed a partnership with Cinema Now to bring digital content to Canada...
http://www.rgbfilter.com/?p=1283
Do we have a release date yet?
kotaku.com states next week
Avatar popcorn throwing? I really hope you can turn off the theater and just view the movie full screen.
What's with the extremely high prices for avatar stuff? $2 for a set of clothes? Whatever happened to that micro-transaction stuff they were talking about before the 360 launched? You know, the whole reason for the MS points system? Instead we don't get anything under a dollar and the points system just functions to rip us off. And they "improved" account management but you better bet that you still have to call their support line if you want to cancel your Live subscription or even remove a credit card.
Anyway, I thought the social networking stuff was supposed to be released along with the dashboard update. I guess this kills any hope for Last.fm in-game.
Sony, pay attention!
I can't wait to manage our NetFlix queue right from the Xbox. There's been a couple times where we turned on the Xbox, browsed what was in our queue and decided to find something else, but of course had to step away from the 360 and go use a computer. Sure, it's only a minor inconvenience, but it’ll be so much nicer to just stay at the Xbox and not have to go use a second device.
The rating system is another welcomed addition, in my opinion: especially when it comes to the Community games.
Are they going to fix the fact that it SUCKS to try to play games with your gamertag on a friends console? Everytime you want to use your gamertag on another system you have to recover it... ok I can see that being necessary the first time I go over my friends house, but then when I return home I have to recover my gamertag on my home console?!?!
The system is broken :( I know Microsoft wants us all sitting home playing games a safe distance away from people, but some of us have local friends and want the benefits of our gamertag when we're playing games with them locally.
Just annoyed and was hoping Microsoft might address this flaw in their system.
Well there is another way. Why don't you get a USB memory stick and copy your gamer profile to that when you go to a friends house?
You don't need one of the official memory cards as far as I am aware, just a USB memory stick.
It's much quicker than recovering every time.
I still think it should make better use of the internet, but I was unaware of that solution. I'll have to try it.
Great!
Now let's see them make an XNA shirt for avatars when the player has an XNA CC membership.
And forced letterboxing at the console level for displays that don't have an aspect-preserving scaler.
I have a 20mb down cable connection and the marketplace is slow for me and it is does it every time. The 2 steps needed to download something are always slow. The first step includes choosing a category. It takes forever to load up the items in "Featured Downloads". After it finally loads up and I choose the item I want to download, that too takes way too long. This happens every single time. Sometimes a minute to load, sometimes 25 seconds but it is never instant like it used to be.
Before the blaming it on my connection comes up, I have no other problems with my connection. I can download files/torrents at awesome speeds and I have zero lag in online games. It is only the marketplace that is affected. Hopefully it is fixed soon, Major mentioned it would be.
Michael Jackson me toco... y me gusto!
Sounds awesome, when is this coming?
How about the option to completely get rid of the horrid avatars and bring back the blade? How about that option?... never gonna happen huh? Micro$oft sucks.
I hope they have support for 1366 x 768 via HDMI with the new Video Display Options. Most newer tvs use that resolution now days. including my Samsung.
I want the old dashboard. The one with the page like setup.