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Posted on: Nov 28, 2007
Everything You Need to Know About the Dashboard Update
WORDS BY: Paul Curthoys
Call us nerds (and do it loudly, cuz we’re proud of it), but we get excited when Dashboard Update time finally rolls around. We’ve always got big hopes and dreams for what powers Microsoft will bestow upon us. As the December 4 launch of the not-so-aptly-named “Fall” Update grows nigh, here's everything you need to know:
Facts:

- Spy on your pals. You’ll be able to look at your friends’ Friends lists and see who they’re friends with. Our take: Kinda creepy, and more than a little unnecessary. Thankfully, you can opt out in advance or after launch. To make your selection now (choose between letting everyone check out your Friends list, just your friends, or blocking it entirely), go to www.xbox.com/fof/. But seriously — doesn’t Microsoft have bigger Dashboard fish to fry?
- Downloadable original-Xbox games will be available for purchase in Marketplace for $15. Click here for the full story. Our take: Cool…but no Achievements and a steep price took this wind out of the sails on this one.
- A new Family Timer will let parents place limits on their kids’ accounts, regulating the amount of time they can play on a daily or weekly basis. Our take: Great stuff. No complaints about anything that helps Mom & Dad do a better job of parenting.
- Our favorite: Live Arcade demos willbe deleted from your Played Games and Gamercard lists. That's right — tidy that $^@# up!
- An expanded space on your Gamercard that gives you 500 to 1,000 characters to wax personal about yourself. It's aptly called Personal Profile.
- The Games blade will be tweaked so that the old entry of Xbox Live Arcade is replaced by Game Library (underneath Achievements and Played Games). When you click on Game Library, you can use the familiar horizontal sorting (like the ones in Marketplace) to click between Arcade, Demos, Recent Downloads, All Games, and so on.
- Marketplace itself willbe shuffled to offer a simpler opening page with selections like Game Store, Video Store, What’s New, and Recommended Content.
And there LOADS more little tweaks. Check out the full details here and here at Xbox.com.

Rumors:
None left as of today (Friday 11/30) -- Microsoft has released final details.
Dreams:

Our wishes haven’t changed for a few Updates now. We want, first and foremost, bigger Friends lists, longer queues for downloads, and better, more TiVo-like sort in Marketplace (you should be able to type in “M” and automatically flip down to Madden, instead of endlessly blipping through the A–M entries). What are yours? Post in the comments below!








Fri, 12/14/2007 - 00:09
Posted by CoholYc
What's the deal with only allowing media streaming from a PC running a Media center version of the OS? Win XP is XP and Vista is Vista. Stream the media already.
And I know it's the whole Windows vs Mac thing, but stream music and video from iTunes and cut into their market share. I won't go and by an iTV to watch my iTunes purchased movies in HD.
Wed, 12/12/2007 - 00:29
Posted by MarkE1862
All I want right now is the ability to do private chat while playing B. C. games. That will make my screaming at Ninja Gaiden: Black handy, 'cause someone will answer back.
Tue, 12/04/2007 - 19:47
Posted by Sodman74
About the Xbox Live Arcade trials...
"Added support to not write trial-version Arcade games to user's played games history (this is only for newly downloaded games after the Dec'07 update is released)"
That's not much use to me honestly. I have 75 played games total, and 41 of them are arcade demos. They won't get deleted, so the update isn't really much use for 'Cleaning that shit up' unfortunately. :(
Mon, 12/03/2007 - 19:16
Posted by SharpShot303
GamerTag=SharpShot303
one thing that i think would be cool is if there was a place where you could but your clan name in front of your gamer tag sence you have to pay to get it changed. almost like COD4 did but on the dash board so it would go to every game.
and another thing that would be cool is to watch and see what your friends are going like if they were playing madden i could see what there doing
another good idea is a group chat cuz then you wouldnt have to switch throu cannels to talk to different people.
well thats about it come play me in halo 3 gamer tag is at the top.
Sat, 12/01/2007 - 23:05
Posted by Master Devwi
No, free Xbox LIVE is bad. You get what you pay for. Free XBL means a different XBL. One that's not even close to as good.
Sat, 12/01/2007 - 02:54
Posted by spiderwalk007
Hows about FREE Live GOLD for everyone. No Charge.
Fri, 11/30/2007 - 20:43
Posted by Master Devwi
I love all the new features (see previous post), but I did come up with two new features that I'd love to have:
• The ability to eject the game/DVD by selecting the disc title and hitting left. (This would select the little circle to the left of the disc name and allow you to eject the game. Otherwise, the play/eject [empty tray] features would function like normal. See the first picture in the article above for reference).
• The ability to specify a permanent storage device for a specific game on a specific profile (i.e. if I have a Hard Drive and a Memory Unit and I put in Halo 3, I can tell it to automatically select the MU whenever I play this game. For someone else's profile or another game, it might be different).
Group chat would also be nice, I guess.
Fri, 11/30/2007 - 18:04
Posted by Master Devwi
Okay, the details are up on Xbox.com and MajorNelson.com!
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemupdates/default.htm
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/systemupdates/20071204-features.htm
http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2007/11/30/final-fall-dashboard-updat...
http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2007/11/30/child-account-graduation-a...
http://www.majornelson.com/archive/2007/11/30/even-more-details-on-the-u...
Fri, 11/30/2007 - 17:14
Posted by MitchyD
Canadian Marketplace, hopefully. :) That's all I am asking for.
-- http://www.nukoda.com --
Gamertag: MitchyD88
Fri, 11/30/2007 - 14:21
Posted by busboy33
How about after I view something on the Marketplace and decide I'm not interested, I can check off a box and get it off my screen. I'm sick of scrolling past 150 MS point Theme advertisments. No, I'm not going to buy it -- quit asking. And certainly quit telling me there's something "NEW!" in the game's sub-folder . . . it's the same theme from 4 days ago, and I'm still not going to buy it. But I still have to drill down to check. It might actually be something "NEW!". Still not? No, I don't want the @$&!ing theme, but thank you for asking. Again.
*grumble grumble*
Fri, 11/30/2007 - 13:36
Posted by Greater Joe
I agree with Paul, browsing other people's FL is kinda creepy and stalkerish, I blocked mine already. I'll leave it up to my friends to decide who they want to associate with, and not be blindsided with random requests. Cleaning up those pesky XBLA trial versions off of my list is a blessing, here's hoping for the best. No Achievements with a bunch of titles that I already own at only $5 less than their current retail price does not sound intriguing. Sorry if I'm not all enthused about that one. I just wished that they would make the guide and chat usable while playing Obox titles (snatched it Knux,lol).
Fri, 11/30/2007 - 12:45
Posted by HMetal68
First of all, I really hope the update includes removing Arcade titles you only played the demo of. It never made sense to me that they would show in "Played Games" anyway. As for my wish list, I would like to be able to play music from my Zune wirelessly. The Zune can now connect to my network wireless, why not the 360. Also, support for Windows Home Server to backup profiles, game demos, (purchased) Arcade titles and other purchased download content, etc. Let's face it, 20GB is not all that much space especially when almost half of it is taken by the system. And yes I know there is a larger hard drive available, but why can't you just backup content from your 360 to your PC or WHS or an external drive. You can't even copy most things to a USB stick, only an official 360 memory card. The content is still protected by the MS security that ties the purchased content to your GamerTag and system serial number. But as time goes by, it seems every time I delete content to free up space there is less I can delete because I have purchased it. Now with Rock Band downloads, I can see myself running into space issues and should not have to buy a bigger drive for the 360 when I already have plenty of storage on my network.
Fri, 11/30/2007 - 07:24
Posted by Dark Soldier
too bad they didnt add a clan list under Friends list
Fri, 11/30/2007 - 04:29
Posted by kemanswar
Just give us bigger friends list or a clan BLADE and XVID/DIVX support
www.xblradio.com
show host
Thu, 11/29/2007 - 20:35
Posted by Paul OXM
Crap, fixed the missing link, sorry 'bout that. And good ideas. I particularly like the ones about sorting by price and other such filters. For the folks in Canada and Europe who are praying for videos etc., I honestly wouldn't hold your breath. Doing that would mean negotiating a whole new set of licenses with the movie studios, and Microsoft doesn't seem motivated to do that. Not saying that that's right or that I agree (it isn't, and I don't), but that's my gut feeling. Would love to be wrong!
Thu, 11/29/2007 - 18:33
Posted by crazynsain
why not fix the arcade games with a so i can play my old arcade games from 5 360's ago when i go on trips to my friends' houses.
Thu, 11/29/2007 - 16:38
Posted by Sodman74
-Private chat which enables three or four people to talk at once, which gives us the ability to completely eliminate the "push to talk" problems in some games (Cough *HALO* cough), and negates 100% of voice lag.
-HD Video Marketplace, (In Europe, please?)
-More qued download slots would be great, as would the arcade demo's eliminated from games played list.
-A general "What's new" feature for marketplace, which sorts newest content in selected catagories (Demos, Trailers, DLC, basically tick the boxs on what you want your search to show), by release date in chronological order. The "New demos" and "new trailers" menus are handy sometimes, but if I take a brake from my xbox for a week for whatever reason, I find that the only way to check for recent demos, which aren't recent enough to be in the 'new demos' menu, is to literally scroll through all available demos!
Thu, 11/29/2007 - 07:54
Posted by SechoDB
I have perhaps 20 or more of the Music Videos you can download and, if you happen to have a party at home, shouldn't you be able to select "Play All" and let the music videos play one right after the other instead of having to select each individually?
So yeah,
a "Play All" feature for at least the music videos section.
Bookmarks for Music files (cuz without them there's no way I would ever listen to a podcast in there.)
Sorting by price on the video and games' marketplace.
And WMVHD support.
WMVHD= Windows Media Video High Definition.
Thu, 11/29/2007 - 06:06
Posted by PeeKnuckle
Link is missing in "Click here for the full story.".
Thu, 11/29/2007 - 04:31
Posted by Ghost
I wouldn't mind bringing back the old Halo 2 Clan system, hell CoD4 is really promoting this with the Clan Tag feature, and people Change their gamertag to their clans. People all over want this feature so why can't we have it. Also I would like the group chat feature since I would like to talk all my friends instead of just one.
______________________________
http://gameghost.blogspot.com/
Thu, 11/29/2007 - 04:00
Posted by sticks1206
I would like a way to download music directly from marketplace to my hardrive. They have the Zune marketplace, why can't they integrate the two so xbox360 owners can download there own tunes.
Thu, 11/29/2007 - 03:01
Posted by HAYRON
I'd like to be able to view marketplace items by price range.
For example you'd go into the themes section and there would be a sort option to sort by price.
I've got 50 points to blow, but I don't want to dig through everything to find something for 50. This happens often to me.
I guess I could just save up each little 50 to get another big price item, but while I wait to save the money for some more points, that little 50 is just burnin' a hole...
Thu, 11/29/2007 - 02:30
Posted by GUNNER3131
They ability to have a 3 way video and voice chat would be great cuz sometimes everyone wants in on the fun not just 1 person. Also if you unlock an achievement you can use that pic as a gamer picture (most likely won't happen soon but long term). Also not to have certain gamer pics limited to certain countries. People in the US like canadian and japanese styled pics and im guessin vice versa. MUCH bigger friends list. I am constantly deleting people that I like and it gets annoying. Some of this stuff is quite simple and Microsoft spent a waste of time letting us see our friends Friends List. Instead of wasting time creating that they should have made 3 way vid and voice chat at the least. People scream for 3 ways chats and bigger friends list and MS doesn't even acknowledge it and comes up with the friends Friends List. Like I care what my friends friend is playing? I digress. Microsoft get your act together!
Thu, 11/29/2007 - 02:04
Posted by Lumpy Fat
I think that it should be made possible to copy music from portable devices to your hard drive, I wouldn't have enough CD's.
Thu, 11/29/2007 - 02:03
Posted by Lumpy Fat
How abouts Video Marketplace for Canada pleeze. We like movies too.
Thu, 11/29/2007 - 02:01
Posted by wampler
I'd love them to add some way to change the levels of music in your library.
Thu, 11/29/2007 - 01:01
Posted by Master Devwi
I can't think of any features I'd love to see right now (I had a cool idea a few days ago, but I can't remember it).
I do want to pass along something I read on another website: For those who are begging for Clan Support, you have something pretty close now. All you need to do is create a Silver Account for your clan and have your members become it's friends. You can then view the clan's friends list and you get a directory of Clan Members! This way, it is easy to send messages, game invites, check profiles, etc.
Thu, 11/29/2007 - 00:57
Posted by Bennanias
-more than 250 character limited text messages.
-multi person private chat.
- dashboard to work on BC games
- chat to work on BC games
- sorting features for DLC, by price, games played, etc.
Thu, 11/29/2007 - 00:56
Posted by Master Devwi
Awesome! It's a great idea to put all the Fall DBU facts into one easy-to-read place.