nxe

NXE! That's 'New Xbox Experience' not 'Naughty Extraterrestrials Everywhere', which would really be NEE not NXE, but I couldn't think of another X word. I can't think of any way to describe the NXE excepted as an updated UI. (That's User Interface for all you non-nerds. I took an e-commerce course at uni last year and at least half of the content was just learning acronyms. What's with that? I don't think it's that hard to just write stuff out in full or perhaps IDTITHTJWTOIF.) As it was updating I decided to take some pictures in order to write this entry that you are reading now, but I am typing now.

I'll call this the 'Update in Progress Screen'. The 'Update in Progress Screen' informs you the approximate time remaining for the update to be applied. The green bar at the bottom displays graphically the approximate fraction completed. Exciting stuff! When the green bar gets to the end a new screen displays.

Looking at the time at the top right it is exactly 5 minutes since the last picture, which is the time the Xbox guessed was remaining. Lucky guess Mr/Mrs Xbox. Pressing 'A' to continue makes the following video play.

I did try to take photos while the video was playing, but of the 10 or so I took none were in focus. Don't bother actually watching the video, it is boring. Trust me, I watched it. Actually, I could have just linked to a video of the whole process, which makes this entry pretty redundant. After the video you have to make an 'Avatar', which is a digital representation of you that lives in your Xbox. I've you've seen the Wii's Miis, then Avatars are pretty much the same thing, only not as good. Here's me:

I don't think it looks much like me at all, especially when compared with my Mii. Looking around at other peoples creations, they all look pretty much the same and are all just very bland. It's not there is only a few choices when you are making them, it's more that all the choices are pretty much the same. For example, there is like 20 different noses but they are all very similar. I did give myself elf ears tho. The clothes were disappointing as well, you can't even change any of the colours which has really been the most basic part of character customisation from the time it began, way back whenever that was. Once your avatar is made you exit into the main screen, which is called the 'dashboard' for some reason.

I may have lied there, I might have seen this screen first but I can't really remember. I guess you need to know what the old version looked like but this is significantly different.

Well wasn't that fun?