Themes on the New Xbox 360 Dashboard
July 16, 2008 14 Comments
With Microsoft’s announcement of the “New Xbox Experience” have come concerns over existing content in the form of gamerpics and themes. While details were fuzzy when they made their initial presentation, since then they have clarified several times over that both will still be usable with the new interface. Their design team did a few mock ups to show how your existing theme you’ve spent precious Microsoft Points on will work with the newly designed Dashboard. Keep in mind they are mock ups only so by definition an early sketch instead of a final version.
It looks like something from Windows Vista.
I want to know where the adverts are going to appear in the final design.
I can’t see anywhere on these mockups where they can fit on without cluttering up the minimalist design Microsoft have shown us.
and they have the gall to use Halo in their new ads for the dashboard…
>=/
Isn’t that Gears of War?
I’m going to assume that they allow you to choose whether or not to use your avatar as your gamerpic. An option I won’t be using, by the way.
@mendicantbias00
Um, gall? What? Why? Microsoft owns Halo and it’s arguably their biggest franchise. Why wouldn’t, or shouldn’t, they use it?
Hmm… I wonder how that DP content thing will fit into all this.
Actually, this is one area where themes will make an improvement. In the current design, most themes make the text extremely hard to read, especially if it’s some dark Gears of War theme. I hope against hope that we will finally be able to create custom themes (custom image for each “blade”).
@mendicantbias00:
Agreed.
@Hugh:
Have you been living under a rock, or do you just not follow Bungie news?
@BS Angel:
LOL Tetris =)
@Hugh
Considering that M$ not only booted Bungie out of E3, but also shutdown the release of their new game (which has more or less been confirmed as another Halo game) I think its a slap in the face to the developers and their fans. Buuuuuut….thats just me….and Ray…
=)
Fucking Microsoft. ;)
It’s like Microsoft is reading my mind….and then doing the exact oposite. Remember the spring (or summer?) update that was going to fix a bunch of stuff on the dashboard? Like, allow user controlled scrolling in item descriptions.
That update would have perfected the dashboard. Now they do the thing I wanted them not to. Change it. And the avatar? That’s a big-huge deal? If I wanted an avatar, I would have bought a Wii.
I don’t know. Do I sound like a “they were better when they were underground” jackass?
Oh that looks nice. The dashboard is better with a theme.
I love the halo theme.
I’m well aware of the news, but I hardly think there’s anything to get up-in-arms about. Microsoft made a spur-of-the-moment decision to not reveal a game. It’s no fun, but it happens. So what? Halo is MS’s property and they’re well within their rights to use it in promotional materials.
Yeah, but Hugh. I think for three games now we’ve all really gotten excited about the way Bungie promotes Halo releases. The I<3Bees ARG, the high quality media blitz for H3. We were all just getting really revved up for another great publicity campaign and then MS pulls the plug. There’s definitely a little “aww shucks, there goes our fun” feeling against MS right now.
I think we’re well within our rights to be dissapointed that MS backed out of the announcement at the last second.