Expanded HD Display and Video Playback Options
- With 1080p resolution, gamers now have the ability to enjoy both game and video content in the best HD resolution currently available.
- Expanded video playback options increase the ways gamers can enjoy video content on Xbox 360. It is now possible to stream WMV video from a Windows PC running Windows Media Player 11 or Windows Media Connect.
- Gamers can now play video files from data CDs and DVDs, as well as from storage devices like USB 2.0 flash drives and Xbox 360 Memory Units.
- Xbox 360 will support 50hz HDTV display modes, providing viewers greater choice in how they watch DVD and HD DVD content.
Xbox Live Arcade Enhancements
- Keeping up to date on Xbox Live Arcade games is now even more convenient with the ability to automatically download newly released Xbox Live Arcade trial games. This eliminates the need to manually search for new downloads on Xbox Live Marketplace each time a new game trial is released.
- Fast Enumeration of Games. You’ll see the games in your Xbox Live Arcade collection appear almost instantly. Get in and play right away.
- With so many games to choose from, Xbox Live Arcade added new sorting options such as “Recently Played” and “By Category.” These enhancements make managing Xbox Live Arcade collections faster and easier than ever.
- A new expanded Friends Leaderboard within Xbox Live Arcade allows gamers to compare themselves directly against their friends and view leaderboard details of their top-10 friends.
- A new expanded Achievements View within Xbox Live Arcade lets gamers view their full Achievement details for their Arcade games including descriptions, icons, allotted Gamerscore and more, right from the Xbox Live Arcade dashboard interface.
- The “Play Now” launch feature has been streamlined. Selecting “Play Now” after downloading a game in Xbox Live Marketplace now bypasses Arcade and takes you directly to the game.
- Xbox Live Arcade now offers a “Tell a Friend” feature. Select this from the game info screen to send any friend on your friends list a message telling them about the Arcade game.
XNA Support
- Amateur game designers will be able to test and play the games they create using XNA Game Studio Express on their Xbox 360s systems when it launches later this year (separate download and subscription required).
The above was taken from Gamerscore blog.
So what do you think of all the new features. Sadly I won’t have a working 360 tomorrow to update but let’s hear your views.
You can find Xbox.com write up here and the complete update list here. From the looks of things on the Xbox.com article the screenshot we posted a while back of the dashboard update looks real. Not a pretty sight.
You can grab the update tomorrow free of charge with a Silver or Gold account and no HDD or Memory card is needed (apart from your profile). Just switch it on tomorrow and you should be notified that there is a update.
Originally Written By: Toby Bodman
