Microsoft have announced that on the week commencing May 7th 2007, a massive free software update to the Xbox 360 will be delivered over Xbox Live. Main highlights include support for MSN (or Windows Live Messenger as it is now known), extended video support, better achievement notification and much more…
Also announced is a new controller add on (no not a new controller, but an add on!), so for those like me who require the use of a proper keyboard and not some nasty virtual alternative, you can now invest in this new addition in the near future.
Main Features:
- A richer Achievement notification pop-up will showcase the name of the unlocked
Achievement and the gamerscore value without needing to leave the game to check
the Achievements list. - Enhanced family settings features for Xbox Live communications enable different
defaults for video chat and voice chat. - A new Xbox Live Marketplace blade lets Xbox Live members access
the content they seek—whether it is game content or TV shows and movies (available
in the United States)—from one place on Xbox Live. - Updates to Xbox Live Arcade allow owners to quickly see which Xbox Live
Arcade games their friends are playing and join in the fun. Xbox Live members
can also compare progress of leaderboard scores and Achievements directly with
all friends on their friends list. Expanded "Tell a Friend" capabilities make
it easier than ever to boast about Achievements and high scores. - Expanded "Tell a Friend" capabilities make it easier than ever to boast
about Achievements and high scores. - A new option in Auto Downloads provides faster access to the entire collection
of free, trial-version Xbox Live Arcade games. - New progressive download controls provide easy access to optimal viewing
options by letting people fast-forward, rewind, pause and resume as their video
is downloaded from Xbox Live Marketplace. - Extension of the background download functionality will allow owners to
set their Xbox 360 console to turn off automatically after downloads are complete.
Additional Features:
- The name of game in tray is now displayed in the dashboard.
(Finally) - When the tray icon is highlighted, a list of achievements, game icon and
gamerscore for that game is displayed. - Video trick modes are enabled for content that is being progressively downloaded
from Video Marketplace. - Playback progress bar indicates download completion.
- Improved skip forward, skip back functionality during video playback.
- Switchable aspect ratio now available during video playback (Auto to Letterbox,
Zoom, Stretch, Native). - Player and friends lists now quickly show session presence information for
quick identification of users that are joinable. - Support for streaming WM-DRM protected content from a PC
- Folder view for video content on connected devices
- H.264 video support: Up to 15 Mbps, Baseline, Main, and High (up
to level 4.1) Profiles with 2 channel AAC LC and Main Profiles. - Added MPEG-4 Part 2 video support: Up to 8 Mbps, Simple Profile
with 2 channel AAC LC and Main Profiles. - Show folder hierarchy for video content played from all devices.
- Bookmarks are stored for each video that the user plays remembering the
users last location in the file as well as the aspect ratio that the user choose
for that file. - Video trick modes (fast forward, rewind, chapter skip) can now be used while
downloading Video Marketplace content. - Skip forward and backward functionality has been improved to skip to the
next or previous chapter. Each video is divided into 10 “chapters” allowing
you to quickly skip around video content. - The information bar that is turned on via the On Screen Display (OSD) now
shows you exactly where you are in the playback of the video file. In
addition it will also show for Video Marketplace content how much of the file
has been downloaded and where the “chapters” exist in the file. - Windows Media protected content (WM-DRM) can now be streamed from the PC
to the console. If the WM-DRM license is missing or corrupted then a specific
error message is displayed to the user. Bookmarking is also stored for protected
content. - When the user is in the dashboard and an Xbox 360 game is in the
console then the name of the game is displayed in the tray icon of the dashboard.
If the user highlights the tray icon then achievements and gamer score are displayed
for that game based on the signed in user. Xbox1 games show the name and image
of the game. - Bookmarks are stored for each video that the user plays. The user can delete
all bookmarks but this will reset all bookmark information for every video that
the user has played. The bookmark database is exposed in the system/memory/system
items - When a user selects an item for download from Marketplace then the system
will determine if there is sufficient disk space for the item and, if not, will
ask the user to delete content on the HDD. The system provides a sorted by size
list of videos, game trailers, demos and arcade content to aid the user in the
deletion process. The same list of items are also available from within memory
so that users can quickly see which items are consuming the most disk space. - The console will block the user who attempts to download content onto a
storage device that will never have the capacity to store the item without deducting
any points associated with the content item. - The screensaver is disabled when playing photos from any source
Source = Into the Mind of Gerlach
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