Hello!

Wednesday, the 19th of November, eh? Oh what wonders 360 users are in for that day! The New Xbox Experience, The next coming! Avatars which couldn’t have possibly been influenced by anything any of the competition have been doing! New menus! All sorts of shit!

I know there are a lot of naysayers about a lot of the features, fears about themes and gamerpics being “devalued” by the new dashboard and avatars, even downright hate for the avatars, for being an “unoriginal Wii copy” (News for those people… Nintendo didn’t invent them either)

News for you people. The NXE is nice. Kind of.

I say “kind of”, Because Microsoft have managed to solve many issues the user base had with the original dash, along with radically improving the guide button function (which is almost a mini replica of the original dash), but they’ve managed to layout the “channels” in the most annoying way, possible.

In a “THROW ADVERTISING AT THEM AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE” way.

EXHIBIT A: The “Spotlight” Channel

If you’re connected to the internet, this is default channel of the new Xbox Experience. That’s right, instead if the “My Xbox” channel which contains all the functioning of old dashboard, you are going to get a load of adverts, supposedly based on your gaming/viewing habits. Apparently Microsoft think I like FPS games and shit live-action adaptations of Animé.

I don’t.

And I don’t like this. It’s too much. I’d almost understand why if Xbox live was funded by sponsorship, but it’s not. As a Gold subscriber, I’m paying for the service.

To top it all, the content of “Spotlight” is just recycled from Marketplace and “Inside Xbox” anyway. If you click through those occasionally (which you will if you want to get to the Friends channel – it’s just off the top of the list in the screenshot, no doubt entirely on purpose), Spotlight is utterly redundant.

Like me, You’ll soon find yourself staying as far away from the “main” dash as possible, and relying on the version you get through pressing the guide button.

Even then you are not ad free. Context based ads appear advertising add-ons and themed content based on what’s in the DVD drive or what you are about to run off the hard drive.

In a flash of a ROM chip, the advertising on your Xbox is going to increase from slightly opportunistic to incredibly invasive.

Your choices?

Unplug your Xbox from the internet, which makes the default channel “My Xbox”. Of course it has the side effect of rendering your Xbox live account useless, but on the bright side, if you’re not going to use it, you’re 40 quid up a year and you are free to mod the DVD drive to play pirate software, without fear of being banned from the service

or…

Shout loudly that you just DON’T LIKE IT. NOPE, IT AIN’T ON, BILLY BOY.

(In other words put up with it for about a year until it finally gets through to Microsoft’s thick skulls that it may have been a bad idea).

To commemorate its release in January, I will attempt to grow a Barry Hercules afro, through sheer force of will!

MALE PATTERN BALDNESS, ETHNICITY, AND THE FACT THAT IT WAS MADE OF SPONGE BE DAMNED!

NOBODY FUCKS WITH BARRY HERCULES. NOBODY. HE’S LIKE A PUPPET SAMUEL L JACKSON.