The NXE update released 19th of November has changed the way we use xbox live. With personal avatar customisation, group chat and a whole new makeover for the dashboard. However there is a down side. This update is causing lots of problems.

The avatar customisation is the first thing you get to do after updating your xbox. This is a cool creation tool that allows you to upgrade your profile making it an identity that all your xbox live friends can see and sometimes play games with. Once you have created your little dude you get to dress him up, this isn’t that great as the clothes are limited and will not allow you to change the colour. In completion of the avatar your xbox allows you to take a photo of your avatar and use it as your display picture allowing everyone to see it. Another cool thing about these avatars is that instead of seeing a boring old friends list saying who is online you see all your friends lined up as there avatars, looking active if they are online or sleeping if offline. If your friends are in a chat together then you see them grouped together allowing you to join them in a click of a button.

The new chat system up to eight people in one conversation, as mentioned before you can now join a chat no invitations needed. This allows you to chat with more than one person at a time from anywhere in the xbox world. Linking you and a group of your friends in a chat without having the same game or those annoying people who hurl random abuse at you for no reason at all. However your friend’s friends can join allowing their friends to join which may leave you feeling uncomfortable but a resolution to this problem is if your host then you can make the party invite only and kick anyone you don’t want in the conversation. A good feature that everybody has been waiting for since the start of xbox live.

The stylish new dashboard, very swift and easy to navigate but what was wrong with the old one? The old dashboard featuring blades instead of slides was very simple to use and easy to get used to but changing it this new more stylish dashboard has just complicated things making a lot of unnecessary slides such as the multiple marketplace slides instead of just one that leads to the whole marketplace.

Now for the down side, the update has caused lots of problems such as frequent freezing of the xbox said to be when you look at a friend’s data or try to join or leave a chat. Another problem is that a few people have not been able to connect to live using an Ethernet connection or a wireless connection. Another disadvantage that has occurred supposedly due to the NXE is that a minority of people are losing their friends list. There are also complaints of not being able to reach the market place but the server is extremely busy as everyone is downloading the update. It is early days yet and we can only hope that Microsoft will fix these glitches.

Kingsley Beagle