Microsoft’s 2008 E3 press conference is over and there was some major announcements. Mainly that the entire Xbox 360 Dashboard is being overhauled and a new Xbox (Live) ‘Experience’ will be born

GamerScoreBlog provide an over view of some of the features in the new experience:

• Play from hard drive.  Copy your games from the game disc and play directly from the hard drive.  Not only will the drive not spin, but load times are quicker, as well.  Of course, you will still need the disc in the tray to prove you own the game.  

• Access Xbox LIVE Marketplace on the Web.  Browse and purchase Marketplace content whenever you want from Xbox.com and it downloads automatically to your console.  Purchase that new map, television episode, the latest Xbox LIVE Arcade game or set up a movie to watch when you get home from work.

• Dashboard built into the new Xbox Guide.  For everyone who loves the blades interface, it’s not going away; they are now built directly in to the new Xbox guide. Every feature and option is available right from the guide.  You can even access your full games library at all times.  No matter where you are (in dash or in game), immediately call up your games played list and directly launch a game.    

• LIVE Party system.  Create a party of up to eight friends, and stay with them from one game to another, or watch a Netflix movie together, or share a slideshow of your personal photos.  It works with all Xbox 360 titles, not just upcoming games.  LIVE Party allows up to eight  people to chat in the dashboard, so you can meet up before playing.

• Xbox LIVE Primetime. This whole new category of games is going to give you more reasons to get online with your friends.  Games will support everything you’d expect, like Achievements and leader boards, but many of these games will include real prizes.  You can invite your friends, and even set a reminder for an upcoming show.  Each game is broadcast simultaneously, so everyone is answering the same questions.  Many events will have a live host, calling the shots as they happen.  

• Avatars. Your online identity started as a Gamertag – it then grew into a personalized Gamercard. Now, it has evolved even further into avatars.  You can express your style, check out new outfits and share this with the community.  Avatars will also be integrated into Xbox LIVE Arcade games, LIVE Party, as well as retail games.    

• New display support. Because you asked for it, we are adding 16X10 over VGA or HDMI, and support for 1440×900 or 1680×1050.

Some shots of the new Avatars, Dashboard and Xbox Experience can be seen here courtesy of Engadget

Other news included a few deals with major movie studios to bring more content to the Xbox Live Marketplace, a few launch dates and demo’s of the obvious games and then most suprisingly the announcement that Final Fantasy XIII will be coming to the Xbox 360! – This now means there are only a few exclusives left in Sony’s camp (and nothing really that big if MGS 4 really is the final one)

A full stream of the Microsoft Press conference is available here

Bill Gates last ever CES Keynote speech was last night and among other continued development announcements Microsoft announced that Mediaroom (Microsoft’s IPTV solution) has now got 1 Million Set top boxes World Wide. This is a great milestone for this new emerging technology and I’m proud to be a tiny part of it (I work in the UK Dev Test team on this product ). Along with this Microsoft announced a continued partnership with BT which will see BT be the first to deliver Mediaroom (known to BT customers as BT Vision) via the Xbox 360, this means the Xbox 360 will be able to act as a Set Top Box for BT Vision in the UK.

Other highlights of the Keynote speech included the announcement of 10 Million subscribers to Xbox Live (including both Gold and Silver members), enhancements to the Windows Live and Zune online experiences, another look at Microsoft Surface and my personal favourite a video about Bill Gate’s last Day at work.

The full Keynote speech can be viewed at http://www.microsoft.com/ces/

My 360 is finally back from being repaired after I got the 3 Red Lights, its taken about 3 and a half weeks which isn’t too bad I guess. According to the attached letter my 360 had a problem with its DVD-Drive and Motherboard both of which were replaced, so I can’t really complain it was Free after all.

Well its been about 2 months since I last posted… wow so much for keeping this going!

OK so ill try and sum up the last 2 months in as little writing as I can:

• Got a nice new 32″ Samsung HDTV!
• Opened a LoveFiLM account (which is AWESOME)
• Went to Silicon Valley and San Francisco, California
• Got some ‘Lucky Charms’
• Got my Legendary Edition of Halo 3
• Got RRoD (Red Ring of Death) on my 360

There is more but I can’t really think at this second… so I’ll post again if there is anything major I missed about the last 2 months and hopefully keep this blog a bit more up to date in the future!

I finally got 1000/1000 gamer-points on an Xbox 360 game, yes it may have taken me over 18 Months but I’m still proud! The game was Call of Duty 2, which was actually a game I got on/near launch but just never got round to doing the last few missions on Veteran, until today!