InsideMicrosoft

Xbox 360 Fall Update Ships

Microsoft shipped yesterday the Fall update for the Xbox 360, adding some new features and streamlining the interface. There are some changes to the menu organization, the addition of Xbox Originals, new social features

Here are the most interesting ones to me:

Xbox Originals are now available in the new Game Store on the Marketplace tab. I love the Xbox 1 look of the section. Each game has a free theme and picture pack (though Silver members will have to wait, see below).

As promised, there are a lot more video codecs supported. Here’s a FAQ on the new video support, including DivX and XviD files

You can launch the Xbox 360 directly into Media Center (in addition to old options of running the disk and going to the Dashboard).

Certain older Xbox Live Arcade Games are now discounted. Not Geometry Wars, though.

Technically, the 360 now supports IPTV, though your provider still has to hook you up.

Family timers are now in there, so parents can limit how much their kids play video games.

There’s an Inside Xbox section (on the Xbox Live tab) where you get a news feed about the latest Xbox happenings.

Users now get an enhanced profile and the ability to browse the friends list of their friends.

Xbox Live Silver users now have to wait a week after free downloads are released before they get them, while Gold members get everything immediately. This means you’ll have to wait a week for demos and other stuff, which is so freakin’ annoying.

Finally, and this is a big one, those who were trapped in child accounts can now upgrade, assuming they are over 18. That means that if you got a child account when you were under 18, and are now over 18, you can promote it to a full adult account, and get all the priveleges of that. You’ll need to replace any credit cards on the account (since the old card was presumably your parent’s). Those under 18 can now use Messenger chat, too.

This should be great news to the commenters who keep complaining about child accounts on my old post.

December 5th, 2007 Posted by Nathan Weinberg | Xbox Live, Xbox 360, Xbox | one comment