Due for release before Christmas, the new Xbox 360 dashboard will feature a brand new, easy to navigate menu set-up featuring Twist Control.


During a demonstration at Gamescom this week, Robin Burrowes, Xbox Live product marketing manager for EMEA [Europe, Middle East and Africa], outlined Microsoft's vision for bringing together voice control and content in the upcoming refresh.

You can use the Xbox 360 controller to flick between channels that display at the top of the screen. The names of these channels are yet to be finalised, but you can check a few of them out in the video below.

You can also use your voice and hands to navigate and search, through motion-sensing add-on Kinect.


The new dash launches alongside other new features prompted by core user feedback. Under the Social channel you'll find Beacons, which allow gamers to signpost what they're doing across XBL and Facebook.

"That's been a little bit of a barrier," Burrowes explained. "The core community have been saying to us, 'I'm doing this one activity but I really want to play Call of Duty with my mates when I've got four or five of them online at the same time.' People are still text messaging each other and sending messages on other platforms. This is an easier way to do it."

Facebook posting is also added, which means you'll be able to "like" a game, sending Achievements to the social network. And then there's cloud storage, announced at E3 in June.

Twist Control and its additional features form part of a strategy Microsoft calls internally "games plus more than games". Burrowes said the "sweet spots" were music, movies and live TV.

"Twist Control" is a generic name for the panel-scrolling UI elements which appear in various Microsoft products.

News-Source: eurogamer.net