Almost there!

Just a day more to go before the New Xbox Experience dashboard update for the Xbox 360 starts downloading on our consoles. There will be some who will like it and some who will hate it. But no matter which side you decide to pitch your camp in, you sure are bound to notice what the Xbox 360 team has been up to.

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With the New Xbox Experience update just around the corner, we’re sure a lot of you are just itching to find out just exactly what you’re going to get yourself into. Well, as usual, we manage to save the day by bringing you a series of video walkthroughs of the new dashboard, including the spellbinding HD intro and a 5 minute romp through the avatar creation process. Keep watching for more videos in the series coming later today, as we take a trip through the never before seen regions of the new dashboard and stop to check out the XNA Community Games as well as Xbox LIVE Parties, photo sharing and a depressing comparison of all the extra stuff available to someone who’s accessing LIVE from the United States. We’ll be right back after a short commercial break. And lunch… and dinner!

Hit the jump for the videos, and do remember to check them out in High Quality mode…

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So who hasn’t been excited about the New Xbox Experience (NXE) coming November 19? With a spiffy new interface, animated avatar support, Live Party with up to 8 friends, Marketplace on the web, Netflix Instant Queue streaming and a whole truckload of features including the ability to copy our games to the HDD and finally, 16:10 widescreen support – the NXE is pretty much the closest an Xbox 360 aficionado can get to the Home / Mii experience without investing in hardware the other side of the fence.

But for all those people who just can’t really wait until the software update rolls out worldwide, Xbox LIVE’s Major Nelson – who had already teased a preview of the NXE for select readers in his podcast last week – has finally announced the New Xbox Experience (NXE) Preview Program. For all those that can’t figure it out for themselves, yes, you now have a chance to get your dirty paws on the NXE almost 20 days before the rest of the world!

All you’ve got to do to earn your chance to join the preview is to head on over to Major Nelson’s blog for the invitation code, which should lead you straight to Microsoft Connect here to take a little survey, where you can enter your Xbox 360’s Console ID (available under the System Info panel under Console Settings on the System blade) and if you manage to get yourself in, you should get your confirmation email on the 29th, followed by a spanking new dashboard when you sign on to Xbox LIVE this October 30.

For those of you wondering about what exactly would be there in the preview, considering features such as Primetime were recently scrapped for inclusion in a later update, here’s a partial list. A more complete list, along with a detailed FAQ should be going up on Major Nelson’s blog real soon. (more…)