A visual history of the many Xbox dashboards
7Reported today on The Verge
For the full article visit: https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/26/21152674/xbox-design-history-360-one-series-x-console-dashboard
Reported today in The Verge.
A visual history of the many Xbox dashboards
Few interfaces have changed more often - or more radically - than the Xbox dashboard. Most platforms with a large user base are incredibly slow to introduce sweeping changes, but that hasn't been the case for Microsoft's game consoles. History shows that its strategy for working in new features and services involved scrapping its previous interface, essentially asking you to re-learn how to use the machine and find your content.
Microsoft deserves credit for experimenting with its dashboard throughout the years, even if many of those experiments weren't great. With the Xbox Series X set to release later in 2020, now seems like a good time to catch up on the history of the Xbox One and the Xbox 360 dashboard to see where it's been and where it may be going.
Some updates were better (or worse) than others, but they all have something in common: they've all been succeeded by a new vision. As this visual history points out, some of their ideas are seen in modern iterations of the dashboard and will be in updates to come and perhaps on future consoles, too.
Good: Fast and tidy
Bad: It looked like a Winamp skin
The "blades" dashboard interface debuted on the Xbox 360 at launch, organizing each of the console's main features into separate sections. This interface had a lot more to squeeze in than the comparatively sparse-yet-stylish dashboard found on the original Xbox. Even so, it was tidy and easy to understand. Also, quickly switching between sections was responsive, and elements were fast to load (even with the 360's 512MB of RAM). And that "whoosh" sound effect from switching blades will forever be lodged in my brain.
You could argue that this was as close as Microsoft got to perfecting the das