Xbox Live 'New Experience' features

October 22, 1:43 PMGames ExaminerDaniel Nations

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Can we just call the avatar a Xii?

The much heralded 'New Experience' for Xbox live is due to arrive on November 19th, which puts it at just under one month away. So what can we expect besides some potential downtime as crowds of people rush to download the update?

Xbox Live New Experience - Avatars and Channels

Borrowing a page from the Nintendo Wii (though Microsoft would never admit that!), the Xbox Live new experience adds avatars and channels to the list of features. Much like the Mii you can make to identify yourself to your Wii, the Live avatar is fully customizable and will let you bring out your personality within the many different channels.

So how will you be using your new avatar? One of many new cool features we'll get in the New Experience is a party channel, which is simply a virtual room where we can gather around with our friends, chat with each other, and play games together. The cool part about this is that members of a party channel can be playing completely different games and still chat with each other.

The party channel is just one of many new channels that will make up the new way to navigate Xbox Live. Sound familiar? Yep, this all seems to be taking a page right out of the Nintendo Wii playbook.

Xbox Live New Experience - Netflix On Demand

The feature I am most looking forward to is the ability to stream on demand movies from Netflix to my TV. Netflix members have been able to get instant access to thousands of movies through the Netflix website, but now members will get to stream them directly to their television through the Xbox Live service.

This means instant access to a huge library of movies. And, with Netflix's recent deal with Stars that makes movies from Stars available on Netflix, this just gets better and better.

Xbox Live New Experience - Xbox Live Marketplace

The Xbox Live New Experience will also bring some big changes to the marketplace. One big change is that we will be able to order products through the Xbox website. Not only does this mean that we can use our PC to browse through the marketplace -- which can be much easier when searching for a specific title -- we can also browse through the marketplace and even order games from work.

Another big change will be the inclusion of independent games developed using Microsoft's XNA game development platform. The community game marketplace is already in beta on the Xbox Live service, and not only does it allow you to put your own game up in the marketplace, you can even make money from it.

This feature has the most potential. There are some fantastic independent games out there, and one huge advantage independent games have is that they aren't tied to a huge game producer demanding certain things in the game to make it more marketable. This opens up independent games to really experiment with gameplay -- sometimes with dynamically horrid results -- sometimes with exceedingly cool results.

Xbox Live New Experience - Primetime

One of the biggest hyped Xbox Live New Experience features has been Primetime, which is to be a series of game shows that players can participate in and compete against their friends.

Unfortunately, Primetime on Xbox Live has been pushed back until early next year. Considering this is probably the most ambitious part of the New Experience, it's probably a smart move to separate it out to make sure they can put the proper focus on it. But its still disappointing to have it pushed back.