There were a lot of indivual downloads to get the new update going. We have the main patch, then ESPN had 2-3 seperate downloads, Zune had one too. All in all, it took about 30 minutes to get to where I could explore the new areas. I am impressed with it though. The dream of having a all-in-one living room console is getting closer.

Here is what is new in this Fall Xbox Live update according to Major Nelson:

ESPN on Xbox LIVE*

• 3,500 Sporting Events A Year – Access more than 3,500 live and on-demand global sporting events from ESPN3.com a year, including college basketball, college football and college bowl games, MLB, NBA, international soccer and more.
• Out of Market Games – Catch your favorite college team games. Check out the huge catalog of out of market games and enjoy them on the big screen.
• The Best Ways to Watch – Enjoy HD programming, DVR controls, plus access to hundreds of clips from ESPN3.com, refreshed daily.
• Games at a Glance – Keep up on real-time score information using ESPN.com’s score feed without leaving the game you’re watching. View scores for leagues and games currently in the ESPN.com feed and select “Watch Live” or “Watch Replay” to jump straight into that game.
• Predict the Winner – Pick what team you think will win. While watching selected games in college football, college basketball, MLB, and NBA, you will be prompted to vote for your team of choice. You’ll also see the percentage of votes among the Xbox LIVE viewing community.
• Voice Chat – Voice chat with up to seven other friends while watching the big game.
• My Sports – To customize your ESPN on Xbox LIVE experience, click on the “Events, Highlights and More” slot on the homepage and browse by sport to pick a specific league that you want to follow for the season. The league that you select will now automatically display in your My Sports Channel.

Zune Music*

• Zune Pass – Zune Pass is a monthly subscription service that gives you unlimited, on demand streaming of millions of songs at launch from all the major music labels and thousands of independent labels.
• Enhanced search – Search the broad library to find your favorite artists, albums, songs and playlists.
• Social – Connect with like-minded fans on the Zune online community and get new music recommendations. Zune Social also lets you see friend’s Avatars and listen to their recently played songs or check out their favorite artists.
• Smart DJ – Instantly create customized playlists by selecting an artist and have Smart DJ find songs that complement your selection.

Netflix* Search – Experience a streamlined search function making it much easier to find the movies and TV shows you want to watch.

Improved voice chat quality – The audio codec is updated to improve Xbox LIVE Party audio quality. So grab your friends and jump into a multiplayer game or catch a big game with friends via ESPN3.

Improved Gamertag creation – Choosing a new Gamertag? If the Gamertag you’re looking for is already taken, your Avatar will spin a wheel and we will provide five other Gamertag suggestions at a time for you to choose from.

Streamlined in-dashboard virtual keyboard – We’ve taken the existing QWERTY keyboard in-dash and made it easier to use for scenarios that involve repeated text entry, when signing up for LIVE within the dashboard for example.

Improved Xbox LIVE Marketplace UI and browse experience – The Game Marketplace has been re-organized to provide streamlined access to the gaming and video content you want, reducing the number of steps to get to a download.

Easier to get on a wireless network – Trying to connect to a wireless network? Now you can see a list of all the wireless networks within range when you go into network settings.  From there, you can select a new network or further configure the network you’re connected to.

Ability to sign-out other controllers in the sign-in UI – We’re adding the ability to sign-out profiles on other controllers in the sign-in UI within the Guide. This is especially useful when playing games like Rock Band.

New browse experience for 100% completed games – You spent a lot of time and effort earning those Achievements, so we’re giving you a new and better way to browse all of them.

Updated Family Settings – Xbox 360 continues to lead the industry in efforts to create tools that help parents and caregivers choose the right play and viewing settings for their families. We are enhancing the core Family Settings tools for all Xbox LIVE members:

Family Programming – When turned on, Family Programming disables display of all mature content on the dashboard and can be turned on or off with a protected password for individual members (per account). It also highlights all family-friendly entertainment.

Intelligent Default Settings – Your Xbox automatically customizes privacy and activity settings for each member, based on age (child, teen and adult). These settings can later be individually customized.

Title Exceptions – Allow your family members to play specific games above the console’s designated ESRB/PEGI (etc.) rating as you deem appropriate.

* Xbox LIVE Gold account required to access these features. Not all features available in all Xbox LIVE Regions.

When the Wii was released, I ended up getting rid of the Xbox 360 and moving towards the Wii for a better selection of games for my kids. (now 16 and 7) The Wii was great for a while. 6 months later, I got into a situation where it would stop reading disks. I thought initially that my son was ruining the disks with his poor handling, but I realized it wasn’t that. Brand new disk, old scratched disks, whatever… they wouldn’t play. I called Nintendo and they walked me through some stuff to try. All came up empty, so they replaced it with other console. So a week goes by, no Wii for the kids, no biggie. The new one (or probably refurbed) came in and we were back to the races.

3 months after getting the replacement Wii, the same thing started happening again. This time I was sure it wasn’t my son since he started to learn to take care of his games after the 1st incident since I used that opportunity to make him feel as if he caused the problem by leaving disks out everywhere, etc… It happened on a weekend, just after my wife rented a couple games for them. Instead of saying, “wait until monday and I will call Nintendo again”, I said, “F it” and went out and bought another brand new Wii. All was fine once again.

3 months later, AGAIN… the same freaking problem. Being too lazy to call and go through the hassle of swapping, I bought our 3rd Wii. That was 6 months ago. Guess what…

YEP… AGAIN! I am getting really pissed off and it’s taking ever ounce of my control to type clean words instead of what I am feeling right now. I am going to get a little work done here today, but I hope to get a block of time to call Nintendo today. If I can’t find resolve, I have about 50-60 Wii games I will be selling, so watch out here for that announcement. I will probably sell them direct rather than on ebay. If I leave Wii, PS3 or Xbox 360? I am leaning 360 since I have 4-5 games that I forgot I had when we got rid of the 360 initially.

Damn you Nintendo. Make a good product please. Ok, wait, the Wii is a good product, what I mean is make a dependable product. I have talked to others that say they have had this issue too.

Read more about it at Kotaku

This one was in the laundry today. Darn.

Over the weekend and last night, I have been the lead singer of the band in both American Idol and my daughter’s new Guitar Hero game. Turns out the mic from American Idol for the Wii works with the newest Guitar Hero that allows for “band” additions now.

You should have heard me and Brittney doing Korn’s Freak on a Leash. Brutal. Last night my son and I tore up Lips of an Angel and Knocking on Heaven’s Door on American Idol. I’ll have to record some of this and share.

Seriously. I do think I am gonna grab these. It’s not just me wanting to post the girl pic above, honest. They need to make a game for the Wii that lets my son practice his Taekwondo too. He loves boxing on Wii Sports though.

Via

After the dust settled on the Mobilitysite/Aximsite merger, I took a little time off. Then back at it.

I haven’t blogged here much because my nights have been filled with fun and exciting activities more than in the past. I used to get the bulk of all my site related work done at night, so the site production from me is suffering because of my new nightlife.

I just redesigned SEC Talk for the football season and added some new features to the site. I added user blogs, a photo gallery (which will be coming to Aximsite soon too), and a fresh new look. We also hit 5000 members this weekend too.

I have been playing some video games, spending time with the family, and watching alot of football and more Planet Earth than a human should be allowed to watch.

I purchased the Planet Earth Series on Blueray a last month and I can not stop watching!

This is just a post to tell where I’ve been… Not promising more updates here, just a heads up.

I want to duel you with my level 19 Warlock. 1800 HP Self Buffed, 74 Spell Damage, etc….

And my daughter probaly gets her walkthroughs from this site already… hehe

Source : Crunch Gear