XBOX 360 Spring Dashboard update news !!

Its not pretty.. seems they took care of them selves this time round..

here is some highlights...

Source

In this exclusive interview with general manager of Xbox Live Marc Whitten, Next-Gen gets all the first details on big changes to the service—including that there will be no spring dashboard update, and that underperforming XBLA titles will be removed.

According to Whitten, XBLA titles that have been out for more than six months, have a Metacritic score of less than 65%, and have a conversion rate of less than 6% will be eligible for desliting. Microsoft will give three months of notice before these titles are removed.

Whitten also told us that there would be no spring dashboard update for Xbox 360 owners this year, saying that resources were instead focused on “building the proper infrastructure and scale for the service.” There will however be a change to DRM policy and a tool released next month that will allow 360 owners to re-license content to a single console—finally fixing the issue that forced gamers playing XBLA games to be connected to Xbox LIVE if their 360 broke down and was replaced.

Could you describe the changes we can expect to see in the Marketplace in the near future?

Well probably the biggest change I can share with you today is a series of new policies along with a new internal approach and investment in the Xbox LIVE Arcade business going forward. While the service has had a lot of success and now boasts over 130 titles, we think it is time to continue our focus on quality over quantity. This means that we need to allow developers more time and more space to make even bigger and better games. So we are officially increasing our XBLA game size limits dramatically from 150mb to 350mb. We are also giving publishers more flexibility in how they price their games and opening up a new 1600 Microsoft Points price point for some of these now bigger and better games. This week we already have seen a title that is taking advantage of this and getting great response, Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode One. In addition to allowing these bigger and better games we will be delisting older underperforming titles in order to keep the service focused on a section of high quality games. Finally, we are also going to be putting our money where our mouth is here and are launching a new fully funded 1st party studio which will be focused on high quality digital content creation.

Last year Xbox 360 owners got a spring dashboard update in early May. It's now late May and you still haven't announced anything regarding this year's update. Should 360 owners be holding their breath for it?

We have taken a different approach this spring and spent a lot of our time and resources of building the proper infrastructure and scale for the service not just today but also into the future. So while most users will not notice any significant changes to the dashboard this spring, I can tell you that the team will be releasing a new digital rights management (DRM) tool next month that will allow you to better consolidate your licenses for downloaded content to a single Xbox and allow you the freedom to be able to play your content both online and offline.

owell no clan blade scaled back arcade..well sorta. Meh Live is not what is used to be.