I was lucky enough, thanks to a friend who was working in the retail business at the time, to get my Xbox 360 when the console first hit the shelf. Getting home and unpacking the console from its box I was greeted to the sight of a tidy, stylish looking machine. A machine everyone connected to gaming in any way recognises on sight these days. The console was instantly set up, though at the time not on a HD ready tv. Switching the Xbox on I saw the Dashboard for the first time and I remember how impressed I was with the layout of the system. Starting, for those that don't know by now, (is there anybody that doesn't?), the Dashboard consists of five "blades". Each blade provides a different system function.
First you have the Marketplace "blade". You'll need to be connected to Xbox Live to make any use of this at all. The Marketplace blade allows you to download game videos and demos and any items that you purchase using Microsoft point, bought using a credit card or from a retailer as a prepaid card. Here you can also use Gold membership Cards to purchase Xbox Gold Live account services. Allowing you to play games over Xbox Live.
The second blade is your Xbox Live blade. Here you have your gamer tag at the top left of the screen with your game score displayed next to it. Accessing Xbox Live services will also your current "Reputation" level in a 5 star meter to be displayed. Below is your Inside Xbox icon. This takes you straight to news of events and items for download or purchase from Xbox Marketplace or game retailers. Then there's your Friends icon, this show you how many people on your friends list are online. Clicking on this brings up your friends list and allows you to access various friends options.
Below that there's the Chat and IM icon. This allows you to send friend requests, text and picture messages and enter private voice and video chat. While you can send text and picture messages while playing games, private voice chat is available during games, not video chat. Below this icon you then have an advert for various offers followed by the disc tray status and control icon.
Next blade is your Games blade. Here you have your gamer tag icon again, top left, bellow that is your Games Library, listing all of the games stored on your Hard Drive. Below that is your Achievements icon. Clicking on this will display the gamerscore you have achieved in each of the games you have played. Original Xbox games on the Xbox 360 do not have achievements. Then there's the Played Games icon. This will take you to a full list of all the games you have played on your console and give you the score for each game.
The next blade is your Media blade. This is the last blade to display your gamer tag and score. Below which is the Music, Pictures, Videos, Video Store and Media Center icon. Each provides information and access to the function represented by the icon title. For example Music takes you to music stored on your hard drive, a Windows based or windows Media Center PC, current music disc or portable device. Video Store takes you to the video section of Marketplace, here you will find movies, TV, music videos and game videos.
The final blade is your System blade. Here you find all the tech side of your console, including setting for audio output, standard TV and HDTV options. Network options, hard drive access, family settings if your console is to be used by children of a certain age. Here you can decide if your under 18 child can have access to 18 rated material, be it films or games. As well as family settings for Xbox Live services. Setup options for your Xbox LIVE Vision camera and the Initial Setup option.
However, all of this is about to change when Microsoft update the Dashboard. The update will bring you a radically changed dash looking more like a pc desktop. This will feature many new things to explore, including the creation of an avatar, a Netflix section which will require Live Gold membership and a Netflix membership, and a revamped way of purchasing items over LIVE.
Still, once you've found your way through all of this, whichever dashboard you happen to experience on your first time on a 360, and you're happy with the way you have your console setup its then on to Gamertag and profile making. I'll leave this to discover for yourself as this is quite a lengthy process best done on the console itself. You can create gamer profiles at Xbox.com and transfer them to the 360 also. Once the process of setting up a tag and profile is complete you're already to play. The games for the 360 vary from genre to genre and many, not all unfortunately, provide satisfying gameplay. I'm not going to start comparing this console to its rival the Sony PS3. That's not the purpose of this article. The PS3 is a damn good machine in its own right, whether I think it's better or not is irrelevant. What I do hope this article has done is provided some information for those new to the console world.
