I was pleased when I booted up my xbox for the first time on the 19th. Very very pleased. The NXE as it's called has finally arrived on my exbawx. So right now I want to do a bit of a breakdown on what I think of it.

Installation: The installation went fairly smoothly for me aside from the fact that it had to restart several times to complete it however it took a very short time, I think somewhere between 3-5 minutes overall. 

Interface/Aesthetics: The first thing that was greatly improved was the interface. It is a lot more streamlined, for me the best thing I noticed was that as far as my game library is concerned, I have to go through almost zero menus in order to play my XBLA games. Thought the interface design is a bit familiar (Itunes' cover flow comes to mind) it is amazingly effective for the 360. Gone are the blades and the neat swoosh noise they make but the new layout feels a bit more, dare I say, organic. It also has a satisfying clicking sound which is music to my ears to me, being an ipod enthusiast. It is very easily navigated with the bumpers, triggers, and analog stick. And above all it's easy on the eyes, which I really appreciate because of my time as a design student. 

Avatars: First and foremost, personally I really like the avatar system. They are very customisable, with everything from facial features, to accessories such as rings or face-paint. Where as on the Wii you get a minimum choice of facial features and a favorite color to work with. The avatars on the 360 are also a little more interactive, with a few preset expressions and a silly little ability to make the avatar belch, which while juvenile, really amuses me. I also like how you can make their lips move so the have the illusion of speech, which makes for some good kung fu movie parodies for me and my friends.

Ability to store games on your hard drive: This is the only thing hard to swallow for me at the moment. This feature promises to decrease loading times, which it does, just not significantly. I tried it with Fable 2 and it barely put a dent in the loading times save a second or two. And frankly, it is a waste of good hard drive space, each game being at least a minimum of five gigabytes to install. Which is bad for me considering I only have a 20gb hard drive. The only thing it really does is make your 360 a tiny bit quieter, because the disc has to spin less, which is also good for the disc and drive. 

 In conclusion however, this is a very welcome update. It's overall very aesthetically pleasing, and streamlined. I just hope that the ability to store games gets a little bit better.