The NXE brought us Mii’s Avatars, which I haven’t really done a whole lot with to be honest. I spent roughly 5 minutes setting mine up the first day and haven’t touched it since. However, Microsoft has given us a good reason to put a little extra effort into your creation. You can now “Free Your Avatar”, which basically means that you can create an image of your avatar, complete with text and a background to download to your computer. This is a cool way to make a new profile image for Facebook or Myspace.

Of course the real fun comes when you realize that you can put in anyone’s gamertag and make a picture. This means that you can make a pic of your “crew” (if you don’t have any friends, they have generic ones that you can choose from). Of course you’ll have those immature people that will take your pic and add something rather childish just above your avatar.

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With the New Xbox Experience requiring that your console have at least 128MB of free space, that leaves owners of new Arcade models in a bit of a jam. Sure, Microsoft was nice and offered up free memory cards and cheap hard drives to owners of older Core systems, but do new console owners have to use up a portion of their memory card for this dashboard update? Apparently not.

Without any great fanfare, Microsoft quietly upgraded the internals of the new Arcade model. While so far this doesn’t seem to have included the new Jasper chipset, it does include 256MB of internal storage. Unfortunately this does replace the usual memory card that is usually shipped with the console. I suppose this is really for the better, since if you were to for some reason remove and lose that memory card (which contained the data for your dashboard update) you’d probably be in a world of hurt.

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In case you missed it, Microsoft released their dashboard update for the Xbox 360, dubbed the New Xbox Experience. Now those of you that also happen to subscribe to Netflix may have noticed something else. Upon trying to stream certain movies, you may have been greeted with a message stating that the film you are trying to watch is currently unavailable. Here’s the least surprising part of the whole thing. All of the movies which are currently unavailable happen to be from Sony Pictures Entertainment. Coincidence?

Lets see, what motive would Sony have to pull their catalog of films from being streamed to the Xbox 360? That’s right, they don’t want owners of a competitor’s product to enjoy it any more than possible. We know this to be true, since all films in question are still available for viewing via your PC and other streaming devices, just not the Xbox 360.

This really only makes Sony look bad. For them to pull their catalog of films right as the NXE is being launched is just plain underhanded. They’ve obviously known that their movies were going to be streamed to the 360, so why wait until now to pull them? So the question now is if they will ever allow their catalog to be streamed to Microsoft’s console. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

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I’ve said for a long time that Steam is the best thing to happen to PC gaming since the concept of shareware was created. The ability to download your game directly from Valve’s servers onto any computer, at any time is just awesome. Now they’re starting to save your key bindings, and soon your saved games. It really just doesn’t get much better than this. That is until Microsoft comes in and tries to do it better.

Yes, Microsoft is planning to compete with the digital distribution service by making full PC titles available through their Marketplace application. In two to three weeks, we’ll see the beginnings of the service, though it will only include videos, demos and DLC.

I suppose it was only a matter of time before someone stepped up to challenge Valve, and Microsoft definitely has the resources to do it. Unfortunately their Games For Windows Live initiative was all but a complete failure, which doesn’t give me much hope that they can really make a better Steam.

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When Portal: Still Alive recently debuted on the Xbox Live Arcade, we were surprised to see the rather large file size of 629MB. Granted, that isn’t very large when compared to your average PC game, but when you consider the fact that Microsoft has a maximum game size of 350MB on XBLA, it’s quite large. So the question then became whether this was an exception to the rule, or if they had upped the limit. Microsoft has finally responded to this, stating that it is an exception to the rule.

“We have set file limits as a general guideline. An important part of Xbox LIVE Arcade is easy access and keeping file size down is a vital part of that. Equally important is offering titles with superior game play. We weigh both considerations on a case-by-case basis, and will make exceptions when it makes sense to ensure the best customer experience.”

So, the limit is 350MB, unless you are a company like Valve, who is trying to release a huge hit title like Portal onto their console. Got it.

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When the New Xbox Experience launches next month, 360 owners will have the opportunity to stream Netflix movies to their console. This is something we’ve known for some time, and is honestly one of the things I look forward to the most regarding the dashboard update. However, it seems that they’ve been holding out on us.

Not only are we going to be able to stream Netflix movies on our Xbox 360’s, but we’re going to be able to do it in HD. When the NXE goes live on November 19th, Netflix will also be launching their HD streaming service, which will work with the 360. According to sources, there will be over 300 movies available in full HD when the service launches. If you don’t have a Netflix account already, I’d highly suggest signing up and taking advantage of this.

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If you’re looking to add a hard drive to that Core or Arcade Xbox 360, then it seems as though you might have another option in the near future. According to a leaked ad from Circuit City, you’ll be able to pick up a 60GB HDD Live starter pack starting next week. The pack is said to include a 60GB hard drive, 3 month Live membership, headset and ethernet cable. $100 is a bit steep for that size drive, but then again they used to sell the smaller 20GB drives for around the same price.

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One of the constraints that some developers have to work with when creating titles for XBLA is a size limit. They have to squeeze their entire game into a measly 350MB in order to be considered. Well, unless their name is Valve that is.

Portal: Still Alive was recently released on XBLA, and we were shocked to see that it will consume a whopping 629MB. Granted, these days a few hundred MB’s isn’t exactly large, but when you consider that they’ve gone over Microsoft’s size limit by nearly double, it’s a big deal. There’s currently no word from Microsoft on whether or not this was a one time thing, or if they are raising the cap for everyone.

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Remember yesterday when we informed you that the New Xbox Experience was going to require 128MB of storage? Well, since there are gamers out there without that kind of storage (or that only have a limited amount of storage on a memory card), this seemed like an easy way for Microsoft to make a cash grab. However, it seems that Microsoft is on the up-and-up, and is providing an excellent way for you to up the storage on your system.

If you don’t have enough space to download the update, you’re going to have two options available to you. First, you can take the freebie route, and get yourself a 512MB memory card. That seems like a pretty good deal, right? Sure, but it’s not nearly as good as scoring yourself a 20GB (refurbished) hard drive for $19.99. If you don’t already have one, I highly suggest jumping all over this.

So what do you need to do? Just head over to this page, and put in your Serial Number and Console ID. Microsoft will then determine if you are eligible for the program. For those wondering if this is a legit site (a quick Whois shows that it’s not owned by Microsoft), you can see a link to the site from the official Xbox site here.

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Here’s a nice kick in the nuts from Microsoft. You know that New Xbox Experience that they’ve been hyping since E3? As it turns out, your 360 might not even be able to install it. The NXE requires 128MB of storage space. Sure, newer Arcade units come with 256MB, which is enough for the update, but it’ll eat up half of your storage space. What does Microsoft recommend? They suggest that you fork over the cash for a hard drive if you want to have the “optimal experience”. Why again didn’t they make hard drives standard? Oh that’s right, to make the console appear cheap to get the initial sales, then make even more cash when you go to buy a drive. Check out the official word from Major Nelson after the jump.

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