New Xbox Experience Gets the Hiccups

Microsoft has acknowledged that there have been some "hiccups" with the New Xbox Experience, which went live yesterday.

Larry 'Major Nelson' Hryb, Xbox's online mascot, reports on his blog that "the LIVE service and Xbox.com and are aware of a few issues including what's happening with Marketplace. The team is actively working on the issues, so thanks for bearing with us."

The marketplace problems in question have involved content not being available. Numerous reports on the official Xbox forum, however, have also mentioned other issues including freezes, slow downs and even the Red Ring of Death.

Interestingly, while Xbox forum users seem aggrieved, everyone posting on Major Nelson's blog are in the majority entirely positive.

It should, of course, be borne in mind that the update will have been downloaded by millions of users over the last 24 hours - everyone connected to Xbox Live who turned on their 360. Some of those users would, statistically, have experienced issues purely thanks to turning their consoles on.

How has your experience been with NXE? Tell us in the Forum.

Elsewhere, Bungie has confirmed that installing Halo 3 to your hard disk - a function made possible by the NXE - will result in longer loading times than playing straight off the game disc. You can read more about that here.

^{Sources:
Major Nelson
Xbox.com}