Judging from the keynote speach at E3, the change will be a big one but not necessarily a good one. The new interface is drab – grey and black, not the colourful one that greets me currently. Lovely oranges, reds purples, greens and blues will be banished in favour of a more PS3 meets Wii style menu.

Next is the introduction of avatars. The most annoying creation of recent years in my opinion. You can spend half an hour creating a virtual character that is ridiculous and looks nothing like you. Designed so you can share more of your personality with the online community. No thanks. With the new interface when I sign in to Xbox Live and go to my ‘buddy list’ , god help me the American influence, I will now see stupid characters standing around on the screen instead of a list of friends. Is that better user experience? I think not.

This new interface is designed to make the Xbox more family friendly and in doing so will alienate many of its fans. I much prefer the existing Dashboard and even that of the PS3 which is clean, slick and easily navigated. In changing this, the most basic of functionality, Microsoft is trying to take some market share away from the family friendly Wii but will inevitabley dilute it’s niche market and will gamers struggle to identify with the console.

Best Feature: The ability to rip your games to your hard drive for faster loading times and reduced lag.
Worst Feature: Avatars. Trying to compete with second life, PS3′s HOME and the Wii means once again Microsoft have shown they have no imagination or creativity of their own and are simply copying the other guy.

In other words i think Microsoft have shot themselves in the foot with this one, but the technical skills involved with doing so are so mindboggling that I can;t wait to try it out.