Once Again, Xbox Says 'No' To The Return Of The Xbox 360 Blades Dashboard

Why not tho. Just give us the blades

At least give us a blades dynamic background.

Don't forget Microsoft is a business and ads/gampass prominence are the price we pay for lower costing games and hardware.

I don't want the blades back, but yeah I have nostalgia for that time too, I got my 360 at midnight on launch and I loved that generation.

I think perhaps to lean into that nostalgia they could change the guide, instead of the left/right tabs they could include blades in that part. That might please a few people.

Whoo hoo!!!! I always hated the blades theme. Hopefully they redesign the UI completely and give it a fresh look!

Sounds like they are afraid that if Game Pass was just part of its own blade, they'd not be able to endlessly advertise it.

Because let's be honest. The guide is where the real options are, and it's basically the blades.

Played a lot more back then & loved the blades (the guide button has some similarities). It was just so simple & easy to use. There are more features available so this could really benefit if something like that was used. But that would only be from the consumer’s POV oc. I don’t care how it looks but how player friendly it is! If they have something better, I’ll be happy to use it.

Blades? Pfff. I would prefer a Windows 1.0 style instead.

First, the blades are awful looking, and second, why people want them back while they cry that the actual dashboard blocks a lot of the wallpaper?

@Zucaritas

Can someone explain to me why people loved the blade dashboard so much? What's the big deal about it?

@Carck wow, that's disgusting, why people want that back?

@Zucaritas regardless of your personal opinion, please consider how the wallpaper is mostly visible at all times due to the heavy use of transparencies. This was a common look for interfaces in the mid-2000s.

@Snake_V5 easiest answer is nostalgia. But it was indeed very practical. Everything was well laid out, well organized and it was incredibly snappy, especially for its time.
The current dashboard is much more feature rich, but some of those features are buried in submenus or 2/3 clicks too far away. The blades were very focused.

Not sure it would work today. But the underlying principles of its design are sorely missing from today's dashboard. Nostalgia for the blades is the easiest way most people have to communicate the need for those principles to return, even if in a different modern way.

@Carck Oh I see. Looking at the blade dashboard myself I'd say that it also looks old for today standards too.

Xbox: We want your feedback
Fans: We want blades
Xbox: We dont want that feedback

@Kaloudz Give me the original start up menu and the blades no micro transactions or advertising and the standalone halo 2 game on the original server

@Richnj Exactly this. I don't get why people keep saying they want the blades back, when the blades never went anywhere, they just shifted left and stacked vertical rather than horizontal. The Guide menu is the Blades interface.

@Carck One key feature is that transparency as a heavily used UI design is now considered dated and is rooted in 00's design. It started with the Aqua theme in OSX to match iMac, then Windows got in on the action with Win Vista AeroGlass, and that also found it's way into Blades. But the idea of transparency is now considered a design no-go since it allows so much "stuff" on screen at any time that it can be distracting and confusing. With blades based on copious amount of transparency that alone is a big reason why it can't return. Minimalism and "flat" UI is in currently. And it probably will remain so since it's based on a bunch of supposed behavioral research. Though, like I said above, the blades are still there, in the guide menu, it's just that instead of overlaying wallpaper with transparency, it's an inset overlaying the game itself.

Remove the ads row and leave more space for the wallpaper. The Xbox button is the best guide/UI but people need to learn how good it is.

I don’t understand why the Blades theme is so popular because it doesn’t look that good to me but that’s only my opinion, to each their own. So long as we get a new dashboard that shows the background.

The real news is her comments about the negative feedback regarding the tiles obscuring the wallpaper

Personally it would be a great incentive and touch for Xbox users if you could switch between the blades and the new UI, to be able to have a choice.

Hmmm... Not very pro consumer as people are saying. They should at least give you the OPTION of how you want it to look. Blades or no blades. What's so hard about that? Looks better than what we have now imo.

@hoffa007 agree 1000 percent.