The Xbox dashboard, a visual history

If you didn’t like the NXE, you probably didn’t like this, either.Good: Nice to look at, brought back blade-style main navigation in a senseBad: Simplistic interface didn’t aid in quickly sorting through troves of content The 2011 update that introduced the “Metro” design showed that Microsoft was trying to juggle more than ever, but it chose a new dashboard look that didn’t afford enough space to comfortably express it. And in its sixth year on the market, some of these features were beginning to show the Xbox 360’s age.In a sense, this dashboard update merged blades with the NXE, letting you use the bumpers to shift between categories a la blades and navigate each of the colorful tiles within each section like you could in NXE. (It’s getting rid of the button altogether on its new Xbox controller coming in 2020.)Good: Far easier to navigate than the launch dashboard Bad: Faster but still not snappyThe first big overhaul to the Xbox One dashboard put a much-needed focus on your games. Microsoft has been iterating on the Xbox One dashboard faster than ever, and in the interest of speeding things up, clearing the cruft of earlier dashboards, and making it easier to access games.As for the latest update that released in late February 2020, my colleague Tom Warren says it “focuses on overhauling the home page of the Xbox One dashboard, with frequently used games and apps available immediately. The Xbox One has seen big reworks of the dashboard more frequently than before, and the stakes are high as we get closer to the launch of the Xbox Series X in late 2020.Good: ?Bad: ?Microsoft will launch the Xbox Series X in late 2020, and it’s a toss-up as to whether it chooses to start from scratch with a new dashboard for its new console or if it will build off of the momentum from the latest Xbox One dashboard update, and what’s to come between now and launch day.Given that Microsoft is touting backward compatibility with games from all previous generations of Xbox, it’s easy to imagine it choosing to load a slightly modified version of the Xbox One’s dashboard onto the Series X.