Microsoft Looking to the New Xbox Experience to Help the Battle in Europe

Japan isn’t even worth discussing in terms of the Xbox 360′s success. Microsoft has been battling it out in North America well enough from what they will publically say, but they admit that they haven’t done enough in Europe. The “new Xbox experience” is a key to tapping into the more casual, collaborative and social gaming style in Europe, according to Microsoft’s Scott Henson.

“The gameplay style in Europe is more casual, more collaborative and social,” Henson told Edge. “They’re a key part of us getting the next 20 million on [Xbox Live]. We’re asking how we become something that’s relevant to everyone. I think Europe is the North Star, the sign that says ‘here’s what it looks like to broaden the service to everyone’.”

Compared with the PlayStation 3′s (and even PSP’s) simple and efficient XMB, Microsoft has found that its once revolutionary system has become a convoluted mess.

“Because of the amount of stuff that’s coming into Live, it’s actually a little difficult for people to find it, especially people outside the core users,” said the head of Live, Marc Whitten. “It’s based on this idea that you know exactly what you want to do: hit the eject button, put the disc in, go to multiplayer and start playing your Halo match. That’s the way it’s always worked. That worked super well for the cognoscenti of the console world, but the truth is that there’s an amazing amount of content that for a lot of people is hard to find.”

You can read more at Edge about the angle Microsoft is taking with the new dashboard. I’ve grown to like it more and more since it was first unveiled at E3, and I’m hopeful that the new layout will solve many of the problems with the current blades setup.

Are you liking the new look, or would you prefer that Microsoft continue to iterate on the blades?