Xbox 360 Spring Update

I guess that video that made the rounds a few days ago was legit.

The official announcement confirmed a whole pile of new features, as well as the May 7th release date.

The one they (and everyone else) seem to be hyping the most is the integration with MSN Live Messenger. While I think this is a nice feature, I don't think it's one I'll be using a whole lot. If I sit down in front of the TV, I'm doing it to play a game, not log in to MSN and have people bothering me.

I'm happy to see that Marketplace will have it's own dedicated blade in the dashboard.

Also, they've FINALLY got the "Play Game" button to display the name of the game in the tray, something they had in pre-release shots of the dashboard well before the console even launched.

Download mode is also a new feature. This will put the console into a standby-like mode where it will consume less power, and be more quiet. When downloads complete, it will automatically shut down.

Aside from those though, it's mostly just tweaking visual aspects or existing features.

Then there's the keyboard add-on for the controller. An early design of this was leaked way back before launch as well. I don't know why it's taken this long to get it released, but I'm glad it's finally coming, even if it does look a little more annoying than the original design.

Read the whole thing at Kotaku.