A few days ago we posted the results of a Eurogamer test that showed installing Halo 3 to the hard drive with the new NXE actually caused load times to increase. Bungie has posted an update on their site explaining the reasons for this. It’s fairly technical, but the short answer is that Halo 3 already copies data to the hard drive, so when you install the game to the hard drive, the hard drive is doing twice as much work to read information from the cached data and to also read information from the installed game. A hard drive can’t read data from two places at once.

The full explanation is over at Bungie’s site. They also don’t seem optimistic that a fix for the issue will be forthcoming.

Over the weekend, many of you may have had some issues connecting to Xbox Live. I had issues connecting on Friday, then lost my connection a couple more times on Saturday. Major Nelson’s blog had a post up that kept alternating between “Everything’s good!” and “Okay, people still having issues.” As of now, Major Nelson claims that all issues have been resolved. Anyone still having issues?

This doesn’t bode well for the release of the New Xbox Experience this week, and perhaps more importantly, for the holiday season and the expected flood of new subscribers. As many people here will remember, Xbox Live had many issues after last year’s holiday season once millions of new customers tried to sign on, and it took a few months for them to be ironed out completely.

Hopefully Microsoft has sufficiently prepared for another flood of customers. Honestly, I’ve considered waiting a day or so to download the NXE just to see if any issues crop up. Of course, I’m sure the Preview Program was created to try to find these issues before the full release. Whether or not they were successful, I guess we’ll see come Wednesday.

Raise your hand if you like statistics! I do! I do!

Eurogamer, one of the nerdier game news sites out there, did a great comparison of load times for games installed to the Xbox hard drive compared to playing from the disc. A wide variety of games were tested, from brand new games like Fable II, to older games like The Orange Box. Most games saw a noticeable improvement, though it varied from game to game. The most surprising result, however, is that Halo 3’s load times actually got worse. Eurogamer ran the tests twice to make sure the results were valid, but for whatever reason, the best way to play Halo 3 is from the disc. There’s also a comparison of speeds from 20GB and 120GB drives.

One of my most anticipated features of the New Xbox Experience is the Netflix streaming. I confess that I get lazy about sending my Netflix DVDs back, but being able to download and view them at no extra cost directly on my TV is something I can see myself doing quite often.

Engadget yesterday revealed that the 360 will also support streaming in HD. This is great news for those who have HD displays, and adds another justification for having Xbox Live Gold so you can have Netflix support.

Unfortunately, there’s a catch. Movie and TV companies have created a copy protection scheme to keep people from pirating digital content. The simplest way of explaining it is that the playback device (Xbox 360, Blu Ray player, etc), the connection (HDMI cable), and the display (your HDTV or monitor) must all support HDCP. If any of those three links in the chain don’t support HDCP, then digital content will be downgraded to standard definition quality.

Any HDTV sold today will support HDCP. The same is true for just about any Xbox 360 you see in stores. However, anyone with an older TV or an Xbox 360 without HDMI may be out of luck as they may not support HDCP. Now, it should be noted that regular standard definition streaming will still work. But it’s yet another example of copy protection being a burden on legitimate customers.

The New Xbox Experience is still on track for a November 19th release, and a bunch of sites have gotten early access to it and posted their impressions. This should give many of you a good idea of what’s in store for you when the new update hits. Check out the links and see for yourself. I was able to apply to the preview program that Major Nelson announced a few days ago, but so far there’s no word on whether or not I’ve been accepted. If I do, I’ll be sure to post some of my own impressions. In the meantime, see for yourself at the links below:

Joystiq - Video Tour: New Xbox Experience Exposed

MTV Multiplayer - Impressions of the New Xbox Experience on my Home Console

Ars Technica - The Avatars Have Landed: Exploring the New Xbox Experience

Gizmodo - New Xbox Experience (NXE) Review: It’s Pure Improvement

Destructoid - Preview: New Xbox Experience

On Major Nelson’s latest podcast, he reveals that readers should keep an eye on his blog this week, as some lucky winners may be able to download the updated dashboard early and get a head start one customizing their Avatars, among other things. Nothing was said on how people would be chosen, or even if it would be a contest. One thing’s for sure, I’ll definitely be trying to get my hands on this update early.

One of the features of the New Xbox Experience I was most looking forward to was the ability to start a group chat, then have everyone be able to watch a movie together. While not something I would probably do often, it would be fun to get a really really awful movie and make fun of it with a group of friends online, if nothing else.

Sadly, such shenanigans will have to remain in the realm of the real, as Microsoft has confirmed that the feature has been cut for now. Photo sharing will still work, and they hinted that movie sharing will come in the future. Guess you’ll have to find some real-life movie buddies for now.

Kotaku reported the other day that the New Xbox Experience is going to require 128MB of storage space. That’s not a a problem for Pro and Elite 360 owners, but the Arcade owners have a bit of a problem. They may only have a 256MB memory card, making things a bit difficult when the update hits. Microsoft has now come up with a solution for this problem. Owners of an Arcade system can go to XboxStorageUpgrade.com, enter the serial number of their Arcade 360, and either get a free 512MB memory card or get a 20GB hard drive for $19.99.

It’s a decent deal for Arcade owners, but I can’t help but feel that anyone who recently bought a Pro system got the short end of the deal.

Get ready to join the big wide world of Avatars, 3D themes, and 8-person group chat. Microsoft has announced at the Tokyo Game Show that the massive update to the Xbox 360 dashboard will hit November 19th. Besides what I just mentioned, you can expect to see a totally revamped user interface, support for Netflix Instant Watch, a game show channel allowing you to win fabulous prizes, and the ability to install games to your hard drive for faster loading and quieter play times.

Hopefully they get all the bugs out by the time it’s released.