Xbox’s latest tease could bring the Xbox 360 Blades dashboard to modern consoles
Xbox Labs teased retro dashboard options inspired by the Xbox 360 era, including Blades, for modern consoles and PC.
One of the most recognizable pieces of 2000s gaming design may be inching back into view. Xbox has teased an experiment that appears to let players swap today’s menus for dashboard styles modeled on the Xbox 360, including the much loved Blades interface from 2005.
A familiar 2000s menu shows up again
Scott Van Vliet, who runs the newly announced Xbox Labs, shared a video on X showing what looked like a dashboard picker for current Xbox systems and PC. The clip appeared to offer several retro styled home screens, including the original Blades layout from 2005, the New Xbox Experience from 2008, and the Metro design introduced in 2011.
For players who associate the Xbox 360 era with checking their Gamerscore on those menus, that was enough to spark immediate interest. The post also received a supportive share from Asha, identified as Xbox’s CEO, which gave the experiment extra visibility.
What has changed so far is the tease itself, not a confirmed public launch. The concept shown in the video appears to be aimed at modern Xbox consoles and PC users, rather than the original Xbox 360 hardware, and the report describes it as early testing.
Why Xbox Labs matters here
Xbox Labs was announced on October 13 and is led by Van Vliet. The group is described as a small team of game makers, engineers and scientists focused on turning emerging ideas into things that players and developers can try. Its stated approach is to build openly, learn from how people use its work, and measure success by whether it leads to more playing and creating.
The report says the team is also leaning into the kinds of decompiling, hacking and fan made development methods that have been gaining attention online. That makes a retro dashboard experiment a notable first public curiosity, especially for fans who still remember Blades, Xbox Avatars and the Metro era as a big part of the brand’s identity.
As for when any of this takes effect, the footage points to a test phase rather than a rollout. The social response described in the report suggests there is strong demand already, but the dashboard concept remains something Xbox Labs is experimenting with for now.
