The Tokyo Game Show kicked off last night with plenty of interesting news.  Some of it was no surprise (Halo 3 Recon episode) while other news on the official release for the new Dashboard update was unexpected.  It was the most interesting of the announcements coming out of the Tokyo Game Show and I’m sure the most anticipated.

On November 19th, we’ll all be able to see for ourselves just how new this “new Xbox experience” really is.  Here’s a recap of some of the features for those of you still not in the know about what to expect on this day.

- Play from the hard drive.  Option to copy games to play directly from the hard drive. Yes you will need the game disc even then.

- Access Xbox LIVE Marketplace from the web.  Browse and purchase content from Xbox.com. (my most anticipated feature)

- LIVE party system.  You can have a private party of up to 8 friends watching movies together, playing games etc.

- Avatars, Xbox LIVE Primetime & new display support.  (16X10 over VGA or HDMI, and support for 1440×900 or 1680×1050)