In just a few short weeks, the New Xbox Experience, NXE for short, will be released upon the masses. New features include a new, totally redesigned dashboard layout, getting rid of the blades, adding Mii-- I mean avatars, and the ability to install your games onto your hard drive. After installing your games, you'll still need the disc in the system, but the loading times should be cut drastically.

Stephen Totilo over at the MTV Multiplayer Blog decided to test this with three different games, Gears of War, Grand Theft Auto IV, and Fable 2. He timed the loading times for both dvd-based and hard-drive based, and his result? It seemed to take an average of about twelve seconds off the initial load.

I know we, as a society, are obsessed with time management, but if all these pre-loads do for us is to save twelve seconds every time I want to play a game, I don't really think it's worth it. Now, if it means that a developer can take advantage of the install and give me a richer gaming experience, I'm all for it. For now, I'm just going to keep my precious hard drive space and think of those twelve seconds as anticipation time for the great game I'm about to play.

The video comparisions can be found here for those interested.