Xbox 360 spring update arrives on Live

Microsoft's much anticipated spring update for Xbox 360 is now available for download for European owners of the console, having appeared on the Xbox Live service at 10am this morning UK time.

Boasting "more than 125 revolutionary features and enhancements", the spring update is principally known for its background download manager, which will allow users to queue up to six items at a time, which will download quietly as they do other things - and pause and resume to prevent interfering with multiplayer activities.

Other features include new Marketplace arrangement menus to avoid clutter, fast-forward and rewind functions added to downloaded videos, at multiple speeds, artist and song information added to the music playback screen, smoother use of custom music during load-pauses and content-transitions, DVD movie bookmarking so you can resume sessions, and smoother playback of DVDs "including additional VGA support".

The update is available to users of either the Xbox 360 Core System or the full one, as it's stored away from the hard disk, and can be downloaded regardless of whether you have a Gold or Silver Xbox Live account.

Microsoft is planning more of these giant dashboard updates in the future, and it's expected that major updates for the console will launch biannually.