Play in Peace: Disable Notifications on your Xbox 360

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Ever tried watching a movie or listening to music, only to have the Xbox 360 notifications pop up and alert you that someone came online, invited you to play a game, or sent you a message? It can get annoying, particularly when I’m just trying to watch a DVD or stream from Netflix. Microsoft knows that, so they’ve made it very simple to disable the alerts on the Xbox 360.

In the latest Dashboard of the Xbox 360 (“Metro UI”), you simply need to go to the far right of the Dashboard where it says Settings, then select Preferences, then hit Notifications. There you have a few options.

Did you know: Many people refer to these notifications as “toast” because they “pop up!”

Show notifications, Play Sound, or Show During Video can all be enabled or disabled using “radio button” selectors. You can disbale the notifications altogether by unchecking them, or just disable the alert during video polayback. Or you can keep the popups (the “toast”) and just disable the sounds!

There are rumors that a future update will allow you disable notifications for the new “Beacons” feature if you don’t want to be bugged every single time you sign in to a popular game (do people really need to set Beacons for Modern Warfare 3? If you wanted to get that last Fuzion Frenzy 2 achievement, I’d understand – but you don’t really need to look too far to find people playing Halo Reach or Gears of War 3!).