Microsoft has announced that the first parts of the new dashboard update will be releasing August 11th. This first wave includes features such as Netflix party viewing, game ratings for the marketplace, the games on demand service for downloading full retail games, the avatar marketplace and awardables, and a few other tidbits for performance.

A select few will get the update a bit early via a preview program with details listed on Major Nelson’s site. Good luck to all attempting to get in, if you don’t August 11th is not too far off.

Features like LastFM, Twitter, and Facebook will be coming later this Fall.