After its successful rollout last year, Microsoft is to make NXE a mandatory upgrade for 360 users wanting to play the latest titles on their machines, according to reports.

NXE, or New Xbox Experience, was released last year and completely overhauled the Xbox 360’s previous dashboard ‘blade’ system. It also introduced avatars to the 360 experience, as well as hard drive installs for games.

Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy flight sim HAWX and 2K’s MLB: 2K9 are to be the first titles to require those who have not upgraded to NXE to do so via an included patch on the game disc.

Microsoft has to date sold 28m Xbox 360s but currently only has 17m members on its Xbox Live network. Machines not connected to the internet are unlikely to be updated, along with many chipped or modified machines.

It is not known whether this decision from Microsoft is an anti-piracy measure.