November looks to be a big month for Microsoft, with its Xbox One side of things thanks to a major update that will be bringing backwards compatibility to the general public and an upgrade to the systems UI. This revitalization to the system is being powered by Windows 10 and looks to be the biggest and most user friendly update in the Xbox Ones history.
Along with those two key features another major update will be to the social side of things with a more social-friendly community section being added to the dashboard. Microsoft feels that who is online is extremely important to the future of gaming and want to make it a core of the Xbox One experience. The new look of the dashboard will have a way to help gamers join conversations with friends and the community as they are happening in that moment. The new Activity Feed will look to keep up with friend’s actions and favorite games easier. Along with that there will also be a trending section added that help keep you in the know of what everyone is playing.
The new update is being called ‘The New Xbox One Experience’ and looks to center on and overhaul the systems OneGuide for a more favorable experience. If you are a member of the Xbox One Preview Program some of these features and updates have already become available with the option to update or stay with the old features until the full release. There will be improved builds of the updates rolling out until the official release.
Below you will see the list of all the features with details of what each feature will do to improve your gaming experience.
- Play your Xbox 360 games on Xbox One. At launch you’ll be able to play over 100 Xbox 360 games on Xbox One with hundreds more in the months to come. This includes the added benefit of Xbox One features including screenshots, streaming, and game DVR – for your favorite Xbox 360 games. You can even play multiplayer with friends still using their Xbox 360.
- A new Guide lets you quickly access essentials with just one button press to save time spent weaving in and out of apps. You can access the Guide from Home by pressing left or double tap the Xbox button on your controller to instantly overlay the Guide. You can access Friends, quickly start a Party, get to Settings, see System Notifications, view your Messages, and more from Home or without leaving your game. These are the top tasks Xbox fans do most often, so we focused on making them faster and easier to get to without disrupting your game.
- We’re redesigning Home to make it faster and easier to get to the things you love. We’re introducing a faster and easier interface to provide access to games and apps you’ve recently used. At launch you’ll be able to more easily share your achievements and game clips with the Xbox Live community, see whether your friends are playing the same games and get one-click access to Game Hubs to get news and updates directly from the developers and community themselves.
- We’re introducing a new Community section to make Xbox One more social. Based on your feedback, this section is optimized to help you tap into what other gamers are doing on Xbox Live and directly contribute to the conversation happening within the Xbox Live community. Check out what your friends are up to or keep track of the games you follow in the redesigned Activity Feed. Explore the new Trending section to view the most popular posts from players on Xbox Live.
- The revamped OneGuide will be your single destination for TV, movies and video apps. From OneGuide, you can see a list of current trending live TV shows with the most viewers at that moment on Xbox. TV listings will now come up instantly and in full-screen, and we’ve added a picture-in-picture mode for TV so you can browse for other things to watch without missing what’s happening in your show. We’ll highlight a selection of the most exciting new movies, TV shows and deals from across the apps on Xbox One and the new App Channels area will show you the latest movies, TV shows and videos highlighted by the apps you care about.
- We’re optimizing Store to help you quickly find the content you want. To the right of OneGuide, you’ll find the new and improved Store with features including four easy to explore areas – Games, Movies & TV, Apps, and Music – and a new vertical gallery view to bring more listings at a glance. Browse through intuitive categories like Staff Picks, New Releases, Top played, Top rated, Coming Soon and Recommendations to discover new games, apps, and entertainment for your Xbox One.
How do you feel about Microsoft increasing its focus on a more social and community experience? Do you feel co-op gaming will take a bigger step forward in gaming in 2016? Do any of these updates get you excited for gaming on Xbox in the future? Leave us a comment below to let us know how you feel.
Source: News.xbox.com