Earlier this week, Major Nelson reported on his blog that Microsoft would start rolling out the next Xbox One update to it’s users. Major Nelson and the crew at Microsoft are appreciative to the Xbox Live members who contributed feedback to help shape the development of this system update. In the future, they will look to expand the preview program.
So what is included in this update, you ask? Below are the list of features that should roll out to your system this week.
Improvements to My Games and Apps. There will now be a progress bar which will tell you the status of your game saves. There will also be a section under My Games and Apps that will tell you what games are updating and which other ones were recently updated.
An essential feature of the Xbox 360 was a notification when a friend came online. For some reason, Microsoft did not include this ‘no brainer’ of a feature at launch. It now looks like they are taking the appropriate steps to correct this oversight by having a notification pop-up when favorites and friends sign in to Xbox Live. Also, they have added a level of detail to show you what friends of yours are engaged in multiplayer matches. (Note: I am enrolled in the preview and have only seen notifications for Favorites, not all friends.)
The beloved Kinect is receiving updates to improve voice and motion commands. The gesture functionality is one item that has been fine tuned to stop the false positives people are experiencing when non-hand objects trigger gesture commands.
GameDVR quality has been improved by updating the compression algorithm.
The Xbox One Blu-ray player will now output at 50 Hz for content that has also been recorded at 50 Hz. The Blu-ray app will also see some additional updates.
The prior update introduced firmware updates to the controller and headset adaptor but unfortunately it also introduced static to the mix. This time around Microsoft hopes to have addressed the crackling audio problem once and for all. Many users have expressed outrage that a next-gen console doesn’t offer state of the art sound right out of the box.
And the last update is centered around how your system will behave during the next system update. If you keep your console in Instant On mode, the system will take the update automatically and there will be no need to power it on to do an update. Lastly, if you want to force your system to update without waiting for it to happen during off hours, you can now initiate the update yourself under system settings. Note, the update will only appear if an update is available.
Is there a new feature you’re excited about? Or did something on your wishlist get left off this release? If so, let us know in the comments below.
via Major Nelson