Microsoft has revealed a host of new features and changes coming to the Xbox One in the near-future, including wish list notifications, under-the-hood improvements, and a new Xbox Game Pass feature. Right now, the changes are being rolled out to different Xbox Insider members, but Microsoft notes all of it will soon be released to the general Xbox One audience, barring any feedback that impacts the current release schedule.

First up, Xbox One is adding Wish List notifications that will alert users when an item in their Wish List has a price discount, which is great, because it's easy to miss the frequent and heavy sales on the Microsoft Store. In short, this will ensure you don't miss any great deals on games you're wanting to get, but are waiting to be cheaper.

Mixer and Xbox One are also integrating further, with a new Mixer viewing experience built right into the dashboard that focuses on speed and simplicity. According to Microsoft, this will mean viewers no longer have to navigate to a separate app to enjoy their favorite streamers. To accompany this, more control over capturing a game has been injected. The "Allow game captures" setting will have multiple options going forward, giving you a choice of what type of captures can be taken. More specifically, there will now be the options of "Captures by me," "Captures by me or games," or "Don't capture."

Microsoft continues, talking about the improvements being made to "Recent Players:"

"We listened to your feedback regarding the popular Recent Players feature, and its frequent use with large-scale multiplayer games," writes Microsoft. "We’ve made significant improvements to the Recent Players experience. The service is now more reliable and allows you to connect with other gamers instantly. You can now more quickly and easily engage with your Recent Players, whether you are sending a message, inviting players to a party, or adding them to your Friends List."

As for Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft is adding an option that will let Game Pass subscribers recommend games to their friends directly via the Xbox One console, which isn't a huge addition, but a nice improvement for those of us who have needy friends always looking for recommendations.

Lastly, Microsoft outlines some of the under-the-hood improvements Xbox One owners will see:

"Players can jump into their favorite games even faster! We’ve added improvements, based on your feedback, to background game updates, resulting in players encountering the 'update required' screen less frequently upon launching a title."

As mentioned above, these changes and improvements aren't live for all Xbox One users, and, at the moment of publishing, it's unclear when that will change.



Posted: Sep 08, 2019 11:12 am
Related Forum: Xbox Forum

Source: https://comicbook.com/gaming/2019/09/06/xbox-one-console-features-insider/