Last week Chris Novak, Head of Xbox Research and Design, Shared the Xbox vision of a unified Xbox Experience that puts gamers at the centre, enabling them to stay connected to their games, friends and communities. It’s a vision Xbox have been building towards for over a year, culminating with the release of Xbox Series X this November.
The August Xbox 2020 Update is the next step on that journey and is rolling out soon to all customers. It includes a variety of improvements, including bigger changes like a new landing page for the Xbox Guide, to smaller, more subtle improvements like individual volume sliders for party members.
Today also marks the first time that some of you will be able to experience the new Xbox experience yourselves with some of the features Chris talked about last week becoming available for Xbox Insiders.
Guide
Having taken the first steps to update the Xbox Guide in May, simplifying the layout to make it easier for gamers to use. Since then, team Xbox been refining it based on your feedback, and implemented the following:
Improved Landing Page
The new Guide landing page is designed to be cleaner and easier to read at-a-glance. The layout makes it easier to navigate between the most recent things you were doing, the Dashboard, and My Games and Apps. For those of you who want to customise the Guide, you’ll have the option to change the order of the tabs that show up. We’ve also added buttons to the bottom of the page for important utilities like notifications, search, and audio settings, making it easier to access them from wherever you are.
Connect with your friends
Speaking of notifications, the August update includes a new notifications inbox, easily accessed by clicking the notification bell on the bottom of the Guide. This inbox combines all your alerts, game invites and message notifications into a single feed. Best of all, the inbox includes notifications from across all Xbox apps, including the new Xbox mobile app that the Xbox team plan to introduce into beta soon. Acting on a notification in one place clears it everywhere, meaning you’ll always be up to date!
Parties and Chats made easy
In June Parties and Chat were combined into a single tab, making it easier to communicate with your friends and fellow gamers. These have been improved the experience is now more useful, with the addition of a preview of the text in your new messages. Xbox have also added a frequently requested feature – individual volume controls for each party member!
More tips and tricks for new Xbox gamers
Finally, Team Xbox aim was to improve the Guide experience for first-time gamers. Guide pages are now easier to read and understand, and shortcuts and button commands are more consistent. The team have added hints tailored for new customers, helping them understand the purpose of each page, and how to get started using it.
New Activity Feed look
With the new Xbox experience the team also set out to rethink how community and game developers’ content is displayed on Xbox. Xbox want the focus to be on the content being shared and highlight the awesome screenshots, videoclips and posts players create.
You will notice all posts shared on Xbox are now the same size: no more guessing on how they will show up in the Community or Club pages. Improvements in the Game, People and Community Content Blocks on Home, videoclips auto-play, reduction of metadata over posts and display of engagement counts have been made. Shortcuts have also been introduced for easier engagement with the post and for easier discovery of players and games the post relates to.
Coming Soon for Xbox Insiders
The team at xbox wouldn’t have been able to deliver the features above without the help of our Xbox Insiders. The feedback, suggestions and bug reports ensure the team are always delivering the best possible product for everyone. Not only is the August update live this week for everyone, but this month our Xbox Insiders are also getting the first chance to play with some upcoming new features that you’ll see below.
A fresh look and feel
All the ways you use Xbox should feel inviting and familiar, whether you are on the couch relaxing or streaming your favourite game on the go. Team xbox been updating the visual look of the xbox apps across phone and PC for the past year, and now it is console’s turn.
Starting this week Insiders will be receiving a visual update to their Xbox One consoles to better match our other experiences on the PC and mobile devices. This includes some changes to the tile shape, fonts, and focus indicator across the experience. However, the overall layout of most of the pages will not be drastically changing, so you don’t have to learn a whole new UI when Xbox Series X launches.
Express yourself with Profile Themes
User Profiles on Xbox are an important part of our community experience: they are one of the top destinations on console, and your profile should be a space for you to express yourself through customisation.
You will be able to select from several different Themes for your profile when Xbox start flighting this feature, including some game Themes from Xbox Game Studios – and more will be added more over time!
Profile Themes are also available in the Xbox App on PC and through Game Bar.
Sign in on multiple devices
Earlier this month, ww announced that cloud gaming was coming to the Game Pass app on Android, and the fan response has been amazing. Thousands of gamers have played titles like Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon 4 on their phones. Gamers with an Xbox have enjoyed their saved games seamlessly roaming between the cloud and their console, picking up where they left off no matter where they choose to play.
To make that experience even more seamless, the team at Xbox are making some changes to the way you sign in on Xbox. You will be able to sign in on as many Xboxes or Xbox Apps as you want, all at the same time. Now you can use your Xbox console as much as you want for other watching movies, using apps, chatting with friends, and more. When it comes to games, you’ll be able to play on one device at a time so all your progress, achievements and saves stay up to date and synced whichever device you choose to play on.
Want to use your console upstairs while your roommate uses the Xbox in the living room to watch TV? Maybe try out the latest cloud gaming game while watching a movie with the family? Xbox want you to have the freedom to choose.
If you want a closer look at all of these updates, team Xbox walked through them on Major Nelson’s video podcast – check out the video above and here.