Microsoft Starts Testing the Next Xbox One Feature Update

Microsoft Starts Testing the Next Xbox One Feature Update

With the Creators Update now deployed to tens of millions of Xbox One consoles, Microsoft is turning its attention to the next feature update. Testing starts this week with a limited set of Xbox Insiders, and will be expanded over time.

“[New] features including a new Party overlay to help you see who’s speaking in your group, more fan-requested improvements to Looking for Group on Xbox Live and the Activity Feed, and later this month Killer Instinct tournaments powered by Arena on Xbox Live,” Microsoft’s Scott Henson explains.

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Here’s what’s coming soon to an Xbox One near you.

Arena improvements. As you may know, Arena is Microsoft’s e-sports service for Xbox Live. Over the coming weeks, Microsoft will expand the availability of World of Tanks tournaments on Arena to more Insiders. And it will launch Killer Instinct tournaments with Clubs compatibility across Xbox One and Windows 10 too. Tournaments for Halo Wars 2 and Smite are coming soon.

Party overlay. A new Party overlay—similar to the Achievements Tracker overlay—will visually display each person in your party and show who’s speaking. (Previous to this update, you would need to display the Xbox Guide to see this information.)

Features requested by fans. Henson provides a long list of new fan-requested features that Microsoft is adding in the next update: Looking for Group post sharing, Club and Game Hub unfollowing, profile access from Arena, better Kinect support in Beam and Twitch broadcasts, Captive Portal support for better Wi-Fi access with public hotspots, Activity Feed filtering, and more.

Obviously, this isn’t a major update like the Creators Update, but it’s nice to see Microsoft pushing forward to make Xbox One better over time.

 

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  • Michael Rivers

    18 April, 2017 - 11:11 am

    <p>Please tell me that the party overlay can be turned off. I don't want the names of the people in my party on top of the game at all times. Why would I even want that? I hope I'm misunderstanding what that is.</p>

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