With the new year in full swing, the Xbox team has been hard
at work conceptualizing and testing new features based on the valuable feedback
of our worldwide community. Today, we’re excited to share with you a number of
exciting new updates and improvements that begin rolling out this week to all
Xbox One consoles. Here’s a rundown of everything you can expect in the
February 2020 Xbox One Update:
Simplified Home Screen
We are officially unveiling the new, streamlined Home
interface for all Xbox One users as part of the February Update! The community feedback
since we began testing these Home improvements last year has proven invaluable
to building an experience that feels more responsive, keeps your favorite
content front and center, and gets you into your gaming experiences faster than
ever. With the new Home experience, we’ve removed the Twists from the top in
favor of dedicated rows for Xbox Game Pass, Mixer, Xbox Community, and
Microsoft Store, while also giving you the flexibility to add or remove rows
for a customized experience.
My Games & Apps UI Update
With the February Update, we’re bringing you more ways to keep My
Games & Apps organized! You will now find content grouping for easier
navigation and access to your favorite games and apps, as well as labels
for trials and demos and a streamlined settings experience to simplify how you
interact with your gaming collection.
Image and GIF Support in Conversations
We’re enabling the ability for you to
view images and animated GIFs in messaging conversations with your Xbox Live friends
on console, with the ability to also view content in Message Requests based on
your message safety settings. Now, images sent from the Xbox mobile app on iOS or Android or the new Xbox (Beta) App on
Windows 10 will also display on your console, with
the added ability to view the content in full-screen on Xbox One.
View and install individual games bundled through Xbox Game Pass
Xbox Game Pass members: we’re giving you additional control over which content to install when downloading and playing Xbox Game Pass titles that are part of a larger bundle listing, such as Shenmue I & II. With this update, you will now see an “In this bundle” overview from the install dialog, as well as the option to select which individual title to download & launch.
Choose a Preferred Location for Notifications
You can now decide where you want
notifications to appear on the screen by going to Settings -> Preferences
-> Notifications and clicking on “Default notification position”.
This will bring up a menu that lets you choose a preferred spot from one of six
locations on the screen, letting you move them out of the way if they end up
blocking something important in your games or apps. Note that while your
preferred location will become the new default for most notifications, certain
games may change this during gameplay for the best user experience.
Even more Mixer viewing improvements
Thanks to community feedback, we’ve made several changes to improve your Mixer viewing experience on Xbox One. You now have the option to switch your chat mode to ‘classic chat,’ which displays chat messages in their own dedicated space beside the stream video. Additionally, you can now manually select the video resolution at which you want to watch content based on your preference. Lastly, you can now see more information about streamers you’re interested in, browse their VODs & Clips to watch, and host their channel on your own, making it easier to support your favorite streamers and keep up to date with all of their content.
More Storage Management suggestions
With the existing Storage Management feature, when you run
out of space your Xbox One makes space-freeing suggestions for you by
organizing and displaying which games, apps, and other content is taking up the
most room on your hard drive. In the February Update, we are introducing a
“Move” option for users with external storage attached to their console, giving
you the choice to either transfer or remove items to free up the needed space
as desired.
Thank you to all Xbox Insiders who have actively helped us to
shape the Xbox experience. These February Xbox One updates are possible due to
the valuable feedback we receive as part of the program. If you’d like to help
create the future of Xbox and get access to early features, download the Xbox Insider Hub on your
Xbox One or Windows 10 PC today. You may also visit the Xbox Insider Blog for the latest release notes or join the Xbox Insiders subreddit to submit feedback and join the discussion, where we host the
weekly Xbox Requests thread for all
ideas and feature requests. Let us know what you would like to see!
We’re always working to improve your
gaming experience on Xbox One and will have more announcements in the coming months.
Until then, stay tuned for more information and happy gaming!