Microsoft’s first update to the Xbox One this year will bring back an important feature, and some new additions. Many Xbox One users have complained about the inability to see who is in a party chat before joining, and now Microsoft is planning to correct this. Xbox One preview members will start to see party details with a new update today, and other users will start to receive this update in the coming weeks.
Upcoming Xbox One update includes party improvements and new features
is a senior correspondent and author of Notepad, who has been covering all things Microsoft, PC, and tech for over 20 years.
Alongside the return of party chat details, Microsoft is also providing a new Gamerscore leaderboard option. The leaderboard will give you a better idea of how good your Gamerscore is compared to your Xbox Live friends. Just like the brief snippet in the dashboard, it will also highlight who has the biggest Gamerscore gains over a 30-day period. If you’re really into tracking your Gamerscore then this is a vital section to check, but for everyone else it’s a reminder of how little time you get to play Xbox One games.
Microsoft is also tweaking its home and pinned sections in the Xbox One dashboard. You can now rearrange individual pins, and Microsoft is making pinned items accessible while you’re offline. That will be useful the next time Xbox Live is down, and could prevent Instagram-powered rants from Snoop Dogg.
Other improvements are relatively minor. The activity feed will now prompt you when there’s a new item to view, much like the Xbox app on Windows 10. Game hubs are being updated to make it easier to see who’s broadcasting on Twitch, and you’ll also be able to hide games from the ready-to-install list.
If you’re a Windows 10 Xbox app fan then there are some updates coming to the beta version next week. Microsoft is adding Xbox News items to the activity feed in the Xbox app for Windows 10, alongside improvements to the trending section to surface popular Xbox Live content. The most interesting change is a new compact mode that will allow you to shrink the app so it’s more like a little messaging panel on your Windows 10 PC when you’re multitasking.
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