Check Out Xbox One's New, Totally Revamped Interface in Action

The New Xbox One Experience, the name for the redesigned Xbox One interface, begins rolling out to select preview program members today. Coinciding with this release, Microsoft has published a fairly lengthy video offering a good impression of what the system will look like for everyone later this year.

The 8-minute video focuses on two aspects of the new interface: the main Home screen of the dashboard and the guide overlay. The Home screen looks quite different while still offering much of the same functionality as the existing one. One key changes is how it moves your pins down to the bottom of the screen. These can quickly be accessed with a pull of the right trigger, while the left trigger jumps you back up to the top.

The guide has dramatically changed, with Xbox engineering team member Richard Irving describing it as the "big focus for this preview release." While on the Home screen, it's now accessed by scrolling over to the left side of the screen. While in-game (or any other activity), double-tapping the Xbox button immediately brings it up without any loading time.

Either way, it's now a column along the left side of the screen--the new location for anything you choose to Snap. It offers access to things like your friends list, party, messages, notifications, and headset settings (such as volume, muting, and more). Notifications, in particular, have been overhauled, as they are now grouped together based on their type or the game/app they originated from. In other words, recording a bunch of game clips won't force you to scroll through a long list to reach, say, an achievement notification, as is currently the case.

We also briefly get to see the redesigned Settings section. The store is also said to be laid out differently, but that's not shown in the video.

Throughout the video, both Irving and Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb repeatedly point out how many of these changes stem directly from fan feedback. What you see isn't necessarily how things will end up working, however. In a blog post on Hryb's site, it's noted that the interface "is a work-in-progress and will undergo rigorous updating and polishing with the help of our Xbox One preview members."

Select preview program members began receiving invites for the update last night. Microsoft is planning to slowly roll it out, with priority being given to those who have submitted the most feedback in the past. Those who get in should expect to run into some issues.

For those not in the preview program, Microsoft plans on rolling out this update (along with Xbox 360 backward compatibility) in November.