Xbox One's Backwards Compatibility, New Dashboard Get a Release Date

The Xbox One's major system update, known as the New Xbox One Experience, launches on November 12, Microsoft announced today.

During the official Halo 5 launch livestream, Xbox boss Phil Spencer revealed the date. The update has been in testing since September, but only for select members of the Xbox preview program. Before now, we only knew the official release was slated for this November. It was believed to be coming sooner rather than later after Microsoft announced recently that everyone who had signed up to test it would be receiving access.

The update completely redesigns the system's dashboard, reworks the guide, and changes the Snap feature. It also introduces backwards compatibility for a select number of Xbox 360 games. The feature first became available earlier this year for preview program members, with more games slowly being added over the past several months. Just today, we learned that Burnout Paradise is the next 360 game that will be playable on Xbox One.