New Xbox One Update Lets You Preview Series X's UI

Revealed formally last week as the future of the Xbox UI, the August 2020 update for Xbox One has begun rolling out with the new Xbox Experience for Microsoft's consoles.

The UI update is part of Microsoft's continuing effort to improve the interface on its consoles while also integrating it with new clients across PC and smartphones, following the launch of Xbox Games Pass for PC and xCloud for Android respectively. The UI has subtle visual changes that align the look of the Xbox ecosystem across the three platforms, while also now offering unlimited sign-ins across devices to make transitions between them a lot smoother.

The Guide, which Microsoft has already drastically changed recently, is getting more refinements as part of the update. This includes a slightly tweaked layout that lets you get to games and notifications as soon as you open it, as well as a more intuitive guide to help new users navigate it for the first time. One of the biggest changes is to party chat, which now allows you to set volume levels for each member of the party individually.

Changes have also been made to the Activity Feed, with enhancements to Community and Club pages to make them feel a lot faster to navigate. This is helped by changes to content blocks, auto-playing video clips, and the amount of data being processed on the tab to help cursor movement feel snappier. It also helps highlight content in identically sized windows, which makes parsing it all more intuitive.

Other small changes, like new animated backgrounds, have also made the cut, but some features are still being tested in the coming weeks. This includes subtle font and color enhancements that Xbox Insiders will see rolled out to testing rings soon, as well as new Profile Themes that set the mood for your profile across all devices.

The August 2020 Update is rolling out in waves and should start arriving on your Xbox One soon. It, along with any enhancements in the near future, will be the UI on Microsoft's Xbox Series X later this year, as the company pushes forward with a consolidation of hardware underneath the Xbox brand.