Xbox One Tech Director Wants to Improve These Features

Microsoft continues to update the Xbox One with new features and functionality, a pursuit that is basically neverending. Now, engineering lead Mike Ybarra has spoken up to discuss some of the things he would like to change and improve in the future. Speaking to Game Informer, Ybarra said Microsoft has a "list of areas" it is looking at for improvement, one of which is the game collection.

Ybarra said he would like to see the game collection screen, which displays the games and apps you own, be updated in the future to be made more user-friendly. Right now, it shows a selection of your games, but not all of them, if you own enough. As people buy more and more digital games, this is an area Ybarra would like to see Microsoft improve upon in the future.

"I'd love to redesign collection because since people are buying more digital now, the collection should be something people can go to and be like, 'Wow, I can see my whole library of games. I see everything and it's really easy to get to!' Today, it isn't," he said. "So, I want to go fix collection."

Another area Ybrra would like to see improved in the future is the Xbox One's social functionality. "There are some social elements we want to improve," Ybarra said. However, he did not mention anything specific he'd like to see changed or offer any details about how existing social features would change. Recently, Ybarra said he's hopeful Xbox Live party chat can be boosted to 64 users in the future.

Overall, though, Ybarra stressed that Microsoft is always listening to fan feedback and will make changes accordingly to Xbox One and the Xbox app on PC in the future.

"We've always listened to what the fans are saying," he said. "One thing about the gaming industry is you have very passionate fans about what they want, so everybody understands what our fans want and we're prioritizing those. I would expect us to continue to invest both in the Xbox app design and the console-based OS design to do more things like New Xbox Experience and really kind of bring them what they want through big catalyst changes and smaller changes."

November's New Xbox One Experience, which Microsoft described as being possibly the most significant update any platform-holder has ever made to a console, completely changed the console's user interface and introduced Windows 10 as its underlying OS. It also added backwards compatibility support for Xbox 360 games.

No updates were released in December or January, while February's update introduced new features like the ability to see who is in a party before joining it. March's update, which increases party chat support to 16 people and lets you buy backwards-compatible Xbox 360 games directly on Xbox One, is currently available to Preview Program members and will be available for everyone else later this month.

Looking ahead, Microsoft has said things like keyboard and mouse support and background music are among the new features the company would like to introduce in the future.

What new Xbox One features would you like to see come to Xbox One in the future? Let us know in the comments below!