Upcoming Xbox One UI overhaul details

Check out this Xbox Wire article that details the upcoming New Xbox One experience that is supposed to launch sometime in November for the public.

Members of the early preview program will get to try it out first, and the article explains how this process will work, as it requires further action from the user and will not be automatically delivered to everyone who is in the early preview program.

Source: http://news.xbox.com/2015/09/xbox-one-november-update-preview

This November, Your Xbox One Gets Faster and More Social than Ever

xbox.com

•Play your Xbox 360 games on Xbox One. At launch you’ll be able to play over 100 Xbox 360 games on Xbox One with hundreds more in the months to come. This includes the added benefit of Xbox One features including screenshots, streaming, and game DVR – for your favorite Xbox 360 games. You can even play multiplayer with friends still using their Xbox 360.

•A new Guide lets you quickly access essentials with just one button press to save time spent weaving in and out of apps. You can access the Guide from Home by pressing left or double tap the Xbox button on your controller to instantly overlay the Guide. You can access Friends, quickly start a Party, get to Settings, see System Notifications, view your Messages, and more from Home or without leaving your game. These are the top tasks Xbox fans do most often, so we focused on making them faster and easier to get to without disrupting your game.

•We’re redesigning Home to make it faster and easier to get to the things you love. We’re introducing a faster and easier interface to provide access to games and apps you’ve recently used. At launch you’ll be able to more easily share your achievements and game clips with the Xbox Live community, see whether your friends are playing the same games and get one-click access to Game Hubs to get news and updates directly from the developers and community themselves.

•We’re introducing a new Community section to make Xbox One more social. Based on your feedback, this section is optimized to help you tap into what other gamers are doing on Xbox Live and directly contribute to the conversation happening within the Xbox Live community. Check out what your friends are up to or keep track of the games you follow in the redesigned Activity Feed. Explore the new Trending section to view the most popular posts from players on Xbox Live.

•The revamped OneGuide will be your single destination for TV, movies and video apps. From OneGuide, you can see a list of current trending live TV shows with the most viewers at that moment on Xbox. TV listings will now come up instantly and in full-screen, and we’ve added a picture-in-picture mode for TV so you can browse for other things to watch without missing what’s happening in your show. We’ll highlight a selection of the most exciting new movies, TV shows and deals from across the apps on Xbox One and the new App Channels area will show you the latest movies, TV shows and videos highlighted by the apps you care about.

We’re optimizing Store to help you quickly find the content you want. To the right of OneGuide, you’ll find the new and improved Store with features including four easy to explore areas – Games, Movies & TV, Apps, and Music – and a new vertical gallery view to bring more listings at a glance. Browse through intuitive categories like Staff Picks, New Releases, Top played, Top rated, Coming Soon and Recommendations to discover new games, apps, and entertainment for your Xbox One.

•We will roll this update out over time to Preview members who opt in for it. We’ll start with a set of Preview members who have historically submitted the most feedback - it will not roll out to everyone at the same time. Our goal is to start with a group, get feedback, then roll out to larger groups for additional feedback over time.

•If you’re a member of the Xbox One Preview Program, you will get an invitation sent to you in an Xbox Live message.

•From the invitation launch the Xbox Preview Dashboard and select the registration option.

•You can then opt-in by selecting “Preview – New Xbox One Experience”.

•If you choose not to participate in this update (you just leave your registration as preview), you will continue to receive “regular” Preview Program updates going forward. This will not remove you from the Xbox Preview Program.

New builds will regularly roll out over a period of several weeks to those who opt in, and our engineering team will work to improve the features and fix any bugs they identify throughout the preview testing.

© 2015 Microsoft

Definitely interested to see the new UI in action... plus BC. Man it's gonna be a crazy November update!

from the pics i've seen it looks a lot like the xbox app in windows 10. should be kinda cool and will be nice to get more apps, cortana for kinect and live tiles.

Thank god of the new Xbone UI is almost here.

It sucks that I spent time getting used to the current UI since my launch Xbone of 2013, but there are still things about the UI that are just wonky or hard to reach.

I just hope the new UI much faster, more organized, and is better than what we have.

I'm not looking for different, but I am looking for an improved UI experience many, many people/game sites have wanted since launch.

Of course, with anything new (like the new upcoming Xbone UI) that also means they are starting over which means we will need a lot of updates over the next year to get some UI stuff that has finally been darn near perfected that we may be used too right now.

As of yet I have asked numerous Microsoft/Xbox staff regarding this new November major dashboard update. Microsoft class it as they listened to feedback from us aka the customers or as we call ourselves the GAMERS.

So when I asked these questions;

1. Does the Xbox One support multiple file downloads at the same time?
2. Does the Xbox One now show you the remaining download time for app, game or update?
3. Is the Xbox One dashboard now faster (than Xbox 360) when it comes to joining/creating party, viewing achievements etc?
4. Is game installation (from disc only) now faster on the Xbox One?
5. Does the Xbox One now show in detail info regarding whether if the update or game disc is being installed rather than one percentage eg 25% complete?

Didn't even get a single reply from any one and the support could not even answer a single question. So I'm guessing none of these problems have been addressed. There goes the "we listened to feedback".

Personally the launch dashboard was horrible and as of yet still horrible. This new dashboard just seems like eye candy update other than nothing fixed to me. If any preview members get this dashboard please can you check any of those questions I asked above. Much appreciated.

I got used to get around using Kinect, but let's see how this turns out, the original blades for the 360 were pretty user friendly, even the first major overhaul to the UI (called back then NXE) was still useful, it has been going downhill from there

The One UI is the worst I've ever used, I'm looking forward to a change.

Also hoping to get rid of the lag, it happened on the 360 in a few years but for the one it's hitting in under two.

I'm still waiting for these 100 games they've promised BC on. As a member of Preview it's been nice playing the few assorted titles but it's too measly an offering at this point.

>guy goes through Microsoft customer support looking for answer to unreleased programming

>customer support

Are you for real... What in the hell were you expecting... Who does things like this?

You sound like the type of person who would contact Steam Support to ask about Half-Life 3 releasing...

The current UI is terrible and a huge step back from 360. I don't see how they thought it was good. They really fucked up and let Sony get the upper hand with the PS4. This new update should provide a much improved Xbox experience.

So is this the official Windows 10 coming to Xbox like we've been hearing? Or is this something else entirely?

@isturbo1984: Yeah it's the Win10 based UI

i thought so... i dont know why they arent pumping the W10 brand name tho. cool though. i am actually liking the Xbox interface on my W10 PC. it would be sweet to have it on the actual box.

but there have been a lot of issues gone untouched lately and they have been building. hoing MS will address them all in this UI update. wouldnt make any sense for them to redo the Store, for instance, if they are just making a completely new one with the update. lets keep our fingers crossed.

@isturbo1984: Yeah good point, I may be mistaken in my previous post, because although the new UI looks a lot like the Windows 10 Xbox app, it's possibly not the same thing as the Windows 10 integration. I say this now because of an Article Gamespot posted earlier, where they seem to differentiate between the New Xbox One experience(the new UI I am talking about in the OP) and Windows 10 integration.

...I'll copy the article here so you can see:

The upcoming New Xbox One Experience update landing in November will make some system functionality up to 50 percent faster. That's according to Xbox engineering boss Mike Ybarra, who talked more about the upcoming update during an appearance on the latest episode of "Major Nelson Radio."

Ybarra said Microsoft tracks load time data for Xbox 360, Xbox One, and the New Xbox One Experience (available now to some testers), and in some cases, executing tasks is quite a bit faster. "Popular gaming features" will load up to 50 percent faster, but he didn't say which exactly these will be. But overall, Ybarra said fans can look forward to a "new level of speed and responsiveness."

The New Xbox One Experience will be available to everyone in November. Also included with the update is backwards compatibility for Xbox 360 titles, a new Guide, a redesigned Home, and a new Community section. Ybarra also teased that the update will introduce new "accessibility" features to ensure that the Xbox One can appeal to the widest possible market. These features will be announced later.

For everything we know about the New Xbox One Experience so far, check out this post.

Also during the podcast, Ybarra talked about Windows 10's forthcoming integration with Xbox One. Bringing the OS to Xbox One is not as simple as you might think, he said, noting that it involved the team creating a highly customized version of Windows 10 built specifically for Xbox One. This is called OneCore.

"Windows 10 for desktop PCs has incredible momentum right now," Ybarra said. "We're going to bring all of that efficiency to Xbox One."

As of the end of August 10, Windows 10 had reached 75 million installs. Overall, Microsoft is aiming to hit 1 billion Windows 10 devices by 2018. In other recent Xbox/Windows news, a top Microsoft executive said the Xbox One is "literally a Windows device."

lol, i'm just glad you figured out what i meant with all my typos, lol.

Let us know when you and if you get in the first wave. I confirmed my trial, but really hope I am not in the first wave. I would rather be in the less buggy beta.

I really have no problem with the current UI, but all for improvements anywhere anytime.

Sure will do if I get in, I opted in but have not received the update yet. Anyone considering of opting in should read the following(Gamespot article):

New Xbox One Experience Tester Version Issues Outlined

Destiny and Borderlands may fail to load, while Forza 6 could experience graphical issues during the initial wave of testing.

by Eddie Makuch on September 17, 2015

GameSpot

Microsoft has issued a warning to New Xbox One Experience testers, alerting them that a number of games, features, and functionality may not work very well during the upcoming preview period. Of course, issues and bugs were always anticipated, as this is essentially a beta test. But it's nice to see Microsoft acknowledging these problems up front so people aren't surprised if they get in.

Destiny: The Taken King and Borderlands: The Handsome Collection may fail to launch during the first wave of the preview, while titles like Forza Motorsport 6 and Assassin's Creed Unity are liable to suffer from graphical errors, according to the preview notes from the Xbox forums. Testers may also encounter crashes and freezing, while some queued downloads may not start.

Apps such as ABC News, SlingTV, and WWE may fail to launch, Microsoft warns, while the use of accessories such as the Media Remote and some third-party racing wheels might not work or could cause other issues. These are just a small slice of the known issues; you can see the full preview notes at the Xbox forums.

Invitations to Preview Members to opt-in to the New Xbox One Experience were sent out last night. Opting-in doesn't guarantee you a spot in the preview, however. Due to the size and significance of the update, Microsoft is slowly rolling out the new update, beginning with people who have "historically submitted the most feedback."

It won't be available for everyone right away. "Our goal is to start with a group, get feedback, then roll out to larger groups for additional feedback over time," Microsoft's Mike Ybarra explained recently.

Here's a rundown of how the New Xbox One Experience testing period will work over the next couple of weeks.

•If you're a member of the Xbox One Preview Program, you will get an invitation sent to you in an Xbox Live message.

•From the invitation launch the Xbox Preview Dashboard and select the registration option.

•You can then opt-in by selecting "Preview – New Xbox One Experience."

•If you choose not to participate in this update (you just leave your registration as preview), you will continue to receive "regular" Preview Program updates going forward. This will not remove you from the Xbox Preview Program.

•New builds will regularly roll out over a period of several weeks to those who opt in, and our engineering team will work to improve the features and fix any bugs they identify throughout the preview testing.

Microsoft's Xbox One Preview Program, overall, recently got more difficult to get into. The company announced last month that it is scaling back the volume of invitations, as the program is reaching a "near-capacity" level.

The New Xbox One Experience includes a long list of changes and new features, perhaps the most notable of which is backwards compatibility for Xbox 360 games. The update completely overhauls the Home screen to make it "faster and easier." For some features, the update will improve load times by as much as 50 percent. In addition, there will be a new Community section to help make the console "more social." It also comes with a "revamped OneGuide" that aims to be the one destination you need for TV, movies, and video apps. Finally, the New Xbox One Experience, due out to everyone in November, adds optimizations to the Xbox Store to help you find the games and content you want more easily.