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Continuing with its stated goal of giving gamers what they’ve been asking for, Microsoft announced today that the Xbox One’s June system update will add functionality for external storage support and real names for friend identification.

Once the update arrives, Xbox One consoles will support up to two external USB 3.0 hard drives, provided the drives are at least 256 GB in size. This move will allow users to increase their storage space from the standard 500 GB available on the console’s internal drive. After plugging in a compatible drive, players will be asked if they wish to format it and given the option to make it the default device.

In addition to storing more Xbox One content simultaneously, external drive support will give gamers the ability to drop full games, downloadable content and apps onto external drives and take said drives on the go for usage on a friend’s console. Content can either be saved directly to external drives or copied over to them from the internal one. Digital content stored on external HDDs can be accessed on other consoles once the user has signed into Xbox Live. For retail games, the disc will have to be inserted in order to verify ownership.

Speaking of friends, real name support is aimed at making it easier for users to immediately identify who is who on their friends lists as those lists continue to grow up to 1,000 names in length. Microsoft is cognizant of the privacy concerns this move could potentially raise. The console holder will give each gamer the ability to choose whether all friends, some friends or no friends see their real name. Settings can be changed at any time and real names will not appear in-game.

Microsoft originally planned to support real name usage on launch day but ended up delaying the feature. Competitor Sony has supported actual names since launch on its PlayStation 4 console.

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The Games with Gold program will celebrate its first anniversary this June.  To celebrate, Microsoft is expanding the program to include the Xbox One. Additionally, Xbox Live Gold members …
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Microsoft’s Xbox One will achieve price parity with Sony’s competing PlayStation 4 on June 9. It’s on that date that a new One SKU sans Kinect sensor will become available for a $399 MSRP, Head of Xbox Phil Spencer announced today on Xbox Wire. This cheaper Kinect-free take on on the Xbox One will be sold in all markets in which the console is currently available.

Spencer noted the importance of fan feedback to the console holder, alluding to changes such as the elimination of the once-planned always-online feature of the Xbox One due to massive gamer backlash. “Today, we’re excited to share more ways your feedback is impacting the products we build,” he added.

The Head of Xbox also took the opportunity to point out that Microsoft isn’t forgetting about the millions of gamers who already have a Kinect sensor. “To be clear, as we introduce this new Xbox One console option, Kinect remains an important part of our vision,” Spencer wrote. “Many of you are using Kinect for Xbox One every day. In fact, more than 80 percent of you are actively using Kinect, with an average of 120 voice commands per month on each console.”

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