System update

Xbox One’s next system update will be available to Preview Program members in late May or early June, according to Partner Director of Program Management for Xbox Mike Ybarra.

“Win10 …
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Xbox One Preview members now have access to a new exclusive update. Members currently have the chance to beta test the new firmware for Xbox One. The update is supposed to fix a majority …
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Xbox One’s February system update will start rolling out tomorrow, bringing with it a lot of highly-requested features. You’ll now be able to see who’s in a party before you join …
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Microsoft has announced the next wave of changes coming to the Xbox One interface. This will mark the first update since the New Xbox One Experience went live in November, …
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An update to the Xbox One’s user interface dubbed the “New Xbox One Experience” has begun deploying to Xbox Preview Program members who opted in for the update, says Microsoft. …
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The April system update rolled earlier this week, adding even more features to the Xbox One. Party chat has been improved to make resolving common problems easier. The new …
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The first, of two system update waves, have been released for preview members and with it comes three new improvements to the system. One of the improvements comes in …
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On a recent edition of The Inner Circle podcast, Xbox boss Phil Spencer dished on some of the features he’s seen floating around the office. As Phil says, “I …
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The latest system update for Xbox One rolled out last week, bringing with it a slew of new features. First and foremost are the Gold benefits, including Deals with …
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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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