ID@Xbox

The long-awaited March update that fixes the Xbox One party and friends system in preparation for Titanfall‘s release next week has begun rolling out. Xbox One owners will be prompted to update their systems within the next few days, unless their Xbox is set to “Instant On” in which case the Xbox One will automatically check for updates once turned off. Aside from the fixes to the party and friends systems, the update also prepares the Xbox One for the new audio adapter, Twitch broadcasting (available next week), as well as including SmartGlass updates, live TV improvements, Dolby Digital support and myriad other tweaks and changes.

A video walkthrough of some of the features in the new update was posted by Microsoft:

A roundup of the improvements addressed in the updates were provided by Xbox Live’s Major Nelson and are as follows:

Improved Multiplayer & Party chat

  • Cross title party chat
  • Party chat on by default
  • Easier multiplayer invites
  • Easier multiplayer joining
  • Ability to see what the people in your party are doing

Improved Friends List + Profile

  • Improved friends list utility & speed of access
  • Ability to see people you recently played games with
  • See when friends are broadcasting, including live broadcast thumbnails in activity feed
  • Get to a friend’s profile faster using type-ahead suggestions
  • Contextual app menu actions on friends list and activity feed items
  • Enabled more multiplayer (join and invite) actions on user profiles
  • 54 new contest-winning gamerpics

Twitch TV live streaming support

  • Broadcast gameplay on Twitch.TV through Xbox LIVE (When the updated Twitch app ships next week.)
  • Voice support for starting and ending broadcast

Bringing out social in home

  • See favorite friends currently online
  • See friends broadcasting gameplay

Miscellaneous shell improvements

  • Improved notification center experiences including “quiet mode”
  • View Game Clips while in snap mode
  • Protect user settings with passkey

Browser improvements

  • Control Bing and Google maps with gesture and controller
  • Quick search when highlighting a term on a page
  • When searching from Bing search on the console, direct link to Internet Explorer in order to see additional web results.

New Devices – Driver and Firmware updates

  • Firmware update to the Xbox One controller to support the Xbox One stereo headset adapter
  • Support for 1st and 3rd party headsets
  • Driver updates for the Xbox One Media Remote

SmartGlass Improvements

  • Push notification to your device for Xbox Live messages
  • Quickly see what a friend is doing including presence and recent
  • Enhanced viewing of personal and a friend’s game progress and clips
  • Ability to close snap from SmartGlass

Live TV

  • 50Hz fix – users can set the Live TV app to display at 50Hz for full or fill modes
  • Volume up/down adjustments – user can tailor the number of volume increments when using “volume up” or “volume down” commands
  • IR blasting of power & volume to TVs/AVRs in all regions
  • AVR setup maps to include model number for most sound bars or AVRs when setting up TV

Improved Audio output support

  • SPDIF (optical out) now supports 5.1 Dolby Digital – enabling devices such as sound bars with only Optical In to be able to receive 5.1 Dolby Digital from console over optical
  • HDMI output now supports stereo uncompressed, 5.1 uncompressed, 7.1 uncompressed or 5.1 Dolby Digital live or 5.1 DTS

Sources: Major Nelson and Xbox Wire