Your New Xbox One Experience Begins Today

The update for the New Xbox One Experience is available starting today. Monthly releases inspired by your feedback have been a cornerstone of the Xbox One experience.  We launched the Xbox Feedback site to enable you to influence how Xbox One evolves and we’ve been listening. Over the past two years, we have delivered more than a hundred new features based on your input. On behalf of the entire Xbox team, I want to express our appreciation for all of your valuable feedback.

The New Xbox One Experience is a complete transformation of Xbox One, integrating the speed and versatility of Windows 10. We put fans at the center of everything we do and wanted to make some big changes, including enabling one of your most requested features – the ability to play Xbox 360 games on Xbox One. We also wanted to meaningfully improve how gamers interact with Xbox One and redesigned it to make it the fastest and most social Xbox experience ever.

Here are some of the new experiences that you will enjoy on your Xbox One with this update:

Xbox One Backward Compatibility. You’ll be able to play over a hundred Xbox 360 games on Xbox One starting today, with hundreds more to come. Xbox 360 game play on your Xbox One includes the added benefits of Xbox One features such as screenshots, in-home streaming, and Game DVR. You can even enjoy multiplayer with friends playing Backward Compatible titles on Xbox 360. To start playing your Xbox 360 games on Xbox One after 12pm PST today, refresh your Game Collection to see your pre-purchased, digital Xbox 360 titles from the Backward Compatible title list in your ready to install queue or simply insert the disc for a supported Xbox 360 title and download the game to start playing it on Xbox One. In addition, for a limited time, all Xbox One owners can play backward compatible games on Xbox One with the multiplayer benefits normally available only with an Xbox Live Gold subscription. Take a look at the list of backward compatible games available now, and get started playing today.

Image of the new Xbox One Home in the New Xbox One Experience

A new Xbox One Home makes it faster and easier to get to the things you love. We redesigned Home to provide fast access to the games and apps that you’ve recently used. The new Home also enables you to get to social activities quicker:

  • Share your achievements and game clips with the Xbox Live community.
  • See whether your friends are playing the same games.
  • Access Game Hubs to get breaking news and updates from game developers and the Xbox Live community.

A new guide lets you rapidly access top tasks with just one button press. You can bring up the guide from Home by tapping left with the D-pad or left thumbstick. Or, while playing a game, you can double tap the Xbox button on your controller to instantly overlay the guide – without interrupting your gameplay. You can access your Profile, Friends, and Settings; quickly start a Party; view your Messages and Notifications; and Snap an application all from the new guide, saving you valuable time weaving in and out of apps.

Join friends online in the new Xbox One experience

A new Community section makes Xbox One more social. This section is designed to help you keep up with what other gamers are doing on Xbox Live as well as jump directly into the conversation yourself. Check out what your friends are up to and keep track of the games you follow in the redesigned Activity Feed. The new Trending section lets you view the most popular posts from other players on Xbox Live.

Image of the Community section in the New Xbox One Experience

The revamped OneGuide is your single destination for TV, movies and video. Find the most exciting new movies, TV shows and videos from across apps on Xbox One. App channels help you discover what’s new in your favorite apps, making it easier to find entertainment content. TV listings are viewable instantly in OneGuide – including listings from over-the-air channels and, coming soon, Sling TV. Picture-in-picture allows you to keep browsing for other things to watch without missing what’s happening on live TV.

Image of OneGuide in the New Xbox One Experience

A new Store makes it easier to find the content you want. The new and improved Store includes four easy to explore areas – Games, Movies & TV, Apps, and Music – plus a new vertical gallery view to reveal more listings at a glance. You can browse through intuitive categories like Staff Picks, New Releases, Top played, Top rated, Coming Soon and Recommendations to uncover new games, apps, and entertainment for your Xbox One.

Image of the Store in the New Xbox One Experience

We have made a tremendous number of other improvements. Here are some to check out:

  • Xbox One Avatars. We know that our fans love Avatars on Xbox 360 and so we’ve brought them to Xbox One but with some critical, visual fidelity upgrades including anti-aliasing, lighting, and shading improvements. The end result is a modern take on a longstanding favorite.
  • Game Hubs. We redesigned Game Hubs from the ground up to bring everything you want to know about a game into one place. Follow your favorite games to keep up to date on the latest news and social media. The new Game Hubs are always literally at your fingertips: with one button press, access the Game Hub for each game in your recently played games list.
  • Remap buttons on any controller. The new Xbox Accessories app lets you reassign buttons on any Xbox One Wireless Controller. You can now customize your button mapping, invert thumbsticks, swap triggers, and more to create the best personalized experience
  • New ways to navigate and interact with Xbox One, including:
    • Narrator: screen reader that reads aloud in-focus text on the screen
    • Magnifier: allows you to zoom in and out and pan, providing an enlarged view of elements on your screen
    • High contrast: adjusts color and transparency settings

We’re incredibly grateful to our dedicated Preview members and MVPs for sharing valuable feedback on features before we officially deliver them. We are so excited to share the New Xbox One Experience and Xbox One Backward Compatibility with the Xbox community starting today.  Our sincere thanks to you for being an integral part of the journey!

Mike
Find me on Twitter @XboxQwik or on Xbox Live: Gamertag: Qwik