October 2019 Xbox Update Delivers New Family Settings Features, Wish List Notifications, And More

October is here and we know many gamers are already spending quality time with their favorite horror games (we won’t judge if you turn the brightness up). But never fear, we’re here to share lots of new features and improvements with the October 2019 Xbox One Update, which begins rolling out to everyone today. This month’s update unveils new Family Settings options to balance your family’s screen time, Wish List notifications, improvements to the Mixer viewing experience on Xbox One, the ability to refer Xbox Game Pass titles to friends, and even more improvements based on your feedback. Read on for a breakdown on each new feature and update.

App and game limits for Family Settings

With the October 2019 Xbox Update, we’re taking additional steps to improve our existing family settings that work across Xbox One and Windows devices. We’re giving parents more control over what their children see and interact with on the devices in your home, which is part of our commitment to make gaming a fun, inclusive, and safe experience for everyone. For us, that means offering tools that provide choice so families can create the right balance of screen time in their lives.

*With the new app and game limits feature, we introduce two new key elements to screen time:Parents can now set how much time their children spend within specific apps or games in addition to the total time spent on a device. Parents have the added option to set limits at the app or game level, enabling you to be more specific with how your kids are spending their time with technology.

*The app and game limits you set will apply across Windows devices and Xbox One. We want to provide families the convenience of setting this up once, and letting it carry over across your child’s devices. This means one hour of a specific game or app per day is one hour of that game or app – no trying to sneak in extra screen time by switching from one device to another.

Check out today’s Family Settings announcement for a full overview.

Wish List notifications

We’re excited to see everyone enjoying the Wish List feature on the Microsoft Store! The October 2019 Xbox Update enhances this feature with notifications to alert you when an item in your Wish List has a price discount. The new Wish List notifications will make sure you never miss a great deal on games you want. Check out and update your current Wish List here.

Mixer viewing improvements

Mixer is integrating even further into the Xbox One experience with the October update. We’ve built a full Mixer viewing experience right into the dashboard with a focus on speed and simplicity. Viewers will no longer have to navigate to a separate app to enjoy Mixer streams, so getting to the content you want to watch has never been easier! Simply click the stream you’d like to watch to seamlessly start watching.

Recommend an Xbox Game Pass title

Games are more fun when shared with friends. Xbox Game Pass for Console has a curated library of over 100 high-quality games, so you may find a gem that you want to share with your friends. You can now recommend a game from Xbox Game Pass for Console directly to your friend via a message or to your whole community via your activity feed or share to a club. Your friends will be able to easily get to the page for the games you recommend and can start downloading right away if they are an Xbox Game Pass member.

Recent Players improvements

Thanks to your feedback, we’ve made significant improvements to the Recent Players experience, making the service more reliable and allowing you to connect with the gamers you play with instantly. We understand the popularity of this feature and know it can be especially helpful with large-scale multiplayer games. You can now more quickly and easily engage with your Recent Players, whether you are sending a message, inviting players to a party, or adding them to your Friends List.

Under-the-hood game update improvements

Players can jump into their favorite games even faster with the October update. We’ve added improvements to automatic game updates, significantly reducing when you encounter the “update required” screen when launching a title.

Events app

Later this month, you may notice the Events app installed on your console. With Events, we will be introducing new ways for gamers to discover and be reminded of events happening within your favorite Xbox games or gaming communities such as a start of a new season or in-game holiday events. We’ll have more to share soon about how we plan to evolve this feature, so stay tuned for future announcements.

More flexible Capture Settings and Capture & Share experiment

The “Allow game captures” setting now has multiple options, giving you more control over your game capture experience. Previously, game capture could either be enabled or disabled in Settings, with certain games automatically recording memorable moments when this feature was enabled. With the October update, you may now select between “Captures by me,” “Captures by me or games,” or “Don’t capture” settings, providing you more choice over how you build your highlight reel.

In addition to the above, some people may also see an experimental update we are making to improve the Capture & Share experience. For now, we’re rolling out an improved “Capture & Share” tab for a limited portion of the Xbox One audience to gauge interest and collect feedback. We’re eager to hear their feedback before we share more.

The renamed “Capture & Share” Guide tab aims to improve usability by elevating your three capture options, “Record what happened,” “Start recording,” and “Capture screenshot,” to the top of the screen as well as allowing you to quickly revisit your last capture. When you’re ready to share, the following “Share to” menu has also been updated to focus more on what you want to do with your content – quickly and easily share it with your friends, the world via Twitter or your Xbox Activity Feed, or save it in your collection for safekeeping.

These updates are possible because of the Xbox Insiders who have helped shape these features, so big thanks to all participants for their valuable input. If you’d like to help shape the future of Xbox and provide feedback on early features, download the Xbox Insider Hub app on your Xbox One or Windows 10 PC today. You can also visit the Xbox Insider Blog here for the latest release notes, or join the Xbox Insiders subreddit to submit feedback and join the discussion.

We’re always working to improve your gaming experience on Xbox One and will have more announcements in store before the year is done. Stay tuned for more information and enjoy the October update!