589: The next Xbox One System update

Larry Hryb: (music)
Hi. It’s Larry here with Xbox Live’s Major Nelson. Thank you for joining us this week. Doing something a little different, uh, joining us in the studio right now is Scott Henson from the Xbox platform team, Scott, hello.
Scott Henson: Good to see you again, sir.
Larry Hryb: Nice to see you. And then of course, joining uh, joining you is Mr. Mike Ybarra, Xbox Quick on Twitter. Hi, Mike.
Mike Ybarra: Hello, everybody.
Larry Hryb: Nice to see you.
Mike Ybarra: Nice to see you.
Larry Hryb: You- you’ve be- you’ve been a busy man this month. I want to talk to you about that.
Mike Ybarra: We are all very busy.
Larry Hryb: Well no, no, no, no, we’re going to talk about some cool stuff that’s coming to Xbox 1, but I gotta ask you a question.
Mike Ybarra: Oh, okay.
Larry Hryb: Do you sleep at all? Because I just see you unlocking achievements like a maniac.
Mike Ybarra: Uh, I’ve known to play at random hours for sure.
Larry Hryb: Well that’s random hours is being kind, but anyway ... Uh, we got you guys- what you got, what are you playing now actually? Let’s talk about that because we usually talk about that in the show at this point.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, you know, it’s funny. I went back to Destiny to play a couple of Raids-
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: And it’s been probably three months, two months since I’ve played.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: And so I was learning, you know, how to throw grenades and things like that again.
Larry Hryb: Don’t you hate that? Where you’re like, where you haven’t played the game for a while and all of a sudden, you- you’re gonna multiplayer game and yup, you’re that guy or girl. (Laughs)
Mike Ybarra: Well, I follow you on Twitter saying you went back to Witcher?
Larry Hryb: Right. (Laughs)
Mike Ybarra: And, uh, you were like, "Wow, how do I do this?"
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: It takes a little while. For sure with the story.
Larry Hryb: Sure, it took- it took me, uh, probably two, two and a half hours to kinda get my legs under me again, but now I’m okay.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah they- we- we did fairly well. I broadcasted it on Beam and so people were watching it-
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: -and it was really cool.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: Uh, it was really fun to go back to Destiny, but you know the game that surprised me the most is a game called Rise & Shine. Have you tried that yet?
Larry Hryb: No, I’ve got [inaudible 00:01:48], uh, do you-, are you familiar with that one Scott?
Scott Henson: I am not.
Larry Hryb: What is- what is that about?
Scott Henson: Uh.
Larry Hryb: I know it came out, I saw and Tweeted about it.
Mike Ybarra: It’s a- it’s a kind of side scrolling shooter.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: It’s designed really well. The achievements are really good, some of them are really hard. It makes you really want to play through.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: I’m only through one and a half of the levels and so I’m not too far in, but I’m having a good time with that.
Larry Hryb: Well, let’s be clear, I- I actually interviewed one of the guys from the team last week, so ... (laughs)
Mike Ybarra: Oh, okay.
Larry Hryb: Yeah they- so go back and listen to that interview. The, the guys have worked on a, a bunch of different games, yeah, they really, really did a nice job with that. So, I’m glad you’re enjoying that.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, it's fun. And then I’m catching up on some Telltale games that I- I skipped out on. Uh, that you know, The Wolf Among Us I had never played. Some The Walking Dead stuff I had skipped and so-
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: I'm catching up on that.
Larry Hryb: Did you-
Mike Ybarra: Yeah?
Larry Hryb: Did you- I’m sorry, did you finish the Witcher or did you just play the Witcher?
Mike Ybarra: No, you know, I, I played for probably 10 minutes. Those of you that, that know me know that if there’s a game that’s going to require a hundred hours-
Larry Hryb: Yeah, yes.
Mike Ybarra: -some little RPG.
Larry Hryb: No Fallout. (Laughs)
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, it’s hard for me to ... The last game I put in over 100 hours in, that’s like that was Skyrim, I really enjoyed that but it was because I was on a plane and so I had it on my PC.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: It was just eight-hour chunks-
Larry Hryb: What are you doing on that plane for 100 hours? (laughs)
Mike Ybarra: Well this was when I was doing the publishing. (laughs)
Larry Hryb: Uh, sorry, so that’s what you’re playing. Um, uh, Scott what are you playing? Y- you’ve ...
Scott Henson: Well, you- as you know, I had lots of couch co-op with the- with the fam.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Scott Henson: Um, the new Tristram Update came out for Diablo 3 and so we-
Larry Hryb: Yeah, we talked about that [crosstalk 00:03:07] ... (laughter)
Scott Henson: I’ve been playing lot, and lots of Diablo 3 again, uh, and I think, you probably know probably one of my favorite games of all time. Um, and then a lot of overcooked, um, we went back to Trails HD, um, and Trials Fusion as well, um, which the- the, the girls love. Um, so that’s mostly couch co-op, um, probably for the last month.
Larry Hryb: And I think you- you were also playing- I don’t know if you’ve played this, Mike, but what- something I play with my family when I was- over the holiday. And I was streaming it on Beam last week was, uh, the Jackbox Party Pack.
Scott Henson: Oh, I love that game.
Larry Hryb: Which is- which is- Hmm. Hmm.
Scott Henson: Lots of fun.
Larry Hryb: It was just complete fun with the family, right? Anybody.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, well, I- I played that, uh, in fact over the holidays. We had people log in with their phones.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: And play some of the games and that's with those easy achievements.
Larry Hryb: That’s the beau-, I did that as well.
Mike Ybarra: I saw.
Larry Hryb: That’s the beauty of it. It was, it was my niece getting those achievements. She happened on be unlocking them. But anyway ... But I want ... You guys are here today because we’re talking about, uh, the- the- the, I guess we can call it, what was called the Xbox Preview Program it’s now the Xbox Insider Program. They had to bring it in line with the rest of the company efforts. But the Insider Program we- we- we have an update that went out and we've got a lot of new stuff in it. A lot of really cool stuff in there and I thought I’d have you guys in here because you both work on the engineering team it kind of go through it and Mike, you had a blog post last week that kind of outlined where we’re headed, right?
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, that’s right. If- if you haven’t seen it, it’s on Xbox Wire and it outlines directionally how we think about 2017 from a, a released standpoint, listening to the bans. You know, we have the best bands in the world because they are loud and very clear on what they want and what they do not want.
Larry Hryb: Yes, they are, yes they are.
Mike Ybarra: Yes, they are. And we look at those lists all the time. So, you know, before we dive into some of this, a- a good about out to all of our Xbox Insiders on desktop and on console for all the work they do. They really help us create this product and- and you know, there- they are a key part of what Team Xbox is.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, and there’s a lot. I mean people go over there and they’re- they’re- they’re not, as you say they're not shy about telling us about what they'd like. And we want to make sure we can give them the best experience. But let’s, uh, let’s jump in and talk about ... Scott, you and I did a video, um, I think- I think the videos out already, right? And there’s a blog post that you put up?
Scott Henson: Sho- should be, it should be.
Larry Hryb: It should be [crosstalk 00:05:01] ... I hope so, um, awkward but you’ve, uh ... We- we talked about a lot of stuff ... Let’s walk through some of the high level changes of what you and Mike and the rest of the Xbox team were thinking about when you made some of these changes.
Scott Henson: Well, all of this is centered around the Creators Update.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Scott Henson: And, uh, you know we have several themes around that. Um, the first really big theme is around performance and getting you to the things that you care about most, the quickest.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Scott Henson: Um, and so you know, the center piece of that on a console, um, is the guide. Um, and we’re now making the guide one button press away and the most common things that you want to get to, um, instantly accessible. And, you know, we talked through that and walked through all of those features, um, in the video. But we should talk about that here, too. Right?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I mean I want to be- I, I don’t want to unders- I don’t want to undersell us because one more, what internally people have been calling one button the guide is- is a big deal.
Mike Ybarra: It is.
Larry Hryb: In terms of- for the past ... Since 2013, we’ve- we’ve taught people that double tap on the Xbox button and it- and it brings up, uh, you know, it brings up the guide or single tap we'll reduce it to home. Te- tell us about what has changed a, and kind of why, and why it’s faster.
Scott Henson: Well, the- the guide is that, you know, piece of the user interface, it's always there, right?
Larry Hryb: Right.
Scott Henson: Um, that’s- that’s what it’s intended to be and that’s kind of the spirit of it. Um, the big change is instead of double tapping, which a lot of people, uh, frankly had a challenge with. You know, it’s just a single tap now.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Scott Henson: Um, okay. So that’s- that’s pretty straight forward. Um, but you know it’s one button press way to get to home as well from the guide.
Larry Hryb: Right. Right.
Scott Henson: Uh, but the other thing is we’ve redesigned the landing page in the guide. So that start page, the very first thing that you see, um, and in there we put the most common tasks that, um, you’re going to want to get to. Like getting home, going to the store-
Larry Hryb: Right.
Scott Henson: Getting to your my games and apps of course.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Scott Henson: Um, and then the most –
Larry Hryb: Your stuff.
Scott Henson: Your stuff.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Scott Henson: That’s right. Um, including your pins and your MRU. Um, and we’ll talk about some of the other stuff, too. But the- conceptually, that’s kind of, kind of the high level.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I mean, it’s interesting because then- if you look at some of the screenshot ... And we’ve got some screenshots we’ll include in this- in this Podcast. You put home- you put Xbox, uh, you know, obviously the top is home and when you click on that it’s no longer telling where you are but it actually brings you to a formerly, w- what people know as kind of when you would press the guide once. Is that right?
Scott Henson: Yeah, the home page of dashboard and that you boot up every time you turn on your Xbox.
Larry Hryb: Right, so there’s- you’ll see that and then next you’ll see games and apps and storage, your recent. It’s really cool because on recent, shows your one, two, three, four, four recent, um, things whether it’s a game or an app. But you can actually ... Here’s a little- here's a little user tip people may not know this, is you can actually hit the- the, the menu button which some people call the hamburger button, and there’s options there. You can quit the game and go to the game hub and things like that. So it’s a nice design there.
Scott Henson: Yeah, exactly like what you see in the dashboard today.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, and then below that I know some- I know there’s been some questions about how background audio is going to work and- and how does that- how was that handled Scott, in terms of- or Mike because I know you guys both worked on this?
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, I mean, we’ve been working on the guide for probably the last 18 months. And so, the real focus of guide is, uh, how long it takes a user to get to get into the experience that they want to. And one button, the guide, is the, the basic philosophy of reducing that time as much as possible.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: And letting users truly leverage the multitasking capabilities of Xbox 1.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: Uh, which is super important and one, and one of our top goals. And so, when you look at guide, you’ve got all your recents, you’ve got your- your pins there so that I can switch between apps really easily.
Larry Hryb: Mm-hmm. (Affirmative)
Mike Ybarra: But also things like, uh, background audio-
Larry Hryb: Mm-hmm. (Affirmative)
Mike Ybarra: Uh, you know, that’s gonna be one built into the guide, uh, so that I can easily, uh, have background audio playing while I play my games, I can control it. You look at the screenshots that we have included in this podcast-
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: You’ll see some examples of that, but it’s really about making guide as usable as possible. You know, when we first came out with the guide, it was about, uh, it was step one in terms of giving users that timed task goal that we have and now, it’s really about, uh, giving them the MRU, their pins, and everything to get to the content that they want.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, it’s- I mean, there’s- there’s some ... You guys have made some interesting decisions here because you’ve got the you know, the, the left hand side of guide now has settings. Now there’s a new icon that some people may have noticed in some of these videos. Can we talk about that? It’s above settings.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you'll- you’ll notice, uh, a satellite-like icon that, uh, is about broadcasting.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: And so one of the big investments, uh, you know broadcasting in general, people watch more than they play now in gaming, uh, which is really amazing.
Larry Hryb: Does that- does that surprise you Scott, or- or- or- or- or- or Mike? Because I mean, that’s a weird thing that didn’t happen when we were growing up.
Scott Henson: No, I think, um, I- I- think that over the last 10 years, if you look at how things have blown up, um, on the internet. You know, there’s just so many things on social media that allow you to get better at what you do.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Scott Henson: Um, and so people watching games makes tons of sense. One, it’s competitive-
Larry Hryb: Right.
Scott Henson: Right? So it’s actually a sport now. Um, and there’s lots of tips and tricks and I mean there’s all kinds of things that it makes total sense.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I mean I noticed that when I was over the holiday, I- I have a couple of nieces and, um, my sister only lets the girls play a little bit of gaming. Hence, they were doing, they were doing their homework or something and she had her, um, tablet open watching gameplay. So, it’s kind of like I can still play games and mom doesn’t know. (laughs)
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, I mean, even myself, I find myself sitting watching games, uh, when I just don’t feel like you know, immersing myself into an experience. That- the amount of time that I personally spent watching versus playing has dramatically shifted, uh, too.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: So, we wanted to make it easy for everybody to be able to broadcast their gameplay to their friends and to the world. And so that’s a broadcast button. It also has to be incredibly simple.
Larry Hryb: Sure.
Mike Ybarra: When you click on that, you’ll hit Start Stream- Start Broadcasting. And instantly you’re broadcasting across Beam with low latency so people can interact through chat and you can engage with your community really s- easily. The same can be done on Windows desktop. So, of course we have the Creators Update which expands all Windows releases.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: And, uh, bring up the game bar, hit the broadcast button and you’re immediately broadcasting on Windows.
Larry Hryb: Mm-hmm. (Affirmative)
Mike Ybarra: A lot of, uh, uh, broadcasters are challenged with the extra software you have to download, you have to get capture cards, all this [crosstalk 00:10:40] ...
Larry Hryb: And then you've-, then you get it working and you do install something else or come back a week later and it’s not working.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah. (laughs) Yeah, and so, we want to make everybody famous on Xbox Live.
Larry Hryb: Right, right, right.
Mike Ybarra: And that broadcast button is exactly for that.
Larry Hryb: The other thing that’s interesting around that broadcast button is, um, and I think we’ll have some screenshots to support this, is when you're broadcasting to Beam, you can actually move around the window of interactivity, right? Which has a-, a be-, been a huge request.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, that’s right. Uh, you know, one of the complexities people have today is, "Hey, I finally got all this working now, where am I? And how do I move that out of the way so, uh, it’s not in my gameplay?"
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: Ours are across PC and across, it goes across Xbox one console, you’ll be able to move your video window, your chat window around, almost anywhere on the screen.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: Uh, to make sure that, uh, it works for whatever game you’re making, making the HUDs in the way ...
Larry Hryb: Every game’s different.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, absolutely.
Larry Hryb: Every game’s different so that’s good.
Mike Ybarra: So we’re really excited. Like, the Beam Team, you know we acquired them, uh, what was it? A year ago?
Larry Hryb: Not even a year ago.
Mike Ybarra: A year ago.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: The acceleration and the thought leadership they’re providing that we believe will fundamentally change the way people watch and interact with games.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: It’s phenomenal.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: It's such a great road map coming. Beyond this release that I- I’m really excited about but we’re not going to talk about.
Larry Hryb: But we’ve got uh- So we've got- we got a new little broadcast like on of course a rest things are the same. The- the- the minor difference of course, is that, uh, as we said as that with one button you’re now at the guide, right Scott?
Scott Henson: That’s right. Um, and you know, we’ve- you’ve kind of alluded to this a little bit. Um, but, uh, we’ve enhanced the multitasking around the guide now too. So the guide’s sort of your epicenter for all things multitasking. We talked about that a little bit with background music, talked about that a little bit with, uh, with broadcasting. But we added some new things, too.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Scott Henson: Like at the top, you know, you’ll- you’ll see that familiar icon for achievements, um, but we now have a new feature in there.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Scott Henson: And probably something that Mr. Ybarra, it’s probably one of his favorite features.
Larry Hryb: Why don’t you ... Would you- would you like to talk about that feature Mike?
Mike Ybarra: Well you know, my achievements are close to my heart.
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Mike Ybarra: Like many people on Xbox Live. Uh, the- the Gamerscore leaderboard, today, is a little bit, uh, hard to get to I would say, because you-
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: -have to go, uh, into your profile through achievements and then you see it. It’s now built into the guide. And so if I go up to the achievements, uh, icon, I can see the achievements for my game, and there’s an option that says Switch to Gamerscore Leaderboard. There I can see the leaderboard really fast, it- it- it loads right there and I can see where my friends are and how I’m doing, uh, this month which I think is a- a really great utility to have.
Larry Hryb: Uh, and I think in one of the screenshots, um, and I don’t- I don’t know if I can call it up, I don’t have it handy right now. One of the screenshots that we took, um, you’re- you’re actually at the top of the leaderboard and I think Phil was number two. (laughter)
Mike Ybarra: Well, it’s just who ...
Larry Hryb: You have on your friend lists. (laughter)
Mike Ybarra: To our people but are always way ahead of me on those lists. That's for sure.
Larry Hryb: But, yeah, the achievements are in there now, um, so you’re making things much ... uh, to your point, and this is how we started the- the- the- the- the podcast is that you were trying to get people where they want to go faster. I mean, in this world that you’re creating where the MRU is on the guides or some people may not even get back to home.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, it’s a- it’s a good point, like when- as you’re multitasking between games or apps or- or loading up your greatest- uh, your good audio to play. Uh, home is still a base for people um ...
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: We think home will always be critical and important.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: And so we expect people to go to home which is why we put home at the top of the guide.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: Uh, you basically hit, uh, the Xbox button A and then A again and you’re right at home.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, there was- there was actually a quite- there was a thread on Reddit where somebody was really concerned because they saw that we were talking about it and I actually jumped in there. They were concerned that, uh, the game- I think Scott, you and I talked about this, "The game wouldn’t pause and what do I do, oh my God, they’re changing ..." We’re not really changing any of the architecture, right? So if a game paused when you hit the guide button or go home, it’s still going to do that, right Scott?
Scott Henson: That’s right. Yeah, same- same behavior as what you saw before and a lot of games, as you know, and we talked about this. Um, they’ll pause or a lot of games when you’re in multiplayer of course, you’re going to keep going.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Scott Henson: Because you know and there's multiplayer going.
Larry Hryb: Multiplayer’s going. (laughter)
Scott Henson: That’s right.
Larry Hryb: So, so it’s not like we’re changing that and then-
Scott Henson: Nope.
Larry Hryb: -and, and actually you’re- you’re right, uh, um, Mike is that, that ability to go quickly to home, you know, guide button A, A, boom, done. And it’s fast.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah. Now I would say from an architectural standpoint, the one change we are making is just about multitasking.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, let’s talk about that.
Mike Ybarra: We are really working to improve multitasking to make the experience better and easier for people. Let me give you one example-
Larry Hryb: Sure.
Mike Ybarra: -because we talk about achievements in the guide.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: There’s another option in there, uh, which, uh, to show the, uh, Achievement Hunter-
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Mike Ybarra: -menu.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: That will actually show up as an overlay over your game now.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: Instead of shrinking the size of your game and snapping it to the right.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: And so we have a screenshot up on- on this podcast as well so you can see it.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, so what this will do is there’s a couple- actually there’s a couple things that’s cool about achievements I noticed. A, you can tag one as a favorite.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: Right? So you tag it as a favorite and then when- when you track it, it’ll your- to your point, it will show up as a small overlay so you can kind of see, "What am I doing? How am I doing?"
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, that’s right. And then in the overlay, you can see in the screenshot it looks really nice. It- it you know, it isn’t gonna be in the way of your UI. You can move it, which is always nice.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: Uh, and as you said, you can favorite achievements you know, if you’re tracking a certain one and you really want that one to be the- the one you’re watching, you favorite that and it automatically shows up in that- in that bar. But we think the overlay just, uh, showcases the, the multitasking power of the system and also the experience goals that we want. We don’t want anything to change the size of your games-
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: -or your experience is not as immersive as it possibly can be.
Larry Hryb: In the- in the- in the blog post that you put up, you talked about changing to, the game DVR options and- and would that really just means surfacing it up to the top. Tell us- tell us, explain to folks what that means. And again, you- you can see in the video that Scott and I did but I kind of wanted to ask you what it means.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, well Scott does a good job in the video, uh, of talking through it. Why don’t you go ahead and take this one?
Scott Henson: Sure, um, so the first thing is you know, the Creators Updates, so making everyone a creator, whether they’re broadcasting, taking a screenshot or DVR. It’s certainly a key theme so one button press to take a screenshot, one button press you’re recording or if you want to change those options, we’ve put that in the View menu. Um, in the View menu just like what, what you’ve had previously, you can set the recording length for things that have happened prior.
Mike Ybarra: Sure.
Scott Henson: Or you can start recording now, um, and just record for you know, several minutes.
Mike Ybarra: Right.
Scott Henson: Um, and, uh, and then stop it at your leisure.
Larry Hryb: So what- what Scott’s referring to in this screenshot, you’ll see, is if you hit the Guide button and then you’ll notice kind off on the right-hand side you’ll see save the screenshot, record that, or, um, of course, more recording options. The other thing that’s big that a lot of people were requesting, um, Mike, is in the upper right-hand corner.
Mike Ybarra: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry Hryb: You know, the clock and the battery which is cool, right?
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, I mean a lot of little touches in this release.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: You know, you- you mentioned the- the recording. There’s a lot of feedback on while we want to be able to record longer and ...
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: So we’re looking at that.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: Not in this release, but we certainly hear that feedback.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: But there’s a lot of nice touches in this release about my batteries, my microphone on, uh, and indicators for that which I think, uh, make this release really good.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, which was persistent the fact that you could press the Guide button, uh, now the Guide slides out you’ll see, all you see what time it is, what you-re what you’re you know, to your point, is the microphone connected, the battery level. And, uh, again, quickly, quickly-
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, absolutely.
Larry Hryb: Getting- getting- getting to where you need to go.
Mike Ybarra: I think one other thing people are gonna notice is you know, home is changing.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: People are gonna-, people are gonna go to Home, uh, probably just as, as much as they do, uh, today with this update. And, and we’ve changed Home fundamentally.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, let’s talk about that.
Mike Ybarra: You know, when you used to go ... When you go to Home today, you see a big screen, uh-
Larry Hryb: Let’s see, can we tell people what we call it?
Mike Ybarra: Yeah. We call that the bat.
Larry Hryb: Which is the- the- the big art tile.
Scott Henson: Yeah, the big art tile. (laughter) Yes, that’s right. That's right. Exactly, that’s what it stands for.
Mike Ybarra: Now you know how we name things. Uh, but that big bat is now gone.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: One of the challenges with that was you know, people engage with a title that they’re playing with a lot.
Larry Hryb: Mm-hmm. (Affirmative)
Mike Ybarra: And with the- with a big screen, with the bat, you couldn’t hit the contextual items, and when I say contextual items I mean the game hub, the share, the friends, uh, the clubs.
Larry Hryb: The clubs.
Mike Ybarra: The clubs.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: And items like that.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, all the things that are kind of related to that game.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, totally. And so people want to engage with that. And so we’ve, uh, reduced the size dramatically, there will be a screenshot here you can see it. Basically the box art, the title. And then those contextual items. So you can go to the game hub easy. You can go to your latest screenshots and achievements and share those easily, right there, just like you can on the MRU items.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: Um, before. And a lot of people say, well why, why change that? One reason was to get to those items. The other is, uh, we’re doing a end-to-end pass through on performance. And what we can do to increase performance all up of the system. And there’s decisions like this that make usability easier and also increase our system performance.
Larry Hryb: And also with this new design Scott, with that your team worked on, is since it’s- since the the- the- the bat, um, is a little bit smaller. It’s no longer ... We need a new name for that. I call it the active tile. Um, but now that it’s smaller, is it- it kind of brings, “The Fold-Up,” right?
Scott Henson: That’s right. Maybe we should just call it the game you’re playing.
Larry Hryb: Okay. (laughter)
Scott Henson: Um, you know, uh, [crosstalk 00:19:18] ...
Larry Hryb: Well because sometimes it’s not a game.
Scott Henson: Yeah, that’s right or the app that- that you’re playing. That’s right. So, um, correct. Now, one of the things that I wanted to add in there too, we got a lot of feedback last year at the end of last year, around, uh, clubs and LFGs and making-
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Scott Henson: -sure that people knew how to get to those. Uh, those will also be, um, in the same area where-, where Mike was talking about. And because, you know at the end of the day, the reason we’re all here is because we love games.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Scott Henson: So we’re going to celebrate the game, um, that is active or the app that’s active, uh, with the hero art, assuming that you don’t have background, um, art set up on- on your system.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, so how does that-, how does that work? Because I know that I’ve- I was confused. I called you one night and I’m like, what’s going on?
Scott Henson: Yeah, um, if you've set it up, if you’re one of the people that have set up your console with no custom background and it’s just-
Larry Hryb: It’s just maybe a color, a custom color.
Scott Henson: That’s right, and we’ll- we’ll- we’ll take that hero art for the title and we’ll make that-
Larry Hryb: Kind of put it in there.
Scott Henson: -put it in there and make it, it’s beautiful. It looks great. Um, but if you use your custom, uh, background, a lot of folks like to have achievements or what have you as a-
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Scott Henson: -background. I do. Uh, then we’ll put that in there as well.
Larry Hryb: Right. And your color is still there.
Scott Henson: Yup, of course.
Larry Hryb: You know, I wanted to kind of, I don’t want to say too much about it Mike, that you mentioned something that I don’t know if we can or cannot say. There’s been a lot of questions about, um, gamer pics. (laughter)
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, you know, everybody wants custom gamer pics.
Larry Hryb: Because we’re kind of talking about in that area. So let’s talk about that.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, you know, w- we’ve ... There’s a lot of challenges with custom gamer pics.
Larry Hryb: Yes.
Mike Ybarra: As what people create as their picture-
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: -sometimes horrifies you, makes you not sleep and other times, hey that’s a great gamer pic.
Larry Hryb: Right. Right.
Mike Ybarra: Uh, yeah, we- we’ll allow, uh, custom gamer pics, uh, soon after we’ve released the, uh, Creators Update.
Larry Hryb: So that’s some- something we’re actively working on?
Mike Ybarra: It is something we are actively working on.
Larry Hryb: Maybe before- maybe before E3?
Mike Ybarra: Certainly before E3.
Larry Hryb: That’s- that’s what we like to hear because we got a lot that’s going on at E3.
Mike Ybarra: See I just found Scott up.
Scott Henson: He did. [Amen 00:21:01] (laughter)
Mike Ybarra: Right now.
Scott Henson: In the same sort of vein, we’re looking at the same thing for clubs.
Mike Ybarra: Okay,
Scott Henson: If you would imagine. Uh, because we-
Larry Hryb: Because we are working a club and what not.
Scott Henson: Yeah, right. Um, so I think people you know, when you’re a creator, however you create, you want maximum flexibility around that.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Scott Henson: So, uh, we aim to please and are looking at, uh, at bringing that as soon as we can.
Larry Hryb: So there’s a lot of, lot of things to go over here. We can kind of- we’ve been kind of been going through quite a few of them. One of the other areas is, um, you’ve done some work around Cortana because-
Mike Ybarra: Yeah.
Larry Hryb: Tell us about how Cortana will reveal herself now.
Mike Ybarra: Well much like the Achievement Hunter dialogue, Cortana will be an overlay instead of, uh, taking up you know, part of the real estate of your screen.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: And so form a visual standpoint, it’s a lot easier to interact and engage, uh, with Cortana.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: And we’re also adding some features.
Larry Hryb: Ooh.
Mike Ybarra: And so things like, uh, reminders and alarms. For example, when I’m playing a game and you know, some of my friends, we know we’re going to raid at 7:00 P.M., I can say, "Hey Cortana, remind me, uh, to start the raid at 7 P.M."
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: And then Cortana will register that and I go back and play in my game. And when it’s almost 7 P.M., Cortana will say, "Hey reminder, you gotta start the raid. Your buds are waiting for you."
Larry Hryb: Now you can do that on your- on your PC as well, right?
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, you can do it on any device. Even your iOS-
Larry Hryb: As long as you have Cortana?
Mike Ybarra: As long as you have Cortana.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: And those reminders will scale across all those platforms.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: So it works really well. I, I think you know, we’re getting to some of these scenarios where I think gamers will leverage Cortana, uh, to help them, uh, with their overall experience.
Larry Hryb: Now this is- this is- this is this next feature I want to talk about is the one that people were like, "Well, is that really a feature?" But, you’ve- in order to update the update, you've actually changed the update. (laughter)
Mike Ybarra: I don’t know if I would explain it that way. But there’s, there's a couple of things that we’ve done with system update, uh, to make this better. One is the UI when you do an update, is a lot clearer.
Larry Hryb: Okay.
Mike Ybarra: For example, today most people see one status bar and sometimes that hangs at a certain percent for 10 minutes.
Larry Hryb: So this is the one where you have the console at the top and it says Preparing for Update, and it’s going across.
Mike Ybarra: And it’s the green bar that goes across.
Larry Hryb: Yeah. Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: And it stops and people are like, should I reset?
Larry Hryb: Yeah, what’s going on?
Mike Ybarra: What happens if I reset? Ah, ah, you know, and so we’ve broken that down to three steps. One is where it downloads the update.
Larry Hryb: Right and pretty straight forward.
Mike Ybarra: Pretty straight forward. You're downloading the update. The next is verifying the update. Making sure the integrity of the update is 100% solid. Nothing was corrupt as you downloaded it.
Larry Hryb: Sure.
Mike Ybarra: Because that would be a- put you in a bad ...
Larry Hryb: Yeah, we don’t want to do that.
Mike Ybarra: And then we applied the update and when we applied the update, we actually store the current, uh, system update, good state just in case something happens.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: We have that. And then we applied the update. So those will be three different bars to give you more visibility into what’s happening and how that’s working.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: The other thing about a system update that, that we’ve heard a lot of feedback from, uh, especially for people who do not use connected standby is, "Hey, I’m gaming and my gaming session at the middle of the, my gaming session, the system just rebooted and applied an update. Uh, maybe I was in a big multiplayer match, or I didn’t get the exact save point, in a single player game, that can be incredibly frustrating."
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: We understand that.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: We all, as gamers, would be, yeah, that would not be a great thing.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, not cool, not cool.
Mike Ybarra: Uh, and so now if you're not in connected standby and there’s an update, uh, in the settings icon, both on Home, which is bottom left-
Larry Hryb: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Mike Ybarra: And in the guides.
Larry Hryb: So when you- when you press the Guide, then the Guide button and it slides out.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah. The settings icon will have a one next to it.
Larry Hryb: A little badge.
Mike Ybarra: It’s an update. A little badge.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: And if there’s an update pending. So you sort of know, "Hey I can manually go apply that."
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: Uh, we’ll also put some intelligence in there so that if there’s a- if there’s a badge there and you go to shut down, uh, the option will be there to apply the update and then completely shut down.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: So it just automatically does it and you know you got your- your systems going all the way to a low power state to save power, which is really important.
Larry Hryb: SO the badges are similar you get on Windows today or your, the ... your mobile devices where it’s got a little red one or, or something like that.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah. Definitely.
Larry Hryb: And then the- the- the what you just described is similar to the way Windows handles it today where it’s like, "Hey, do you want to take this update and shut down, or do you want to restart or what do you want to do?" So we’re kind of giving some folks some options again, to not interrupt their gaming.
Mike Ybarra: That’s right, yup.
Larry Hryb: Um, so, all right, moving along. What- what else do we have. There's quite a big update coming in here.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, I mean i- i- yo- ... Assessability is really important. I Tweeted something out about assessability because people were asking questions about, "Hey, uh, is gaming going to be easier for us?" Uh, assessability falls into a lot of buckets.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: There’s people with disabilities that love this- this hobby and, and want to engage, and we want to make it as inclusive as possible with everything we do on Xbox.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: To just- kids who don’t have the dexterity yet to handle a controller with you know, 13 buttons-
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: In- in ...
Larry Hryb: It’s scary. It’s huge for little hands.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, and you know games aren’t super easy.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: Uh, and so there’s a host of you know, six or seven key assessability features that I think you guys talk about in your video.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: Uh, one of them that’s exciting me a lot is something we’re calling CoPilot.
Larry Hryb: Okay.
Mike Ybarra: Uh, this is the ability for two people to, uh, share the controller responsibilities on a game.
Larry Hryb: So what does that mean?
Mike Ybarra: For example, if you- you and I are- are playing CoPilot, Larry.
Larry Hryb: Mm-hmm. (Affirmative)
Mike Ybarra: You can drive the left stick, I’ll drive the right stick a- and the buttons.
Larry Hryb: Mm-hmm. (Affirmative)
Mike Ybarra: Uh, and we can play the game at the same time together.
Larry Hryb: So essentially we’re singular- it’s- it’s ... Our two controllers are becoming one.
Mike Ybarra: That’s right.
Larry Hryb: And so the games, what’s great about this is, because Scott and- and Mike that you- your engineering teams have worked at the system level, games don’t care. They don’t have to do anything. Right? We handle this- the system level, is that right, Scott?
Scott Henson: That’s right, yeah. And, uh, it opens up so many scenarios, uh, for both people that need help and that sounds like what Mike was talking about and people with disabilities-
Larry Hryb: Right.
Scott Henson: -um, as well. So we’re pretty excited to see how people use that, um, a- as an enabling tech.
Mike Ybarra: And another thing people have asked for is we want to turn of, uh, Rumble.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: From an assessability standpoint. So those options will be there as well. Um, magnifier improvements, and narrow door improvements, uh, dictation, elements that you guys talk about in the video that, uh, you know, we want to make, again, Xbox, uh, available to everybody.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: These are important features.
Larry Hryb: I just want to point out that- that what we’re talking about today with the video that Scott and I did, and- and so forth, the blog post that went out, is that’s going to Xbox Insiders, formerly Preview. Xbox Insiders, um, to a sm- to a small group originally. And then it’ll- it’ll- it’ll broaden as- as you guys decide that, "Hey, this feels good. Because you don’t want to, you- you- you’re really, um, leaning on the community for the feedback and testing." Is that, is that accurate?
Scott Henson: That’s right. Yeah, so we’ll- we’ll start, um, with the people that are really giving us the most active feedback.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Scott Henson: Um, we’ll continue to roll out features in the weeks ahead.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Scott Henson: Uh, and then that’ll get larger and larger as we go, um, through the weeks and months.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, and then eventually when it gets to the final release which is you- when- whenever, when it’s done. (laughs)
Scott Henson: That’s right.
Larry Hryb: And then maybe beyond that we’ll have some- some custom gamer pictures.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah-
Larry Hryb: That’s not this release, I want to be clear.
Mike Ybarra: Another big one is arenas.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, arenas! You talked about that in your blog post last week.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, and we announced it at E3. Uh, you know, shortly after the- the Creators Update goes out, uh, we’ll have arena, uh, full support in, uh, a couple of the games where user generated tournaments can happen and people can start competing at a- at a pretty awesome level. Scott and I reviewed the UI designs of that, uh, almost on a daily basis. It’s really coming together. Uh, I think people are going to be, you know, re- really pleased with what they see. We did KI for a while.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: And a few tournaments.
Larry Hryb: And you gotta capture a lot of information of what work and what doesn’t.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, we captured so much good feedback on that from- from users playing where there were frustrations where people didn’t show up. What are we going to do about that?
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: And then we think about, you know, disqualifications and elements like that. The KI team has been a wonderful partner, there’s third party partners that have helped us here and-
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: -we’re really excited to- to- to bring out Arena to people.
Larry Hryb: Just to refresh people what arena is. Can- Scott, can you explain it, because I mean we talked about it a few months ago but the means wouldn't working on it and collecting data, but let's refresh some people.
Scott Henson: Right. So for people in the Preview they would think of arena as the- the- the tournaments and brackets they've been playing in Killer Instinct, um, that we set up, right, that we- we put out there and we talked about it at the end of last year that we want to take that vision further and- and allow people to actually create their own tournaments. Um, and you know, this Click Clubs have come online we're thinking about, "Well, how was the club?" And- and user generated tournaments come together and so-
Larry Hryb: Right.
Scott Henson: Arena is kind of that collection of things where competitive play happens.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Scott Henson: I mean overtime, you know, we'll move from this, you know, very-, this- this focus on tournaments, um, to also watching these competitive play elements as well.
Larry Hryb: Right.
Scott Henson: Um, but the key part of it right now that we're focused on is getting more and more games, um, into the, uh, arena, um, system, so that people can, you know, create those custom tournaments, compete those custom tournaments, compete for prizes, um, or just recreation.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Scott Henson: Um, and so we talked about Killer Instinct, just see some more tournaments, um, coming out to Preview in the weeks ahead.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Scott Henson: Um, we're excited to, in- invite and welcome, uh, war gaming, um, ESL and face it, um, end of the fall as well. Mike mentioned that in his blog.
Larry Hryb: Yup.
Scott Henson: Um, so you'll see those experiences come online as well, and we have some exciting new things that we're not going to talk about today but they'll be coming out the weeks ahead.
Larry Hryb: Okay, more stuff.
Scott Henson: Yeah, more stuff.
Larry Hryb: Wow. We've covered a lot of stuff today Mike.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, it- it- it is a pretty big, uh, update for us, and so as you said we're roll it out to Preview. So on day one not everybody is going to get it, I know Mike Twitter will fill up with, "Why am I not in Preview?"
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: Uh, we'll roll it out, uh, overtime pretty aggressive schedule, uh, for us to get people engaging with the feedback. But, uh, really proud of the team and the work they're doing here, um, very happy with the feedback, the fans have given us and how we've, uh, I tried to address some of those things.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I want to talk about that for a minute because we talked about, we have, we have our user voice, you know, we have feedback at Xbox.com. That's a huge area where we collect a lot of data and your team goes in there and it's looking it. So, uh, tell us how your team uses that?
Mike Ybarra: Well, when we do planning, um, month to month on features for Xbox, uh, one of the input, one of the main input channels is, uh, from the fans.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: And so it's not you know, "Tweeting me a feature that you want," or ...
Larry Hryb: That's not the best way. That's not the best way to do.
Mike Ybarra: That's not the best way to do, I get there everybody still does that-
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: -but it's not the best way to do it.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: Uh, userboard is really is where we go, every feature that we look at has a number next to it and that's the number of votes people have gone up and said, "Hey, I would like this too."
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: It does help us prioritize, it's not the only thing of course, yeah, no engineering are uses one channel of feedback for what they want to do but this is a very critical one for us.
Scott Henson: And it's also that it doesn't mean that, "Hey, this is the highest vote one," "Hey, I need you to make, uh, Xbox one, um, you know, do my laundry and make my bed and- and let's order pizza." You know, it's- it's things that we can that technically can be done and maybe there's other reasons why it can't be done whether it's legal or otherwise.
Mike Ybarra: That's right. I mean, well, there are some up there that has thousands of votes and I always get the, "This is number one on this right, X, Y, or Z."
Larry Hryb: Right.
Mike Ybarra: Uh, we certainly there's a lot of inputs to go into, uh, when we deliver something but please use the site, give us all the feedback you can.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: Trust that we all look at it and read it, and, and it helps prioritize what we deliver, uh, and we can't think that the fans enough to help us in Preview. Uh, we know that that's, you know, uh, something that they love to engage in, but also can be something that, uh, takes a little bit of time.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: Uh, because we find bugs and certain things may or may not work, and, uh, likely we have, we have fans that understand that and help us make the best product possible.
Larry Hryb: You know what always is, is frustrating for me because I've been working on the team for a long time like, like you have Scott is. You always see the people, "Why can't they do this? It's so easy." (laughs) And I learned a long time ago that, uh, you know, if it was easy we would have done it already. There's a, there's probably some reason why whatever this feature is isn't done, is that accurate?
Scott Henson: Yeah, and I think, uh, you know, we're building this for you with you, right? So keep the feedback coming.
Larry Hryb: And, uh, and I want to be clear because that maybe the audience doesn't know this, I know that Mike you know this, and, and, and he said, "I, I, every single day, I've, uh, either talk to you Mike or definitely you Scott ..."
Mike Ybarra: For sure.
Larry Hryb: And I am giving feedback I'm like, "This is not good, we need to change this. How does this work? Why are we doing this? What was the decision here? Why- why are we not, why- why are we doing Twitter like this Mike?" (laughs)
Mike Ybarra: It could be known Larry, just not follow the user voice Skype.
Larry Hryb: Yes. I, I, I have, I have a different, I can, I can have kind of help but I, I do look at user voice and I go, "Hey," and I use that. When I'm talking I was like, "Hey guys, I'm seeing this problem too, and frankly it's also my number seven thing on user voice."
Mike Ybarra: So I think you just opened yourself up to the opportunity for people to put future request for you.
Larry Hryb: No, no, no, no, no I can't do all of them. I can't do all of them. I'm just saying is that, you know, Scott, you use the system heavily, Mike certainly you do I certainly do. We all are, and we know that everyone who listens this podcast are really, um, heavy gamers, whether it's on Windows 10, PC, or, um, or Console. And we want to make, you know, Phil talked about it, he pretty much sure, Xbox is the best place for gaming. Right, Mike?
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, that's right. No matter where you play, uh, and how you engage for that network, right?
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: We're really excited about what the future of Windows and gaming integration looks like, there are some big plans that were storing up there too.
Scott Henson: Oh, I know. The choice I'm doing is going to be a crazy year, we have some hardware that we're not going to talk about here coming out.
Larry Hryb: We got score look Scorpio come out later this year.
Mike Ybarra: Scorpio. Yeah, well so the team's hard at work on that and also on some pretty innovative, uh, work for Windows desktop for PC gamers.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: That play all types of games.
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: Release there, to- to get the time to talk about that.
Larry Hryb: A lot of the stuff there. All right, gentlemen. I appreciate, Scott, thank you for joining me.
Scott Henson: Great to be here.
Larry Hryb: All right. Now, I'm going it to you, I'm going to make it uncomfortable. We'll work in people find you on Twitter or on Xbox. Scott?
Scott Henson: Well, Twitters, Xbox, uh, 360, uh ... [crosstalk 00:33:52] 360.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, 360.
Scott Henson: That's right. [crosstalk 00:33:54] Xbox 360, they're 360.
Larry Hryb: And your, and your gamer tracklist?
Scott Henson: And my gamer tracklist is there.
Larry Hryb: That's right. That's right. And, uh, and- and Mike, how can they find you?
Mike Ybarra: Um, in Xbox, click on Twitter and click on Xbox Live.
Larry Hryb: I'll put a link in the show notes guys. Thank you for joining us, I'm looking forward to seeing what people saying about that. I mean, I may stream this. Let me just do's-, UI walk through of, you know ...
Mike Ybarra: That'd be great. You should do that.
Larry Hryb: Right, you know, I'd be on time. Yeah, I- I really enjoy with the Beam audience because especially with the low latency it's so great to have those conversations.
Mike Ybarra: Yeah, it's funny. We created a- a Beam team a couple days ago and so people that I game with are on there and we're all streaming as part of that team which is really great.
Larry Hryb: Am I on that team? I don't think you've invited me. Yeah, apparently not. Awkward. Awkward.
Mike Ybarra: (laughter) You can create your own team.
Larry Hryb: Yeah, I guess I will.
Mike Ybarra: But, uh, people should go engage with me man-
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: -and, and start broadcasting it, it's really fun and engaging and with the interactivity model that we have come in-
Larry Hryb: Yeah.
Mike Ybarra: -uh, it's going to be pretty innovative.
Larry Hryb: You're gonna want to check it out. All right, thank you gentlemen. We'll talk to everybody next week. Thanks for listening. Bye-bye. All righty.
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