00:00Hi, it's Larry here from Xbox Live's Major Nelson.
00:02I'm here today with Mikey Barr,
00:03head of Platform Engineering,
00:05to talk about some big updates coming to Xbox One.
00:08Many of the new features will be rolling out
00:10to Alpha Ring Xbox Insider starting today.
00:13More Insiders will gain access over time
00:15with general availability later this fall.
00:18Mike, thanks for joining me.
00:19Thank you, Larry. It's always great to be here.
00:21It's really exciting here because we just booted up
00:23the console here in the studio for the first time
00:25and it's got a totally different look here.
00:27Let's talk about that.
00:28Yeah, right when people boot up the console,
00:30they'll see an entirely different screen.
00:32We've added four areas on the Xbox Dash.
00:36The first one lets you resume quickly
00:38whatever you've been playing or watching.
00:40The next two will be suggestions.
00:42So for example, if I'm playing a lot of Minecraft,
00:44it'll suggest a friend that happens to play Minecraft a lot.
00:48Maybe they do a lot of DVR clips or they're broadcasting a lot.
00:51So introduce you to new people that play the games you play.
00:53And the last one is a great offer from time to time
00:56relative to what you're playing in games.
00:59Now, I also notice there's kind of this new strip at the bottom here
01:01that kind of looks like a most recently used list, right?
01:04Yeah, that's right.
01:05You know, it has My Games and Apps, which is an app lots of people go to
01:08to look at their games and their content.
01:10That's their library.
01:10That's their library. That's right.
01:12And so we put that right there in the forefront.
01:14And then the next three are games you've previously played
01:17or apps that you've previously run.
01:19So you can quickly get to those things that you do most often.
01:21Now, if we scroll down below here, we can see there's a lot of new changes.
01:25Tell me about what's going on here, because this is totally different.
01:28Yeah, it's a complete redesign based on gamer feedback.
01:32We've heard for a long time now that gamers really want to customize home.
01:35They want to make it more about them.
01:37And so we've embraced that in a very big way with a concept called content blocks.
01:41Okay. Now, there's a lot of different content blocks I've noticed.
01:44I see we've got individuals, we've got games. It's kind of cool.
01:46Yeah. Every user can pick the content blocks they want. Think of them as areas where if a user has
01:53a specific interest in a game or a friend or what's going on in the gold lounge, these are
01:58specific areas they can pin and will be updated multiple times so they can see the latest news
02:03on what's going on with their friends or their games.
02:07One thing I noticed here is I can also, this is where I can put my pins in. I can
02:10put a game
02:11that I care about. There's all sorts of customization options, like you said.
02:14Yeah. So, for example, if you're a minimalist, you can have your home and that's it. Or your
02:19home and your pins. And that's your entire gaming surface. If you're somebody that likes a lot of
02:24customization, they want to know what's going on with all the games they own and all the friends
02:28that they have and what's new in Gold's Lounge in terms of the free games you can go get.
02:32You can create content blocks with all of that rich information for people to engage with.
02:38How do I add and edit these content blocks?
02:41Yeah. So, for example, if you want to add, I have you on my friends list. If I go to
02:45you
02:45on my friends list and I want to add you as a content block, I'd say add to home. And
02:48immediately
02:49that's a brand new content block. So I will see you, your avatar, what you're doing. I can engage
02:54with you. To edit them, just hit Y when you're at home and you can easily move them around. So
02:58you
02:58want to reorder them or you can change the blocks inside. It's a really flexible design system around
03:03choice of the gamer to make sure we're giving them what they want on home.
03:08A lot of changes over here, but really let's take a look at the new guide. That's exciting.
03:13Yeah. The guide we've made some changes based on feedback as well. One, we always think about speed
03:18and how fast a person gets to the task they want to do. Guide was created based on that feedback.
03:24And
03:24so the team sent some pretty, pretty big changes here to reinforce and make more progress towards
03:29those goals. The first thing you'll notice when you've used it, Larry, is probably just
03:32the tabs are now horizontal on the top, right? So we've got the different tabs. It's the same content,
03:37but the team has reoriented them and it's really easy to go back and forth now with the bumpers on
03:42the controller. And of course you can also use the thumbsticks. Yeah. And it's a lot faster. And so
03:46you just bumper on the controller to go over to messages, party broadcast settings, whatever you want
03:50to get to. Uh, and then we've also made it a couple of layers deep. So if you're in party
03:55or you want to see
03:56what your friends are online, you go to the friends, you click a, and then all the rich content of
04:00the friends comes up as well.
04:01And so we're adding tabs, uh, which open up multiple windows in the guide itself.
04:07So it's all about really getting to my content as quick as possible and also providing enough
04:11flexibility in the guide so that I can really do a lot of things from within the game.
04:14Yeah, that's right. Keeping you in your game and yet letting you socialize as much as possible.
04:19So as this goes to the alpha ring, we look forward to seeing the feedback from people on this one.
04:23It's a very powerful tool. Feedback.xbox.com. That's where the team looks. So that's really critical.
04:28That's right. Now I want to go back to the dashboard. I noticed we've got some
04:31changes to community. Tell us about those. Yeah. One of the things I'm really excited
04:35about was we've modernized the community tab. And so you go over to community and immediately
04:40you see a dramatic difference. It's laid out for mass consumption. You can quickly browse and scroll
04:45and see what your friends are doing, what game developers are posting on game hubs, easily get to
04:51your DVR clips. It's something the team is very proud of, a very modern way of looking at your activity
04:57feed
04:57and socializing with the friends that you play on Xbox. Of course, there's a lot of little changes
05:01there as well. We're looking forward to our, you know, everyone on the insider program taking a look
05:06at it and kind of going through and giving us the feedback, right? Yeah, absolutely. Our filtering is
05:10based in there now. So you can pick and choose what you want to show up in your activity feed.
05:13But we're
05:14always listening to the feedback, adjusting the builds as we go forward. And so definitely want to get as
05:19much feedback as possible. So that is an early look at some of the new features coming to Xbox One
05:24that are rolling out to the
05:25Xbox Insider program, the Alpha Ring. Starting today, it's going to roll out to other rings in the near future
05:30and
05:30everyone's going to get it later this year. Right, Mike? That's right. Later this year. Thank you, Larry. And thank
05:35you all of you on the
05:36Alpha Ring and in a preview program for giving us the feedback. We create this product together and we look
05:41forward to this big release later this year. We sure do. We'll have more to share in the coming weeks.
05:44So stay tuned and be sure to check out
05:46xboxwire or my blog at majornelson.com for more details. I'm Larry here of Xbox Live's Major Nelson
05:51saying thank you, Mike Ibarra. Thank you. We'll see you next time.
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