Announced today (21st May 2014) in London with the next system update coming in June two of your most-requested features will be arriving to your X1’s: external storage support and real names for identifying your friends.
As you know the developers at Microsoft are keen to take on board all feedback and are tackling the highest requests first, Real names and external storage support are just the beginning for June. Also with this forthcoming update, you’ll be able to take advantage of great new SmartGlass features, including OneGuide and Universal Remote Control, select an account for automatic sign-in, and for Xbox One owners in Canada and Europe, get access to OneGuide and more TV, SmartGlass and voice features.
Easily Increase Games Capacity with External Storage Support
Made to be as simple as possible to help you increase your storage capacity of games and apps with the external storage support features, the Xbox One system will soon support up to two external hard drives at once. Just plug in your 256GB or larger USB 3.0 external hard drive and once formatted, copy and move games, apps and game add-ons to increase your storage capacity at home.
Now you can take content to a mate’s house and get straight into a game directly from an external drive. You’ll need to sign in to Xbox Live if you’ve purchased your content digitally or insert a disc to verify your game ownership when you take your content elsewhere. Now there’s no need to wait to re-download your game and all the DLC. The external storage support in June means that you can also choose to copy full games and all of the associated content in one easy step.
Real Names Makes it Easier to Identify Friends
With Xbox One you can have 1,000 friends and infinite followers, but as these lists grow it can become increasingly more difficult to remember the people you know by their gamertag alone. Now with real names feature you can recognize people on your friends list and more easily discover people you already know who are on Xbox Live.
Most importantly feedback has been listened to and to make this most useful you need full control. You’ll be able to share with all your friends, a subset of your choosing, friends of friends or none at all. The choice is yours. Also, your name doesn’t show up in games, and you can change your settings any time from your profile and when adding new friends.
SmartGlass Provides Access to full OneGuide and Universal Remote Control, Pin Reordering and More
A ton of changes to your SmartGlass app for Xbox One since SmartGlass beta, and now we are introduced to the OneGuide experience and Universal Remote Control to SmartGlass. Now in supported markets you can view all of your TV listings on your SmartGlass device and set and view your favourite channels and app channels on your smart phone, tablet or PC. With the Universal Remote Control, you can also easily switch channels, set new recordings and select and control recorded content from your DVR. Another great companion feature now in SmartGlass is pin reordering. With the touch of your finger you can easily organize your pins in categories or favourites based on your preferences and have those changes refresh to your console.
Other improvements to SmartGlass will help you stay current on what you and your friends are up to, even when you’re away from your console. Bringing hero stats and activity feed front and centre, and adding more ways for you to compare achievements via SmartGlass whether you’re on a friend’s profile or viewing a game from the activity feed. Just like on the console, you can choose to get notifications on your smart phone, PC or tablet when a favourite friend signs into their console or starts broadcasting a game. For many devices, you can even choose to start watching the broadcast wherever you are.
Expanded TV and OneGuide Soon Available in More Markets
The TV and OneGuide features we began sharing with select Xbox Live members in April will be available in June to everyone in UK, Canada, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. The update will bring OneGuide, alongside Favourites and App Channels, for people in these markets who have their TV connected to Xbox One via HDMI-in. Additional features in these markets include Kinect voice commands for controlling your set-top box and other AV equipment. TV and OneGuide settings, has been updated, to provide better power management and control of your devices and improved compatibility with more devices.
New Gold Membership Benefits, Access to Apps for All and More
With this update, you’ll find a new hub in Xbox One for exploring all of the great benefits available to Xbox Live Gold members, including Games with Gold and Deals with Gold. Also, with the Xbox Live Gold changes announced last week, shortly after the Xbox One system update becomes available in June all Xbox Live members will be able to access popular gaming and entertainment apps without a Gold membership.
Finally, it’s been made it possible for you to choose an account for automatic sign-in on your Xbox One – another much-requested feature from fans.
Coming soon, these features will be available to members previewing Xbox One system updates as they help us work through final improvements. This system update will become available to the full Xbox One community in June.
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