The August Update for Xbox One is rolling out around the world today, and it brings improvements to the Guide, enhanced social features, and takes the UI closer to how it will look on the Xbox Series X when the next-gen console lands later this year.
The principal program manager of Xbox Experiences (that's quite the job title) Jonathan Hildebrandt revealed more about the new and incoming features over on the Xbox Wire, but in a nutshell, the main feature that players can expect is a revised Guide landing page "designed to be cleaner and easier to read at-a-glance."
"The layout makes it easier to navigate between the most recent things you were doing, the Dashboard, and My Games and Apps," Hildebrandt explained. "For those of you who want to customize the Guide, you'll have the option to change the order of the tabs that show up. We've also added buttons to the bottom of the page for important utilities like notifications, search, and audio settings, making it easier to access them from wherever you are."
Social connectivity and party features are also getting subtle enhancements, our favourite being the option to use individual volume sliders for each party member. If you've got a friend who routinely screams in your ear, this could prove to be a masterstroke. There's also a new-look Activity Feed.
What's more, it sounds like there's plenty of new stuff on the horizon for Xbox Insiders to take a look at, including changes to the Xbox app on mobile, a visual update to bring the Xbox One closer to the experience offered on PC and mobile, personalised profile themes, plus players will be able to log in on multiple devices simultaneously, although you'll only be able to play on one at a time.