Do you have an Xbox One? It’s update time! Get excited! Well, not too excited. Moderately excited.
Like the last few monthly updates, this month’s patch is mostly meant to bring in features that aren’t so much oh-my-god-brand-new as they are things that were surprisingly absent after the jump from Xbox 360 to Xbox One.
The new update should start hitting Xbox Ones this evening.
The things you’ll probably directly notice:
- Games are now able to show a progress bar when a game is saving, rather than just a spinning icon.
- You’ll now see alerts when an Xbox Live friend signs in. Microsoft says this was “one of the most requested features” — which makes sense, as it’s… kind of crazy that it wasn’t there to begin with
- They’ve tweaked the GameDVR algorithm (the system that records the last few seconds of gameplay when you say “Xbox, record that!”) for better video quality.
The less obvious (behind-the-scenes) stuff:
- Kinect’s voice/motion algorithms have been improved, with the main enhancement being a lower false-positive rate for “non-hand objects” triggering the sensor. If you’ve ever been laying on the couch and had the Kinect start tracking your foot, this is what they’re talking about
- Blu-ray player hardware can now support 50 Hz video content, though the Blu-ray player app still won’t support it for a few days.
- Improved controller/wireless headset connectivity
- The Xbox One can now power cycle itself automatically after an overnight/standby update; previously, you’d have to manually reset the Xbox One if it updated while in standby mode.
Alas, still no sign of HBO GO.