Your New Xbox One Experience Begins Today

Your New Xbox One Experience begins today and I recently had the opportunity to chat with Mike Ybarra, Director of Program Management, Xbox about this complete transformation coming to Xbox One.

The update for the New Xbox One Experience is available starting today. Monthly releases inspired by your feedback have been a cornerstone of the Xbox One experience.  We launched the Xbox Feedback site to enable you to influence how Xbox One evolves and we’ve been listening. Over the past two years, we have delivered more than a hundred new features based on your input. On behalf of the entire Xbox team, I want to express our appreciation for all of your valuable feedback.

The New Xbox One Experience is a complete transformation of Xbox One, integrating the speed and versatility of Windows 10. We put fans at the center of everything we do and wanted to make some big changes, including enabling one of your most requested features – the ability to play Xbox 360 games on Xbox One. We also wanted to meaningfully improve how gamers interact with Xbox One and redesigned it to make it the fastest and most social Xbox experience ever.

Here are some of the new experiences that you will enjoy on your Xbox One with this update:

Xbox One Backward Compatibility. You’ll be able to play over a hundred Xbox 360 games on Xbox One starting today, with hundreds more to come. Xbox 360 game play on your Xbox One includes the added benefits of Xbox One features such as screenshots, in-home streaming, and Game DVR. You can even enjoy multiplayer with friends playing Backward Compatible titles on Xbox 360. To start playing your Xbox 360 games on Xbox One after 12pm PST today, refresh your Game Collection to see your pre-purchased, digital Xbox 360 titles from the Backward Compatible title list in your ready to install queue or simply insert the disc for a supported Xbox 360 title and download the game to start playing it on Xbox One. In addition, for a limited time, all Xbox One owners can play backward compatible games on Xbox One with the multiplayer benefits normally available only with an Xbox Live Gold subscription. Take a look at the list of backward compatible games available now, and get started playing today.

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A new Xbox One Home makes it faster and easier to get to the things you love. We redesigned Home to provide fast access to the games and apps that you’ve recently used. The new Home also enables you to get to social activities quicker:

  • Share your achievements and game clips with the Xbox Live community.
  • See whether your friends are playing the same games.
  • Access Game Hubs to get breaking news and updates from game developers and the Xbox Live community.

A new guide lets you rapidly access top tasks with just one button press. You can bring up the guide from Home by tapping left with the D-pad or left thumbstick. Or, while playing a game, you can double tap the Xbox button on your controller to instantly overlay the guide – without interrupting your gameplay. You can access your Profile, Friends, and Settings; quickly start a Party; view your Messages and Notifications; and Snap an application all from the new guide, saving you valuable time weaving in and out of apps.

A new Community section makes Xbox One more social. This section is designed to help you keep up with what other gamers are doing on Xbox Live as well as jump directly into the conversation yourself. Check out what your friends are up to and keep track of the games you follow in the redesigned Activity Feed. The new Trending section lets you view the most popular posts from other players on Xbox Live.

The revamped OneGuide is your single destination for TV, movies and video. Find the most exciting new movies, TV shows and videos from across apps on Xbox One. App channels help you discover what’s new in your favorite apps, making it easier to find entertainment content. TV listings are viewable instantly in OneGuide – including listings from over-the-air channels and, coming soon, Sling TV. Picture-in-picture allows you to keep browsing for other things to watch without missing what’s happening on live TV.

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A new Store makes it easier to find the content you want. The new and improved Store includes four easy to explore areas – Games, Movies & TV, Apps, and Music – plus a new vertical gallery view to reveal more listings at a glance. You can browse through intuitive categories like Staff Picks, New Releases, Top played, Top rated, Coming Soon and Recommendations to uncover new games, apps, and entertainment for your Xbox One.

Read the full announcement from Mike Ybarra, Director of Program Management, Xbox, over at Xbox Wire.