Microsoft has shown that it is dedicated to improving the Xbox One user experience, having already issued multiple big software updates for the new console that was released just five months ago. Beginning late Monday night, the company began rolling out its Xbox One April update, which includes a number of fixes and new features that were detailed by Microsoft on one of its blogs.
Xbox programming director Larry Hryb, better known by his Xbox Live user name “Major Nelson,” ran through all of the new features on his blog Monday night:
- Game and app saves and updates. A game save progress bar will show you the status of your game saves. You will also be able to easily tell what games and apps are being updated or have been updated recently.
- Friends improvements. Notifications will be added to see when favorites and friends sign in to Xbox Live. This was one of the most frequently requested features, so we made it a priority to include it in this update. Also, friends who are in multiplayer will be identified in the friends list.
- Kinect voice and motion improvements will continue to be fine-tuned for quality and reliability of Xbox One commands. For example, we’ve updated some of the gesture functionality to reduce false positives on non-hand objects triggering gesture commands.
- Improved GameDVR video quality through compression algorithm improvements.
- Blu-ray player supports 50 Hz video output for content recorded at 50 Hz. We’ll also be updating the Blu-ray Player app in the coming days to round out these improvements.
- Controller and headset adaptor firmware updates will reduce audio static and improve wireless connectivity.
- Silent reboot after system updates and system update on demand now available. If your console is in Instant On mode, the update will happen automatically and return to standby upon completion. This means you won’t need to power on your console after an update moving forward. If you want to take future updates when available without waiting for your console to do it on its own, we’ve added this option under system settings and you’ll be able to use it next update. It will only show as available when there is an update to take.
The April system update will be downloaded by Xbox One consoles automatically over the coming days, or users can download and apply the update manually in the console’s settings menu.
