Every month, Microsoft fixes, adjusts, and improves the Xbox One, and it has a list of things it wants to fix, adjust, and improve in the future.
One of the items on the company’s Xbox One to-do list is to add the capability to take and share screenshots — something the PlayStation 4 already has. Microsoft’s latest console can capture up to five minutes of gameplay video thanks to its always-recording GameDVR feature. In fact, players can just say “Xbox, record that” at any time to create a clip that includes the last 30 seconds of action, but the box has nothing like that for screenshots. These kinds of features are important to gamers who are more socially connected than ever, and it’s also a good way for developers to get word-of-mouth buzz about their software.
In a tweet yesterday, Xbox boss Phil Spencer confirmed that his team is working adding screenshot functionality:
@jmarris09 Yea, this is the list for the monthly updates, team is making great progress on the updates. More features to come.
— Phil Spencer (@XboxP3) May 28, 2014
Spencer didn’t provide a timeline, and we’ve reached out to Microsoft to ask how it expects this feature will work. We’ll update this post with any new information.
This is yet another addition that will bring the Xbox One closer to parity with Sony’s PlayStation 4. Through monthly updates, Microsoft has added real names to its friends list, support for external storage, and gameplay video streaming through Twitch. These are all things that the PS4 had at launch. Of course, the Xbox One has capabilities of its own that Sony’s system either still doesn’t or had to catch up with. That includes editing videos before sharing, which came to the PS4 in a recent update.
Regardless of the minor differences, Microsoft is racing to catch up with its monthly update schedule, and it doesn’t seem like it will leave any feature behind. In the end, this means that gamers will have likely have to judge each console based on the quality of its games. Both companies plan to lay out what their release schedule looks like over the next several months at the upcoming Electronic Entertainment Expo tradeshow starting June 9. We’ll have plenty of coverage, so stick with us.
