The Xbox One is a work in progress, and Microsoft is about to deliver a big chunk of that progress starting tonight.

Microsoft revealed that the promised March update will start going out to Xbox Own owners this evening. This patch includes a number of fixes and improvements to the system’s multiplayer, party-chat features, and much more. As usual, the download will come through over night during off-peak hours as long as you have your Xbox One set to go into standby mode.

After the patch, Microsoft is hoping that players will no longer have much to complain about and can instead focus on Electronic Arts’ sci-fi shooter Titanfall, which is coming in hot on March 11.

We’ve played around with the update for the last few days, and here’s what’s different:

  • Friends list: Microsoft cut down the time it takes for people to get to their friends list. Now, when you click on the social tab or say “Xbox, go to friends,” the Xbox One will immediately bring up a list of your gamer pals.
  • Party chat: Finally, when you go into a party with your comrades, party chat is now on by default. This means you no longer need to coordinate and tell everyone to go into their settings and turn this feature on. This should solve a lot of the headaches people have had with this feature since the box launched in November.
  • Chat with friends in different games: Party chat now also behaves more like it did on the Xbox 360, which means you can speak with players who are playing a different game from you.
  • “Invite friends to game” option: This button will let you quickly invite friends to a party and the game you are currently in.
  • “Recent Players” list: Did you meet your soul mate while playing the Titanfall beta? Now you can go back and friend him and give love a chance.
  • Dolby Digital sound: That optical-out port on the back of your Xbox One now supports full Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound.
  • 50Hz video output: For nations that use the 50Hz refresh rate rather than the U.S. standard of 60Hz. This will solve many of the weird flickering issues.
  • Volume up and down adjustments: You can now specify the number of increments when you adjust the volume.
  • More SmartGlass support: You can get Xbox Live notifications, see what your friends are doing, and see highlight clips on a phone or tablet using SmartGlass now.
  • Xbox One headset and media remote support: The Xbox One is now functional with the new audio and input accessories from Microsoft. Read more about the headsets and remote.
  • Browser improvements: New gesture controls for navigating Internet Explorer as well as the ability to hop to IE after searching for content using the Bing app.
  • IR blasting in all regions: The Xbox One can now turn off your TV and other boxes using the Kinect’s IR blaster in all territories.
  • Easy sound bar setup: You no longer need the model number for your sound bar when setting it up to work with the Xbox One

Microsoft released the following video that walks through many of these new features:

Related articles

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]