Xbox, keep trying: the partial redemption of Xbox One’s interface

March 9th, 2014, 20:13 Posted By: wraggster

The latest Xbox One update shows signs of improvement – but it’s still not the interface it should be.

In December, with Xbox One freshly released, we delivered our verdict on the interface. It was not an encouraging one. Rushed to market, woefully designed and lacking feature parity not only in relation to PS4 but the Xbox 360, it remains one of the most curious oversights of this new generation: it is possible to see how Microsoft convinced itself that always-online and a TV focus was the best approach for its console, but there are no spreadsheets in the world that would suggest that throwing away a category-leading multiplayer system is the key to success.Three months later and, as we speculated, ahead of the expected arrival of new players courtesy of Titanfall, Microsoft has issued the first two updates to the console’s frontend. They address some of the more obvious flaws: the woefully under-featured party system, the inability to discover which of your friends is online and the absence of a way to manage the too-quickly filled storage space (In Microsoft’s defence, this is at least a sign of the console’s considerable games lineup; for all Sony’s success in positioning itself as “for the players” it hasn’t delivered the software that Microsoft has).The result is an undoubted improvement. The party system is now more or less the same as it was on Xbox 360 and it’s easier to find and play with your friends. UK users can actually use the TV features thanks to the addition of a 50Hz output option, and they can disable the Kinect gestures that have blighted the experience for those in the US.

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