The Xbox One Gets Microsoft’s Beam Streaming And A Faster Interface Today

Microsoft is rolling out some big changes to the Xbox One today. The biggest additions are the new dashboard and Xbox Guide and the integration of Microsoft’s new Beam streaming service.

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The new dashboard was shown off back in January and finally overhauls the user interface to be faster and easier to use. One of the biggest problems with the old dashboard was laggy performance and complicated, buried controls — something Microsoft is addressing by putting games and apps front and center. Other changes include the new Xbox Guide, which appears as a quick panel by pressing the Xbox button on the controller to easily access friends, messages, achievements, and more.

Like the new interface, Beam has also been available for Xbox Insider beta testers for a while, but it’s rolling out to all users today. Like Twitch, Beam makes it possible for players to stream games from their consoles, but without requiring any extra hardware. Users will also be able to watch other players’ streams and chat with viewers.

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Along with the new interface and streaming, Microsoft is also adding some new accessibility options, including a new Copilot feature that allows players to use two controllers to cooperatively play together.

Source: The Verge