Microsoft has revealed what's coming as part of the Xbox One June Update, including external storage support and real names for identifying your friends. The company's Major Nelson explained that these were "two of your most-requested features", though didn't quite pin down when exactly we'd see them arrive. When external storage support arrives, you Xbox One will be able to support up to two external hard drives at once. Any hard drive with a USB 3.0 connection and over 256 GB of space will be formatted in order to allow you to move games, apps and add-ons to solve issues many have had with space on your console. This also means you'll be able to take content to a friend's house and play a game directly from a hard drive, though you will be required to log in to Xbox Live if you purchased the content digitally, or insert a disc of you have a physical copy to verify ownership. On the plus side, you won't need to patch and re-download DLC. Tools to copy full games and all their associated DLC to and from hard drives will be available from June. The real names feature will come with a large amount of flexibility, so you can choose whether to show it to all friends, a subset you create, friends of friends, or no one. Regardless, your real name won't show up in games, so don't panic about pesky trolls hunting you down on social media. Other features confirmed for the patch include new SmartGlass features, such as OneGuide and Universal Remote Control, along with the ability to select an account for automatic sign-in. The OneGuide will also come to Europe and Canada for the first time, along with expanded TV options. Also, all the benefits we learnt about last week, including apps moving to the free side of the Xbox Live Gold paywall, will come into effect. http://youtu.be/rITT7GaTtP0 Spoiler Easily Increase Games Capacity with External Storage Support: It couldn't be easier to increase your storage capacity of games and apps with the external storage support features we're bringing in June. Your Xbox One system will soon support up to two external hard drives at once. Simply plug in your 256 GB or larger USB 3.0 external hard drive and once formatted, copy and move games, apps and game add-ons to increase your storage capacity at home. This is also a great way to take your content to a friend's house and get straight into a game directly from an external drive. You'll need to sign in to Xbox Live if you've purchased your content digitally or insert a disc to verify your game ownership when you take your content on the road. The great benefit here is there's no need to wait to re-download your game and all the DLC. With external storage support in June, you can also choose to copy full games and all of the associated content in one easy step. Real Names Makes it Easier to Identify Friends: With Xbox One you can have 1,000 friends and infinite followers, but as these lists grow it can become increasingly more difficult to remember the people you know by their gamertag alone. Now with real names feature you can recognize people on your friends list and more easily discover people you already know who are on Xbox Live. Most importantly, we heard your feedback that to make this most useful you need full control. You'll be able to share with all your friends, a subset of your choosing, friends of friends or none at all. The choice is yours. Also, your name doesn't show up in games, and you can change your settings any time from your profile and when adding new friends. SmartGlass Provides Access to full OneGuide and Universal Remote Control, Pin Reordering and More: We've made a ton of changes to your SmartGlass app for Xbox One. After getting great feedback from our SmartGlass beta, we're thrilled to be bringing the entire OneGuide experience and Universal Remote Control to SmartGlass. Now in supported markets you can view all of your TV listings on your SmartGlass device and set and view your favorite channels and app channels on your smart phone, tablet or PC. With the Universal Remote Control, you can also easily switch channels, set new recordings and select and control recorded content from your DVR. Another great companion feature now in SmartGlass is pin reordering. With the touch of your finger you can easily organize your pins in categories or favorites based on your preferences and have those changes refresh to your console. Other improvements to SmartGlass will help you stay current on what you and your friends are up to, even when you're away from your console. We're bringing hero stats and activity feed front and center, and adding more ways for you to compare achievements via SmartGlass whether you're on a friend's profile or viewing a game from the activity feed. Just like on the console, you can choose to get notifications on your smart phone, PC or tablet when a favorite friend signs into their console or starts broadcasting a game. For many devices, you can even choose to start watching the broadcast wherever you are. Expanded TV and OneGuide Soon Available in More Markets: The TV and OneGuide features we began sharing with select Xbox Live members in April will be available in June to everyone in Canada, UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy. The update will bring OneGuide, alongside Favorites and App Channels, for people in these markets who have their TV connected to Xbox One via HDMI-in. Additional features in these markets include Kinect voice commands for controlling your set-top box and other AV equipment. We've also updated TV and OneGuide settings to provide better power management and control of your devices and improved compatibility with more devices Source: IGN & CVG
