On the latest Major Nelson Podcast, Mike Ybarra the superstar and Director of Platform Engineering over at Xbox gave us some interesting tidbits about the upcoming new Windows 10 based Xbox One Dashboard. The new update will be rolled out to a select few ‘highly active’ Preview members who gave the most feedback in the program.
Here’s the summary:
- Announcing backwards compatibility at E3 was an “amazing moment for the fans and for the team.”
- The Xbox Platform team is responsible for everything outside of the games. The System software, the monthly features, the services, the preview program and more.
- There’s a “Lot of Change” coming with the new Xbox One experience, so Microsoft wants to be more mindful and more respectful of the fans and of what they expect from them in the preview program.
- While only a select few will get in the preview program for the new Xbox One experience at the beginning, the team want to grow it overtime “as big as they can.” The preview program is designed to help the team engineering products, so they’ll let in as many people they need to make the product great when it releases to everybody.
- The reason why it won’t be released to everyone is because at the beginning some features simply won’t work. Ybarra has been testing it for four months, and four months ago, no one wanted to test it, because it was so early in development.
- The single thing the team has been most focused on is making the UI “super fast and responsive.
- The version of Windows 10 that is going to be included on the Xbox One is actually a “highly customized” version of the OS. It’s called “One Core.” It was built specifically around the features needed by those who use the Xbox One.
- The team has spreadsheets with comparison data on how long it takes to execute tasks on Xbox 360, on Xbox One today and with the new Xbox One experience. With some features, it’s 50% faster and easier to get things going.
- The new Xbox One experience is also very different for developers, that will be able to directly communicate with users announcing patches, calling votes on features and so forth.
- The team is working on a range of new accessibility features to make sure that the broadest audience possible can engage with the console.
- The usage of the Xbox One app on Windows 10 is high, and the team is getting a lot of feedback. They’re thinking about starting a preview program for that as well.
- According to Ybarra, the fans have done an “Incredible job” in guiding the team towards what they want, so concluded by thanking all of those who helped.
The new Xbox One Dashboard update will hit in November and a select few Xbox Preview members will get to test the new update this month.
Thanks Dualshockers
