New Features for Xbox One Make It More of a Social Machine and Not a Gaming One

Exterminator

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Oct 23, 2012
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Microsoft revealed some of the new features that are going to be made available for the Xbox One Preview and Xbox Beta.

Microsoft insists on saying that people want a more social experience for their Xbox One, and since they are saying it, then it must be true. The recently changes made to Xbox One have been geared with this in mind, and the company is looking at Xbox One more as a social machine and not a gaming one. That’s probably the reason many of the new “features” are designed to make Xbox One more friendly for users who want a social experience.

The new features don’t seem to have in common with gaming, although there are a few related to avatars and achievements. There are a lot more for interacting with friends or “Improvements to Trending,” which sounds a lot like something done by Facebook. Since not all users are alike, we can surmise that some people must really like this stuff, or it wouldn't be such a big deal for Microsoft.
New feature coming to Xbox One
“Rolling out to the Xbox One Preview audience starting today, and to Windows 10 PC & mobile Xbox Beta app members next week, are a host of updates. This month, we’re focused on continuing to improve social features to help you stay connected to the Xbox Live community across console and PC, while bringing these experiences closer together,” the announcement reveals.

Mike Ybarra, Director Of Program Management For Xbox, explained that the users of Xbox One Preview will be able to see who’s in a party before joining (one of the few interesting features), the Achievements section now shows comparison with your friends, the Pins on Home on now accessible and easier to arrange, the Activity Feed has been refined, and a few other smaller features have been added.

Also, a new “Avatar Store” has been added, Xbox News hub has been implemented, and the Xbox App (for messaging) is now a little bit more compact.

All of this is now in testing, but there is no information of when it might land for everyone.
 

DracusNarcrym

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Oct 16, 2015
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Maybe Microsoft should act more reserved towards the implementation of such features, and follow the example of the leading game distribution service: Steam.

While Steam was marked with the addition of social features (profiles were revamped, groups make more intuitive, etc), they were implemented with the intention of facilitating a more expanded gaming experience, enhanced with social features, but not overwhelmed. In other words, the gaming aspect of the whole experience always remained the priority and the main target, and not the social one.

Although Xbox One is a console, and Steam is directly intended for PC gaming, they have both reached the point where they are to be considered services, an umbrella term which is largely platform-independent - and this is why I chose to compare them.

So, in the end, Xbox One, as a service, should be inspired from, and attempt to assume and build upon the already existing features and concepts of more mature gaming platforms, such as Steam, when it comes to such matters of experimentation (which surely are a subject of debate).
 

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