Look for it this fall after the current round of Insider testing
Ever get the feeling that the Xbox One dashboard is constantly in flux?
That’s not a complaint, mind you, it’s just interesting to think about how often Microsoft is willing to tweak the console’s home screen compared to the way Sony and Nintendo have handled updating PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch, respectively. I’m never quite sure what I’m going to see when I boot up my Xbox One. Sometimes, the changes are a genuine refinement. Other times, I’m less sure.
The next dashboard design update – launching this week for some Xbox Insiders and later this fall for everyone else – looks like a worthwhile step forward. It’s leaning in the right direction, at least for me. There’s more immediate access to your current rotation of games, with less fluff getting in the way.
“The goal is to let you jump into Xbox Game Pass, Mixer, Xbox Community, and Microsoft Store quicker than ever,” according to Microsoft. “We’ve also shifted things around to make more room for your recently played titles.” The latter point is hands down my priority, now and forever.
I’m not sure how many of you this will affect day-to-day, but there’s also an incoming change to voice commands. Xbox One is “moving away from on-console experiences to cloud-based assistant experiences,” meaning you won’t be able to use Cortana on Xbox One via a headset anymore. Instead, that functionality will continue to exist by way of the Cortana app for iOS, Android, and Windows.
What do you think of the new look? Is it fine as is, or is there still more work to be done? On that note, I’m super curious to see how the Project Scarlett and PlayStation 5 dashboards turn out.
