External storage and real names for friends confirmed for next Xbox One update

SmartGlass experience and automatic sign-in planned as well

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Xbox One owners rejoice! There are a number of changes coming with the next system update in June, including external storage support (which nearly everyone has been clamoring for) as well as real names with which you can identify your online friends. It appears that these features have been implemented thanks to the feedback of the many dedicated Xbox One owners out there clamoring for more space, and this is indeed a move in the right direction.

Starting with the June update, the Xbox One will be able to support up to two external hard drives at once, and will allow you to copy and move games, apps, and add-ons as you please. This way, you’ll be able to game at a friend’s house, sign into your Xbox Live profile to verify ownership, and start playing immediately without re-downloading your game and associated content. There’ll be a step to copy full games as well as their DLC as well to make things a little easier.

Also, to make figuring out who’s who easier, the real names feature will allow you to sort friends on your friend list by their given name rather than gamertag. You can share your name with all friends, a selection of those you’ve added, or none at all. It’s not a mandatory change you’re required to adopt, much like the road the PS4 has taken, and you can change these settings at any time. And once you’ve got everything all set up, you can finally choose to set up one gamertag for automatic sign-in.

Additionally, there’s a new hub that will collect all of the Games with Gold and Deals with Gold features in one area, to coincide with the update that will allow members to access apps without a Gold membership. That’s music to my ears.

For the SmartGlass and TV fans out there, the OneGuide experience and Universal Remote Control are coming to SmartGlass. You can check out TV listings, favorite channels, and more via your favorite mobile device, as well as what your friends are watching and what they’re doing on their device at any given time.TV and OneGuide features will become available in June to those in Canada, UK, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy this June as well.

So, Xbox One users, there’s a bevy of some useful updates coming this summer. Some members currently previewing Xbox One system updates will be seeing these features passing through soon, but all Xbox One owners will have access to them in June. Make sure to let Microsoft know what you think when they finally roll out, because it looks like they’re actually going to try to listen for once.


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