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Xbox One Program Updates - E3 2016

A recap of upcoming hardware and software on the Xbox One platform

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Whether you thought that Xbox did or didn’t win the E3 2016 “conference wars”, there was no denying that through a number of player-focused, platform-specific announcements the company has taken some great steps. At the Xbox One platform preview, we got to delve a little deeper into what Microsoft features will soon be rolling out, including a closer look at the new Xbox One S, tournaments, and more.

Xbox Play Anywhere

“Gaming without boundaries” was a phrase used to bring together what we heard about during the E3 2016 briefing. Moreover, playing when and how you want, and finding those people that you want to game with. Part of this is “Play Anywhere” .

Play Anywhere is a pretty simple idea: you purchase a game either on Xbox One or Windows 10 and you can play on either platform. Your gamer tag, achievements, saves, and more will follow you. So far, a number of titles, including Gears of Wars 4, Halo Wars 2 and any other Microsoft Studios exclusive titles will be Play Anywhere enabled. To keep track of everything, there’s the newly launched Xbox app on iOS, Android, and, how could we forget, Windows 10 devices.

Next, the upcoming Anniversary Update will bring a number of top PC titles to Xbox Live ecosystem, including League of Legends and XCOM 2. Games like this will also have hubs in Xbox Live, so you can upload screenshots, videos, and other media. With the update, you can also check out what your PC friends are up to.

Xbox Play Cortana

The Xbox console update in the summer will bring several fan-requested features: a redesigned collection area, Facebook friend finder, and language region independence. For the last feature, this means you can set your region but change your language selection.

Master Chief’s best blue friend Cortana is also heading to Xbox One. It’ll first be available in preview for the US, UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, and France. Cortana will be going live in the US and UK in the summer, but other regions will have to wait a little longer to hear her sultry, robotic tones.

So, how is Cortana actually going to make gaming life easier? For starters, she’ll be more versatile and have better accuracy when compared to the older speech command system. There are also several specific features for the Xbox One. Cortana will work with both a headset and the Kinect. To “trigger” Cortana, just say “Hey Cortana”, and welcome your new robot overlord. You can see what your friend is up to, and she’ll say “xx420gamerxx is playing Call of Duty”. In addition, your friend’s gamer board will pop up, and you can invite them to a party, too.

Xbox Play Clubs

The other three big features were Arena, Clubs, and Looking For Group. Looking for Group functions like a pinup board in your local shop. Each game has its own “board”, and in there you can state what you’re looking for and “tag” it. So, if you wanted certain level players for a raid, want to go achievement hunting, or simply want to find a place where you all share the same gaming ethos/interests, you’ll soon be able to. With the ability to search through numbers of Groups, you can find whatever kind of players you like.

Clubs are pretty much what they sound like. Similar to Looking for Group, they’re gamer created and gamer managed. If you like RPGs, fighting games, want a place that’s just for your friends—whatever—you can send a request to the one in charge of the Club or set it up yourself.

Arena is a sort of global, competitive gaming platform. It’s like a third-party system for tournaments that can work in partnership with a number of organizations like the ESL, and companies like EA. In a game, let’s say Killer Instinct because that what’s we were shown, you can check out its Arena component, find out all the rules and prizes, then click one button to register. Xbox will even remind you that a tournament is coming up on your console and mobile devices.

Xbox One S

Last but not least, the Xbox One S is a sleek-looking, 40% smaller version of the Xbox One in “robot white”. At launch, there will be a 500 GB, 1TB, and a special edition 2TB model. The One S also supports UHD and HDR output, which means that both your old and new games can upscale to 4k, as well as from disk and streaming. Obviously, you’ll need the correct peripherals to notice the difference. And price-wise, it’s $299 USD, which is pretty good value if you haven’t taken the plunge yet.

The Xbox One S controller has also been slightly tweaked. There’s a textured grip on the back, the thumbsticks are reinforced, and there’s native Bluetooth support if you fancy connecting the controller to your PC with even greater ease. Speaking of controllers, if you wanted to drop some cash on engraving xx420gamerxx, as well as customize a bunch of other stuff, you can now do that with Xbox Design Lab. However for now, it’s only available in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico.

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