Xbox One August update enhances sharing features

By Will Fulton August 18, 2014

xbox one august update enhances sharing features — Image used with permission by copyright holder

As promised, the August system update for Xbox One, which starts rolling out today, will overhaul your activity feed and provide a host of new features that make creating and sharing your gaming videos easier than ever. These central features come in addition to a variety of minor tweaks and upgrades based on fan contributions to Xbox Feedback.

The Activity Feed is becoming much more like your Facebook news feed as a single, scrolling column to which you can post text and videos. You can now also “like” and comment upon friends’ posted content, and will received notifications when they do the same to yours. There will also now be a section for trending videos to see the most popular content in the community. Rather than sharing with the world, you can also now send videos directly to particular friends from Upload Studio. When perusing the list of your offline friends, you will now be able to see what they were doing when last online. All of those features are also available remotely through SmartGlass.

One of the most requested features to be added is the ability to purchase games remotely through the SmartGlass app and set them to download and update automatically while you are away from home, rather than waiting until your return. Other new features include a low battery notification for when your controller is nearing the end of its life, the ability to disable notifications during videos, and enabling 3D Blu-ray movies.

Check out the full list of features coming in the update on the Xbox Wire.

Topics

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Will Fulton is a New York-based writer and theater-maker. In 2011 he co-founded mythic theater company AntiMatter Collective…

Gaming

Best Buy Memorial Day sale: Save $50 on the Xbox Series X

A black Xbox Series X and controller against a black background.

We don’t see many Xbox Series X deals, so it’s great to see $50 off the Microsoft Xbox Series X at Best Buy at the moment. It normally costs $500, but right now you can buy it for $450, a small but useful price cut for anyone considering buying a new console. Pair it up with one of the best Xbox Game Pass deals and you can’t go wrong. If you’re keen to find out more about the console, keep reading and we’ll explain all.

Why you should buy the Microsoft Xbox Series X
Considered to be one of the best gaming consoles for Microsoft fans, the Microsoft Xbox Series X may have divisive looks but it’s supremely powerful with a wealth of games. The console provides 12 teraflops of power with support for DirectX ray tracing, 4K gaming, and even has a custom 1TB SSD for storage so it doesn’t skip a beat anywhere. It has lightning-fast load times with gameplay of up to 120 FPS ensuring everything looks fantastic. Arguably its best feature though is Quick Resume. That means you can easily leave where you left things even after turning the console off. It’s hugely useful and it’s quick too so your console is always ready for you to return.

Gaming

Will Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 be on Xbox Game Pass?

Key art for Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War season 2.

Activision Blizzard, which is now owned by Microsoft, has just confirmed that the next Call of Duty game is titled Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. There's been one major point of contention ahead of this year's Call of Duty: Will it be on Xbox Game Pass at launch? A new report from The Wall Street Journal suggests that is the case.

Historically, Microsoft has added all its first-party games from Xbox Game Studios and Bethesda to Game Pass the day they launched. That applies to big AAA releases like Starfield, as well as more experimental titles like 2022's Pentiment and Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2, which came out this week. Microsoft's public messaging thus far has teased that Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 will come to the Xbox Game Pass. That said, Microsoft has not officially confirmed it, so there have been conflicting reports on this actually being the case.

Gaming

The Xbox Series X is $50 off today, at a surprising retailer

Xbox Series X on a table.

Dell, a steady source of laptop deals and desktop computer deals, is also surprisingly offering gamers a $50 discount on the Microsoft Xbox Series X. From the video game console's original price of $500, it's down to only $450, but we're not sure for how long. You won't always get the chance to buy the machine for cheaper than usual, so hurry up and complete your purchase if you don't want to miss out on this bargain.

Why you should buy the Microsoft Xbox Series X
The Microsoft Xbox Series X is a powerful video game console, with 12 teraflops of processing power and built-in storage of 1TB. It comes with the Xbox Wireless Controller, which features a textured grip and an ergonomic design to keep you comfortable while you play. Our Xbox Series X versus Xbox Series S comparison tags the Xbox Series X as the model that you should buy because it comes with double the built-in storage, a 4K UHD Blu-ray player while the Xbox Series S is discless, and up to 8K gaming.