Xbox Product Manager Ivy Krislov recently joined Larry Hryb on the official Xbox Podcast to discuss the new Xbox Home experience being tested by Xbox Insiders, and watched Hryb slam the door when the codecs’ user interface returned.
Microsoft introduced a file First iteration of the all-new Xbox Home screen To select Xbox Insiders recently, although it won’t be fully implemented until 2023. To discuss the new “home experience,” Xbox Product Manager Ever Krislov joined Larry Hryb, AKA Major Nelson, at The official Xbox podcast. If you’re not a fan of the current UI being tested, you might be pleased to know that there are a couple more versions that haven’t been tried yet, but it looks like only the bottom of the screen will be changed – and we definitely won’t see the blades back.
Microsoft has two additional Xbox Dashboard skins to test
“No, you can’t get the blades back,” Harib said. “They were beautiful, they were kind, but you can’t take them back because they don’t fit, as we say in business, what we want to do.” Dashboard ‘blades’ were originally shipped with the first Xbox 360s in 2005 and included console menus on separate tabs bordered by a pair of silvery blades, which would make a “snap” sound whenever they flipped through. To this day, this is one of the most distinctive things that made the console great.
The new Home Experience, while uncoded, is designed to give you everything you need on a single screen when you turn on the console, while scrolling down displays various lists of Xbox Game Pass titles and other games for purchase. The idea is to simplify your browsing experience, such as dragging the Store, Settings, and Search pages to the front and center of the dashboard. “We really consider this an evolution of the existing house,” Krislov said. “Taking a lot of things we did well previously and building on them.”
Microsoft’s engineering team laid the groundwork for this update last year, simplifying the feedback processes for Xbox Insiders. “There is something a lot of Xbox fans might not know; normally, it would take us three months to test really small features,” Krislov said. “Hopefully by building this infrastructure we can test things out and get your feedback and iterate and come back to you with something better.”
The current build being tested by Insiders is the first of three planned releases for the dashboard, and the Krislov team doesn’t expect the final version to be ready until “near the end of this calendar year,” so a lot could change at that time depending on feedback – Krislov said : “The feedback we’ve gotten so far from testing has been that the top row blocks the dynamic backgrounds a bit more than some customers want.” “We have a meeting set up for tomorrow (September 17) to consider all these comments.”
When discussing what is displayed when you scroll down the homepage, Krislov notes that “today, most customers have their own default content blocks, such as store, community, game arcade, etc., and then they will have a game or two installed that they really care about. “Other blocks of content like Clubs and Friends are used a lot less, and with most people not using the bottom of the dashboard, Microsoft is looking to make better use of the space.
“People don’t scroll down that much because they’ll just jump right into the games from the top of the homepage, which makes perfect sense,” Krislov said. “We started with building the infrastructure where we can put different gaming channels with organization, customization and personalization in front of the customer. As we go through these tests, we are now in the first phase but we have two more planned, [we’ll be] Adding different types of content, for example, for customers who use their console to watch TV, we will add a media experience – one of the most popular installed groups on the home page is people who install applications that they want to watch TV with. “
The next dashboard test is scheduled to roll out in October to Xbox Insiders, so we’ll see what changes the team implemented next, based on feedback from the Insider Program. We recently wrote about some Cut a fan-made concept from other dashboard variants And I ran a survey to see what you think of the one that Microsoft is currently testing. Of the 1,156 votes we received, 482 (41.7%) of you voted “Put it in the trash”, while 25% of voters think it’s “okay”.
Are you looking forward to watching the project grow through the remainder of this year? Leave a comment below and let us know!
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