The Xbox One dashboard will not look that dissimilar to the current Xbox 360 offering, reveals Microsoft at the Xbox One reveal.
Yusef Mehdi, Senior Vice President of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business, reveals that although the Xbox One Dashboard looks very similar to the Xbox 360 it will introduce new features, all compatible with voice activation.
The Xbox One is instantly activated with the “Xbox On” command and instantly recognises the user powering the console on.
Immediately the Xbox One dashboard loads and remembers what the user was last doing, whether it is movies, TV, games or internet browsing.
There’s a new “Trending” section that gives users a snapshot of what is popular with the user’s friends and the entire Xbox Live community.
The Xbox One will also introduce “Instant Switching” that lets users immediately change between TV, music, gaming, internet browsing and any other Xbox One content. The Xbox One makes content transitions “now as fast as switching channels on the remote”.
Users can also utilise “Snap Mode” that allows multiple applications to run simultaneously on the screen and interact between them. Users can use their smartphone as a controller, using an updated Xbox Smartglass app. It’s natively part of the platform now, says Xbox’s Marc Whitten.
There are a new set of universal gestures, including grab and pan and swipe up. Users can spread their hands and grab the screen at the corners. Pulling it in will reveal the Xbox One dashboard, but pulling back out will return users to the content, including games, internet and movies.
Skype on Xbox has also been improved and offers group video calls on your TV for the first time, including within the Snap Mode functionality.
Live TV is integral to the Xbox One and introduces a new Xbox One Guide. Users can find, discover and watch TV in three new powerful ways using the Trending, favourites and TV listings tabs within the Guide.
