Microsoft has announced that its Xbox One console will finally get a media player in a forthcoming update.
It seemed like a fundamental oversight when both the PS4 and the Xbox One shipped without the means to play your media files on them - either by physically hooking up a storage device over USB or through streaming over a network.
Now the latter of those current-gen consoles is getting this basic functionality belatedly added.
Just ahead of its Gamescom 2014 briefing, Microsoft announced that it would be adding a proper Media Player app to the Xbox One soon.
This new media player will enable users to play media files through the Xbox One console from an attached USB device. It will also enable you to stream your media files locally over your Wi-Fi network using DLNA. You know, like you could do on your Xbox 360 years ago.
One point that appears to go beyond what your Xbox 360 could do concerns supported formats. As Major Nelson notes in his blog post, "Xbox One will support more formats than Xbox 360, including support for dozens of new file formats like mpeg 2 TS, animated gifs and mkv which will be added by the end of the year."
The supplied list amounts to 34 supported media formats in all.
No specific launch date was named for this update, other than the fact that the Media Player app and the various other Xbox One updates would be "rolling out in general availability to Xbox One owners at different stages in the coming months."
The aforementioned USB media support will apparently be available in the initial preview version of the Media Player app, with DLNA support added at a later date.
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