There's a new update available for the Xbox One that brings a smorgasbord of new features to the third-generation console from Microsoft. The update adds the ability to stream media from USB 2.0 and 3.0 compatible devices as well as some updates to the party options.
The update is actually arriving early, as it was scheduled to go live for Xbox One owners some time throughout September but is instead releasing at the end of August. Better early than late,right?
As noted on Major Nelson's blog, one of the biggest and most surprising things added is the ability to stream media from external devices on the Xbox One. It only took a year but the console is finally able to do what it was originally advertised to be: an all-in-one media hub.
The lack of proper media streaming was easily one of the biggest shocks most early adopters had given that media, streaming and television were some of the biggest bullet points Microsoft had rattled off during the console's reveal on May1st, 2013. Unfortunately reality hit home that it wasn't quite the media hub that it had been advertised as, and users quickly realized that they had to find some rather inconvenient ways around the console's media playback limitations, including workarounds for customize soundtrack playback and the ability to partially stream media from your home network.
Funnily enough, even though the Xbox One was supposedly designed and focused on media playback, a Eurogamer breakdown revealed that the PS3 and PS4 actually did media playback better than the Xbox One.
Well, the Xbox One is finally coming up to par by allowing users to plug-in USB devices stream standard media and rare formats such as Mpeg 2 TS, animated gifs and MKV. Full media-server DLNA support is planned to arrive for the console in a future update, but USB support is a welcome addition.
Microsoft also updated the console's “Xbox On” capabilities to support additional languages and dialects from Australia, Canada (French), Italy, Spain, and Mexico.
Bandwidth usage has also been made available for users to see and monitor, a long overdue feature that lets users see how much the Xbox One is taking up from their network, as well as how long it will take to finish patches while also seeing how much bandwidth the console will use over a period of time. It's a nice little feature for those who like to micromanage how much data they consume a month.
More party features have also been included in the Party App, allowing users to pick and choose who gets invited, as well as whether or not invites are private. Users can also kick people out of the party that they no longer want in the group. The leader options will better help users weed in and weed out the desirables and the undiserables from the group.
You can also check out some of the more updates in the brief video below.
There are some additional updates for SmartGlass, editing and deleting DVR game clips and booting to TV. You can learn more or offer some feedback over on the official Xbox website.
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