Xbox February Update goes live today

This month’s Xbox update is now live. The centerpiece of the February update is the suite of sustainability features now available for the mainstream of Xbox consoles.

Among these features are carbon aware game downloads and updates. Also, all Xbox consoles are now set to Shutdown mode by default. Shutdown mode cuts energy use by up to 20 times the amount compared to Sleep power mode. Of course, users can manually set to whatever power options suits their needs at any time. These features were previously rolled out to members of the Xbox Insiders Program.

Below are some of the other changes coming with the Xbox February Update.

Hide game art when selecting tiles on Home

This option does pretty much what it states: it hides game art when navigating away from the Home screen. This means game art will no longer replace the Home background when a game tile is selected, making navigation less distracting.

Users can set this by going to Settings > General >  Personalization > My background > Solid color and game art. Toggle the use game art button on the bottom right of the screen.

Use Google Home to turn your phone into a touch remote for your Xbox

Interestingly, Xbox has partnered with Google to enable users of the Google Home app to add their Xbox console. This allows users with Google Home on their smart phone to use the touch screen as a remote control to turn the Xbox on or off, navigate on-screen, control media playback, record game clips and more.

Experimental party features

Random users will be able to try out some experimental features that should make it easier to jump back into a party with friends. To get started go to the “Parties & Chat” tab in the Xbox Guide. Then click “Party History” to see a list of previous parties.

Wrap up

It’s nice to see the Xbox team keeps finding cool new features and ideas to implement to make the Xbox OS better. What are your thoughts on this month’s Xbox update? Feel free to share them down in the comments.