Xbox One begins testing mini game hubs & Do Not Disturb mode

A new Preview Alpha build (1802.180105-1503) is now available for Xbox Insiders. This latest build adds several improvements to the Xbox One’s Guide (i.e. the pop-out menu) relating to Achievements and Game Hubs and also introduces the Do Not Disturb option which was used on the Xbox 360 but hadn’t been integrated into the Xbox One generation of consoles yet. This new option essentially disables notifications while turned on.

Other changes include improvements to the Community feed, inactivity shutdown, and a new avatar option in addition to a variety of bug fixes. Here’s the official release notes.

NEW FEATURES:

We’re excited to return in 2018 with new features that impact the way you access your games and Achievements, how you let your friends know whether you’re able to play, and much more. Over the next several weeks, Xbox Insiders will begin to see a variety of cool new features they can interact with and provide feedback on. Here’s a look forward at some of the excitement still to come:

Starting today at 6 p.m. PST, Xbox Insiders enrolled in the Alpha ring will receive the latest Xbox One system update (1802.180105-1503). With this update, you’ll be able to use the “Next Achievements” feature in the Guide, which enables you to view and sort a cross-games list of upcoming Achievements. Easily see which Achievements you are closest to, and quickly launch the game to obtain them. Sort filters allow you to prioritize next Achievements by closest, most common, rarest, most common rare, and highest Gamerscore.

Mini Game Hubs will soon be available right in the Guide. With this feature, you’ll be able to access great content for the games you’ve played recently from a Game Hub without ever having to leave the action. Mini Game Hubs provide an easy way to see friends who are currently playing, upcoming Achievements, Looking for Group posts, and more.

Sometimes all you want to do is avoid all distractions and focus entirely on your game. We’ll be including a “Do not disturb” online status, which will suppress notifications and let your friends know that you’re not available for another game or activity right now.

We’re tweaking the community feed to make it easier to view comments. You’ll soon be able to see a peek of the most recent comment on community posts, with comments rearranged to place those that are most recent at the top. You’ll also be able to see who has liked your comments.

To address user feedback, we’re adding additional inactivity shutdown options to the Power mode & startup menu. In addition to shutting down the console after one or six hours of inactivity, you will be able to select options for two, three, four and five hours.

Alongside the updates listed above, which will work their way naturally through the Xbox One Preview Update rings, a subset of users may also see additional experimental features. These features are only enabled for a portion of the Xbox Insider audience to gauge interest and collect feedback. Your participation in the Xbox Insider Program helps us make the work-in-progress content and features coming to Xbox even better

FIXES:

Narrator

Narrator can read large amounts of text.

KNOWN ISSUES: 

Guide/Home crashing   

We are aware of the Guide and Home crashing and determined the root cause.  A fix is being worked on.

Workaround: In the interim please HARD Reboot (Hold the power button for ten seconds)the console to fix this issue.

Games Installation

Some users are encountering where some games that are installed are failing to launch.

Workaround : If the games are installed to an external drive please copy the game to the internal drive or attempt to delete the title and redownload to fix the launch error.

Display   

We are investigating the inaccurate RGB colors that have been reported when displaying in 4K HDR mode when playing a UHD disc.

Tournaments

The left and right navigation for selecting date and time during Tournament creation is currently reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.

Left and right navigation in Tournament twists is reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew.

Left and right navigation in the bracket view of Tournaments is reversed when the console language is set to Arabic or Hebrew

Avatars on Home

Users wishing to represent themselves as an avatar can do so by changing their settings under My profile > Customize profile > Show my avatar.

Are you an Xbox Insider? Let us know if you’re enjoying these new features in the comments below.