We did it for them Transition. We did it for them PlayStation 5. It’s only fair that we do this for Xbox, too. Earlier this month, Sony announced it will clean up the PS5’s little-used Present feature, which allows you to give rewards to others in multiplayer games. This prompted a thought exercise: What other features from popular gaming platforms could be removed without too much fanfare?
The Xbox’s UI is pretty fine-tuned, having been refined over nearly a decade. (The Xbox Series X/S uses the same UI as the Xbox One; it’s universal across console generations.) Still, there’s always room for trimming. Here are the features Microsoft could clean up from the Xbox without making too much noise.
Pin to home page
You can permanently link any game to Xbox: just go to its icon, click the hamburger button and select “add to home”. Maybe there’s a use case I’m overlooking, but the logic behind it has always failed me. If you play a game often enough that you need to permanently pin it to your home screen, it’s probably already on your home screen as one of your most played games. (The top row of the Xbox UI shows your six most recently used apps. It’s also literally where your game library is.)
Game Clubs
Every Xbox game has a Game Club, accessed by looking at the game’s “game card” (in the menu that pops up after tapping the hamburger button) and then going to the “official club” icon. Here you can see information about a particular game, from achievement watchlists to “news” stories (always only available on your own site). favorite gaming news site). In the progress tab, you’ll also find a minute-by-minute account of how much time you’ve spent on this game – good stuff! So Game Hubs are not as a whole useless, arbitrary. The main thing is that they unnecessarily confuse the information you really want, an aspect that becomes all too obvious when you consider how easily it’s available on rival platforms like the PlayStation and Switch.
Skype
We’re in the era of Zoom, but the ubiquitous dream of a five-internet video chat app hasn’t gone anywhere. Yes, Skype A lot on Xbox. My only question here… It’s partly meant to double as a voice chat alternative, I guess, but pretty much every chat option is better, including Microsoft’s, or recently added Discord integration (great for crossplay).
Break reminders
Of course, in the console settings, in the Preferences menu, you can set automatic break reminders in half-hour increments. (These notifications only pop up when you’re playing games, but the clock starts counting the second you turn on the Xbox.) But come on, no one wants their Xbox to act like their parents. And these days, free time is more precious than ever. If you can commit to a few hours of consistent gaming, more power to you.
Events tab
By default, the Xbox home screen includes a row item for Events, which gives you a quick update on whether any live service games are running active events. Currently, details about events are displayed for the My Events tab Marvel’s Avengers, Ark: Survival Evolvedand Fate 2— never played either on Xbox. (My the avengers the account is on PlayStation; I’ve never touched it Ark.) So it’s not always relevant. However, if you’re a regular player of service games, you’ll likely be familiar with what’s going on through official social channels, news sources, or in-game information.
Xbox Assist
Xbox Assist is a built-in encyclopedia of FAQs, tips, and other system-level guides. For example, if you open the Troubleshoot menu, you’ll see a guide explaining how to start the game you’re having trouble loading, complete with an option to check the status of Xbox online services. But you can’t keep these guides open at the same time as the part of Xbox you’re having trouble with, meaning you’ll either have to remember the tip or juggle between the two apps. Plus, we all know one place people turn to for easy answers: Google. All this information is easier to access Xbox Support Page in a web browser.
