Xbox One Receiving Update on February 11th, But What Still Needs Fixing?

Xbox One Receiving Update on February 11th, But What Still Needs Fixing?

Major Nelson dropped some info on his blog that an update is coming to the Xbox One on February 11th.  This update will bring a few features that users have been asking for since launch (many of which were present on the Xbox 360).  The list of announced enhancements include:

  • See and manage storage space – You will finally be able to see how much space you have on your storage device, and manage the data on the drive better.  This update will also include better ways to control how downloads are queued, including splitting Games and Apps into their own lists (and their own download queues).
  • Controller Battery Power indicator – One of the more puzzling omissions was the lack of a battery indicator for your controller. Major Nelson posted a picture of what this new feature will look like, and while this should have been included out of the box, at least it will be there soon.  I do hope this will be visible in some way in-game, without having to break out to the dashboard.

Xbox One Controller Battery

  • USB Keyboard Support – Self explanatory, and not a bad addition, I just hope this wasn’t at the expense of some more pressing missing enhancements.

There are also other items included in the update that haven’t been announced yet.  This got me to thinking:

What still needs fixing?

Let me list 5 things that still need fixing on the Xbox One.  I am not going to mention Parties, as this will supposedly be addressed in a March 4th update (just in time for Titanfall), and there are plenty of other things to focus on:

  1. Snap enhancements: Snap is a nice touch, but there are several enhancements that could make it more useful.  These include independent volume control (there is currently no way to adjust the volume on either the main element or the snapped app), making the snap window adjustable (this functionality exists in Windows 8.1, and has worked very well), and including an indicator that informs you what apps are snappable (As it is, you don’t know something is not snappable until you try to tell the Xbox to snap it, and it ignores you.. and this leads me to..).

    Xbox One Command
    Xbox Watch ESPN. Xbox Select. Xbox. XBOX!
  2. Better feedback for voice commands: The voice commands work very well when they work, but one of the major failings is that the system provides no feedback when it doesn’t recognize what you’re saying.  When I provide a command (using “Xbox” first) to the Xbox that it doesn’t recognize (either because I’m not using the correct voice command, or because I’m asking it to do something it can’t do [such as snap something that can’t be snapped]), it would be very beneficial to receive feedback.  Something as simple as “Command not recognized” or “<Spoken word> can’t be snapped” would go a long way, because I can’t tell if I’m just not speaking loud or clear enough, or if I’m using the wrong command.  While we’re on the wish list, this should be toggleable, so people who don’t want to see the feedback can turn it off.
  3. Make the Xbox respond to “Xbox Turn On”: This one is a no-brainer.  You created a device that uses voice commands, and then you make the two fundamental commands functionally different.  Turning the Xbox on and off should use the same base command.  If I understand correctly, the original command to turn the Xbox off was simply “Xbox Off,” but during testing this command was triggered too frequently, and so it was changed to “Xbox Turn Off.”  However, the “Xbox On” command was never updated, so you now have two different commands.  I’m not suggesting that “Xbox On” be changed, I’m only saying that the Xbox should now listen for both “Xbox On” and “Xbox Turn On.”

    Awesome! Let's put that clip next to the other 429 you recorded in the last hour.
    Awesome! Let’s put that clip next to the other 429 you recorded in the last hour.
  4. Allow me to choose if a game can save an automatic game clip: Let me get out in front here and say that this should be a system toggle for game clip postings (Either Allow, Don’t Allow, or Ask).  That said, if you’ve played Peggle 2, you know what I’m getting at here. There were times where one shot would record THREE clips. This makes what should be a cool feature an annoyance to my friends, and a pain for me to go through in the editor later to find the game clips I actually did want to do something with.  By having a setting of “Ask,” the system would ask me if I want to let the automatic clip save to my system.  With a simple button push or voice command, the system will either save or delete the clip.  If no action is taken, some default action should take place (either default to save, or default to delete).
  5. Twitch Support: Notably absent from either upcoming update notes was any mention of Twitch support.  This feature was one of the things I was looking forward to most, and while I’m sure the folks at Microsoft are working hard to get this right, it’s a little disappointing that we’ll be 4 months into the system’s life with no update on when this feature will be implemented. While I’m on the subject, it’s going to be vital that they get the watching of streams on the Xbox One right.  I may have been spoiled by OnLive here, but I found watching people play games was sometimes as fun as playing them, particularly for games I didn’t own, or for games I really liked that maybe aren’t as popular.  Being able to spectate and cheer people on for doing cool things was a treat on OnLive, and I need for that experience to be seamless on Xbox One.  I should be able to bring up a game, and jump into spectate mode, watching anyone playing the game that allows watchers, and jump from person to person.  There’s a million other things I could say to this, but the bottom line is that “Twitch Support” better be more than just bringing up a Twitch App and loading a video.  It needs to feel like it belongs on Xbox One, and isn’t just a glorified Twitch webpage.

So that’s my list of things I’d like to see fixed.  If you own an Xbox One, what’s the one thing you want fixed the most? If you don’t have an Xbox One, is there something missing that is stopping you from making the purchase that you think should be added?

Source: Major Nelson