The Xbox One November System Update is just a few days away, as is the release of the November Games with Gold free games. While Microsoft hasn’t yet announced details about the former, the company has shed light on what’s included in the Xbox One November System Update.
One of the most-talked about elements of the Xbox One November update will be the addition of custom backgrounds. Yesterday Sony launched PS4 System Update 2.0, a key feature of which was background themes. In the November Xbox One update Microsoft is striking back, adding Custom Backgrounds to the Xbox One dashboard. With the Xbox One custom backgrounds, each account on the Xbox One can have its own customized background, and players will be able to choose a custom color or Achievement art as their background as well.
Xbox One owners will also now be able to tweet about their favorite game clips. Using the Share button on any game clip, you’ll be able to select the option for “Twitter,” compose the Tweet and send it to all your followers.
Twitter is also being integrated into the TV-watching experience on Xbox One through a new “Tweets in MiniGuide” feature. This part of the Xbox One November System update will show the actual tweets for TV shows in real time, with the Twitter #hashtag identified so players can join the conversation right from their console.
Continuing the TV theme, Microsoft is also getting-in on a slew of “Trending” tools. For instance, a new “Live TV Trending” function adds a new tab to the OneGuide displaying the top 20 most-watched TV shows, with the list filtered by the shows that are currently available to you based on your OneGuide settings. (In other words, you won’t have any luck watching HBO if you don’t subscribe to it already.) The new Live TV Trending list will be updated every minute, while the Trending tab in OneGuide will be updated to display Twitter – Live TV trending first and Xbox – Live TV Trending second. You can then tune-in to a specific show by simply pressing the A button.
So about that Twitter – Live TV function. Twitter TV Trending is a new feature included in the Xbox One November System Update that shows Xbox One owners which live TV shows are trending based on shows with the most conversations taking place on Twitter.
That’s slightly different from the new Xbox TV Trending feature, which is based on the number of Xbox One owners currently watching that specific TV show in each country. Microsoft says this data will be pulled anonymously from datasets collected at a national level, not down to individual Xbox One consoles. Big Brother’s still there, of course, but he’s not looking directly at you.
The full list of updates, including SmartGlass additions, Internet Explorer updates and some Xbox Store tweaks, is available here.
