DLNA Support, Social Features and More Headed to Xbox One Soon

Written by Brandon Hofer on August 12, 2014

News: Microsoft reveals new features on Major Nelson’s blog ahead of their Gamescom press conference that will be headed soon to Xbox One.

Microsoft has just revealed some new features about Xbox One ahead of their Gamescom press conference. Beginning later this month for preview program members, new social media are making it easier for you to connect with your friends and new ways to access your TV and entertainment in your home. These new updates will include:

New “friends” section - the new Friends section has been available for a few early access Preview members and we’re expanding it to everyone enrolled in the Preview program. The new Friends section enables users to see at a glance what’s going on with their friends. They can stay up-to-date with their current activities, the most popular games their friends are playing, and a Gamerscore leaderboard to see who has improved their Gamerscore over the last 30 days.

Country Expansion - The Xbox One will be launching in 29 new markets in the coming weeks.

Snap Center - Some of gamers’ favorite features in the Xbox 360 guide, are coming to Xbox One in a way that’s now truly be side-by-side with games. Messages, friends, parties, and achievements will all be available in the new Snap Center, providing a seamless way to switch back and forth without having to leave a game.

Live TV mini guide - For markets where OneGuide is available, a new mini guide on the bottom of the screen will display details about the TV content that is currently playing. Users can quickly change channels and see what’s on other channels, while still watching TV.

Threaded Messages - Keeping gamers in their games while they multitask has been a huge focus. The new Messages app features threaded messages with the full conversation history – including embedded links to Game DVR clips – that can be viewed without interrupting gameplay.

Boot to TV - Now Xbox One owners will be able to set their console to boot directly to television when coming out of connected standby.

Media Player - A new app will be available soon that enables users to play media files from either an attached USB device or from a network connected home media server that supports DLNA protocols. The preview version of the Media Player app will initially only support USB devices, with DLNA support coming soon. Xbox One will support more formats than Xbox 360, including support for dozens of new file formats like mpeg 2 TS, animated gifs and mkv which will be added by the end of the year. See below for additional file formats.

Stream TV to SmartGlass - Launching first in markets receiving the Xbox Digital TV Tuner, Xbox One owners will be able to stream their TV across their home network to their smartphones and tablets using the Xbox SmartGlass app. They can also pause, play and rewind as well as change channels, without interrupting gameplay on the Xbox One. This will work for SmartGlass apps on Windows, iOS, and Android.

Xbox One Digital TV Tuner - announced last week, this new accessory will enter a limited preview program in Europe (UK, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain), in advance of its retail launch beginning in October.

When DLNA support arrives on Xbox One it will support the following formats:

3gp audio

3gp video

3gp2

aac

adts

animated gif

asf

avi divx

avi dv

avi uncompressed

avi xvid

bmp

jpg

gif

h264 avchd

mjpeg

mkv

mov

mp3

mpeg 1 ps

mpeg 2

mpeg 2 hd

mpeg 2 ts

mpeg 4 h264 aac

mpeg 4 sp

png

tiff

wav

wma

wma lossless

wma pro

wma voice

wmv

wmv hd

What do you think about this announcement ahead of Microsoft’s Gamescom press conference? Let us know what you think below.

source: Major Nelson