Xbox One February 2015 System Update Enhances Gaming and Television Experiences

Microsoft have announced the details of what’s included in the Xbox One System Update for February 2015. While there is no screenshots yet (they’re coming very soon!), there is some nifty new features like “Game hubs” and the option to use transparent tiles on your ‘Home’ screen. The update also enhances many of the TV experiences by bringing new features like ‘Trending’ on OneGuide is more markets and TV Tuner improvements. We’ll have a review up for the TV Tuner very soon!

The February 2015 System Update is now rolling out to Xbox One owners in the Preview Program. Details of this update include:

• Game hubs – Every Xbox One game, released and in the future will have a game hub where you can see which of your friends are playing the game, compete with your friends in game leaderboards, watch game clips and game broadcasts, and follow the game’s VIPs and top players.
  To get to the game hub for your favourite game, find a game in your pins, recently played list, or My games and apps, then press the ‘Menu’ button and select ‘View game hub’. You can also search for any game in the Xbox Store and click on the game hub tile from the game’s store page
• Custom backgrounds and tile transparency – You can now add tile transparency to the Home tiles to make your background images more visible. Microsoft have said some items can’t be made transparent due to usage rights/restrictions for certain images.
• TV updates – Updates to the live TV experience and features which are being released to additional countries in preview this month:
• OneGuide for the Netherlands – Support for OneGuide will continue in preview for the Netherlands and the missing channels for the Netherlands OneGuide listings will become available over the next few weeks.
• TV trending in OneGuide – As you scan the detailed OneGuide TV listings, you can see which shows are trending by a “Trending on Xbox” note and associated icon. Xbox – live TV trending is based on the number of Xbox One owners currently watching that show in each country, pulled from anonymous data collected at a national level. Currently, Xbox TV trending is available to all members in the U.S., UK and Canada.
• Live TV trending (new countries) – France, Germany, Brazil and Mexico will begin seeing live TV trending data in Xbox OneGuide.
• Improved control of TVs, set-top boxes and audio/video receivers – Xbox One will work even better with more devices. This month’s preview release contains updates to the IR blasting database for new models and addresses issues reported by our fan community.
• Trick play” with Xbox One Digital TV Tuner – Preview members with the Xbox One Digital TV Tuner in supported countries (UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain) will now be able to see video frames when fast-forwarding or rewinding paused TV on your Xbox One consoles.
• Live TV streaming on Windows Phone and Android – The preview of live TV streaming on Windows Phone and Android devices for Xbox One Digital TV Tuner owners in the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain is continuing for into February.

Watch the video below to see the new features in action!