As a console at heart, the Xbox One truly does flair in the sense that it can do things that were once unimaginable. Responding almost instantly to your voice, changing your characters stance in-game as you change yours in-real-life. From one screen to the next.
Many people still feel that the Xbox One doesn’t feel as next-gen as it should do – for the most part, they are right. Microsoft took a brave decision to slowly incorporate all the cool stuff over a number of years, rather than rushing ahead with everything at once.
All that is about to change – with E3 just around the corner, and Windows 10 being anticipated for an end-June/July release, there’s a lot to come for the Xbox Community. As I myself am an Xbox Preview user and Xbox Ambassador, I can assure you the world of Xbox is just about to get that little bit more interesting.
Do you want to have your Xbox display on your phone? How about your tablet? Even better, how about every computer in your household? Imagine the fun, having your friends around, and rather than having to move your screen so everyone can see, just let them connect and cast your screen to their devices. That’s one of the neat features that is currently in testing apart from just streaming to a computer.
But that’s not all – oh boy, there’s much more to come, a lot of which even us testers and Ambassadors aren’t aware of, although we can have a pretty good guess. In fact, here’s a quick run-down of what figures within the Xbox Community are expecting after seeing small snippets of information:
• Cast functionality (as detailed above)
• Play music in the background
• Windows 10 Dashboard
• Stream games to your PC
• Cross-platform Multiplayer (PC to Xbox, Xbox to PC)
• Cloud-processing
That’s just a little taster of what to expect given the details so far.
Let’s go a little more in-depth into what each of these could mean.
Play Music in the Background
This is a long-time requested feature, racking up about 20,000 votes on the Xbox Feedback website. Being able to play your music from the Xbox Music App or the Media Player was a feature built-in to Xbox 360 from the start… but not-so with the Xbox One. All we can say is, it’s coming!
Windows 10 Dashboard
Boom! Fed up of the so-called Windows 8 look? Many of you are. With the launch of Windows 10 not too far away now, it is expected that a console update will be released that will incorporate the new-look of Windows 10 into the Xbox, as well as some nifty little features that it brings with it.
Stream Games to your PC
So, this is actually officially confirmed. With the Xbox App in Windows 10, you’ll be able to stream your gameplay straight to your PC, and even play the game from your PC! No-more being limited to the confinements of a controller: the controller meets the mouse and keyboard.
Cross-Platform Multiplayer
Yet another officially confirmed feature. It’s one that has been asked many times over the years in the console-gaming industry, but as yet was never really implemented. Until now. Windows 10 will allow PC gamers and Xbox gamers to unite – the first game to support this will be Fable Legends. Play with PC and Xbox gamers, together.
Cloud-Processing
A console is limited in processing power – and at some point, that limit will be reached, and, if you had a PC, you would upgrade your components. Unfortunately, you can’t legitimately do that with an Xbox One. However, Microsoft has something much better up their sleeves: moving the processing power off of the console and into the cloud. Imagine the possibilities. No longer being limited to what the console can deliver, only to what components can be placed into a server. It’s on the way.
Have you seen something else that you’re pretty excited about? Or thought of the next-best thing? Discuss in the comments below.
Jack W was a community contributor to ICXM, writing 2 articles in 2015 covering Windows and PC, and Xbox news. ICXM operated as an independent Xbox and Windows gaming outlet through the Xbox One’s first full year of post-launch coverage, including the early days of Backwards Compatibility and Windows 10 gaming, drawing from a rotating bench of editorial volunteers. They post on X as @TheJackah.