Are you ready for the new Xbox One Experience? Its release is only days away, and to tease the new software package, Microsoft’s Larry Hyrb—better known as Major Nelson—published a pair of videos on Friday that show it in action.
The first video shows the new Avatars app for Xbox One, which heralds the return of the popular Xbox 360 avatars. Xbox One avatar highlights include better antialiasing, shading, and lighting than their Xbox 360 counterparts, according to Microsoft.
The new interface is similar to the avatars tool in the Xbox app on Windows 10—another sign of Microsoft’s efforts to unify user experience across devices. The new Xbox One Experience uses avatars throughout the interface—in your activity feed, on user profiles, and so on.
Meet the new OneGuide
The second teaser walks us through the redesigned OneGuide. One of the design goals, according to the video, was “to give you much faster access to the content that you already own.” With the new OneGuide, your apps, favorited “app channels” (which let you quickly view new content from your favorite video apps), and channel lists are front and center so you don’t need to jump from place to place to find what you’re looking for.
Other new features include picture-in-picture, faster TV listings, and live Sling TV listings.
Mark your calendars for November 12
Microsoft plans to release the new Xbox One Experience to the general public on Thursday, November 12th. Microsoft released a beta to testers last month, and our Mark Hachman got to take a look at the new software then: He noted that it worked well by and large, though he noticed that it ran a little slower at times. We expect the final release to be faster and more polished than the beta, but we’ll find out for sure in a few days. In the meantime, you can take a look at Mark’s slideshow to get a better feel for what the new Xbox One Experience will have to offer.