How do you feel about the Xbox 2017 fall update?

[Jez Corden]

The Xbox 2017 fall update is here, bringing tons of new features.

Now that it's out to the public, what do you think? Improvement or downgrade?

I'll forward the feedback to Microsoft too. )

 

[ryanlrobinson]

I do not like the new quick menu. The main thing I always want to do quickly is get to my pins, and that is not as fast anymore. I either need to open that menu and press the Pin button which opens another popup on top of it which looks kind of weird, or I need to open that menu then hit the Home button to go to the home screen and get my pins from there.

The new home screen is good and I've been hoping to get more customizability for a while, but now from the last update I got used to the quick menu and I don't know why I would really go Home often anymore. Ads don't really bug me, but maybe that's because I don't actually go to it often enough.

I bought the Xbox One as the promised-but-undelivered all-in-one media box, not primarily for gaming. I can see how a lot of the changes have been to make some gaming functions much easier to get to. I don't care about Mixer, which I have never used except to stream the Windows Central podcast a couple of times (and that from a computer). I don't even really care about the chat functions. I don't mind that these are there for people who want them. I just wish I could get them out of my way so I could get to my regular-use media apps.

I'm looking at buying a Roku once the new 2017 models come to Canada. We'll keep the Xbox for my 1-2 hours a week of gaming (and for OTA TV until I set up a Plex Live TV probably), but I think it's time for us to abandon it as our media centre.

 

[JohnnyBawesome]

I think the update is great. I haven't had a lot of time to do a lot of testing with it, but I really really like the new quick menu. It just seems a lot faster to do pretty much everything. Only thing missing is the OTA TV DVR.......

 

[Hirox K]

Most functionalities are accessible from the quick menu, love it. You can jump to anywhere you want, fast, without having to go through home -> tab tab tab.

 

[Icthiodrak]

I am confused as to why you are using the menu at all to get to your pins. I just push down on my controller or remote. They are at the bottom where they always have been. So far I am liking the new interface better than the last round.

(Edit: This was meant to be a reply to ryanlrobinson. Not sure why the interface doesn't show that)

 

[DTM Draco]

The new dashboard looks great, but it needs 2 things: Kinect Gestures and the Snap function back, OR, a PIP overlay (PIP would be great, even better than the Snap).

I always liked to play games and let the TV in Snap
(the main reason why I bought the XBOX ONE - Day One in the pre-order in 2013 was the part of the Kinect gestures and TV)

 

[realwarder]

I like it, but it has a bug. Yesterday refused to play Minecraft and said to sign in or insert the CD. I was signed in and the disk was inserted.

Ejected the disk and reinserted twice but refused to play.

Rebooted and then worked. So some kind of bug exists around that.

Faster UI other than that.

Edit: as you're saying you'll send feedback to Microsoft, there's another annoyance: On the Xbox long press screen there is a 'Report a problem" option. I'd love to have used that, but it then prompts to be an Xbox insider... but I don't want to be. I want my console to stay at release builds. So please enable regular users to Report a Problem

 

[DJCBS]

Just like every other update, it's a downgrade.
The idea behind it is good and it *could* be salvaged but...

Let's start with the most annoying: ADS.
And in case someone doesn't know what "Ads" stands for, it's a short form of "advertisements". That includes anything from advertisements of games to advertisements of players, subscriptions or functionalities.

With this downgrade you have ads EVERYWHERE.
- Front and centre you get two ads: one for Xbox Live Gold (regardless of you having Gold or not) and one for a random game (a pure "ad" as most think about it). Both of these come in 2:1 tiles. Which means 2 ads are taking the place of FOUR additional "recent" tiles that could (and should) be there.

- On top of those ads you get...even more ads! These are supposed to be "intelligent" but apparently not enough to understand you don't want anything showing up there. You can say you are not interested in seeing something like that but it will come up with something else. Oh and the "featured" one is another pure-ad, you can't even tell it to see less.
So there you get THREE ads. One for you to stalk your friends (because apparently the Xbox is a Facebook-machine, not a gaming console), one which gives you info about possible installation (this one I'd be willing to accept since it *could* be useful...but always as an option to show or not) or tips or something, and then another pure-Ad for some game.

- Down from there you have the "blocks" section and...more ads! Yay! At the end of the BlocksRight on the bottom you have it telling you to "add more" with THREE ads. One for "Gold" (even if you already have it), one for the One X (even if you are not interested in being robbed) and one for the Xbox Pass (even if you're not interested in giving Microsoft more money.
The only advantage of this part is that you can get rid of it by adding them to your "blocks" and then deleting the blocks.

- And then you have the new Guide and...you guessed it, more ads! You get a "Gold" ad which you can't get rid of anyway, regardless of having Gold or not.

So you pay 300€ for a console (or 400€ or 500€ if you're dumb enough to buy the One X), 60€ for a Gold subscription and you have to put up with SIX PERMANENT ADS and THREE MORE ADS that you can get rid of (at least for now).

____

Then DESIGN:

- Fluent design. All very nice etc. I like the light showing behind the tiles. And if the Guide was actually acrylic it would look nice (it isn't though, because, "Consistency!".

- GREY EVERYWHERE. This is a problem with Windows 10 itself. They've been replacing all the black backgrounds with grey which is tremendously stupid...specially once you remember we're moving unto the Age of OLED. But more than that, it looks bloody awful.
If you opt for the "Dark" theme, you expect it to be black, not grey. Specially when it's mouse-grey so not actually even dark grey.

- Scaling. The larger your TV the odder the scaling. This was a problem with the last update and it's still a problem with this one. Specially when you long press the Xbox button on the controller or remote to shut down the console. It shows an huge (horrible grey) stripe with the options to turn off controller or console in two larger stripes instead of the traditional tiles, leaving a big gap between them and the "close" option. Why? No idea. It's as if they were going to add more stuff below and forgot.

______

At this point, I'm done with all this. I know Xbox's is run by people who should, at best, run a Starbucks. But the design team must be run by blind people...except I'm sure blind people would have better taste. The fact that they want to blame "Insiders" for these choices is just the ridiculousness on top of the mediocrity cake that the Windows 10 design language became.

They keep changing their dashboard and that alone is terrible for consistency. The fact that it keeps getting worse by the update just puts the final nail in the coffin.
I've had enough. Once my Gold subscription runs out, I'm definitely not renewing it and I'm permanently moving back to the PlayStation whose UI is immensely superior and doesn't have any freaking ads front and centre (since they don't refund the remaining I've paid if I cancel early). As for my Xbox'es...I still have to decide. The original One is probably going to the garbage bin since it's worthless. The 2TB GoW One S I might still be able to sell for a nice price.

 

[Mr D1]

The Xbox 2017 fall update is here, bringing tons of new features.

Now that it's out to the public, what do you think? Improvement or downgrade?

I'll forward the feedback to Microsoft too. )

Huge downgrade, now I have to go through multiple pages to see info that used to be on the sidebar. I can't tell if my friends are online or what they are playing, can't see what is on sale and can barely navigate to my recently used. I've had an Xbox one since launch and every update seems to mess it up worse. Do the people that manage the updates even own an Xbox?

 

[Narduckers]

Good but also bad

It is definitely more of a challenge to find certain things and it takes longer to do what was simple tasks like reading messages is now a three step when it was just one before, finding friends also takes a lot longer and I feel like it wastes time that could be used on playing games. Overall I think they need to change the hud

 

[Zack Leeds]

Worst Update I've Seen !

The Xbox 2017 fall update is here, bringing tons of new features.

Now that it's out to the public, what do you think? Improvement or downgrade?

I'll forward the feedback to Microsoft too. )

Horrible update worst I've seen so far there are multiple reasons to not like this dashboard. First and foremost there are way too much spaces in between the tiles when scrolling down, not happy with this at all. Secondly the navigation of where you want to go is way too fast it zips and zooms across the screen and is overall not enjoyable at all. Last but not least is the amount of content on the main home screen something feels missing and it is just way too empty for being the main homepage. Hope someone at Microsoft can read this and fix this awful update they rolled out. How are you going to force people to update to a glitchy dashboard. Totally not cool.....

 

[Elias Lentz]

t the Xbox 2017 fall upde?

The Xbox 2017 fall update is here, bringing tons of new features.

Now that it's out to the public, what do you think? Improvement or downgrade?

I'll forward the feedback to Microsoft too. )

I really really do not like the new update sure it runs a bit faster but its annoying having to cycle through so many tabs the last update was perfectly fine the only thing they need to do is add a way to remove mixer and improve the speed a bit the new one is a pain to navigate i used to be able to hit the home button and dashboard and was good to go but now i have to hunt for everything its just annoying and it needs to go.

 

[Jonathan Pavlik]

Re: t the Xbox 2017 fall upde?

As always with these dashboard updates, everything take yet more clicks to do. Remember the good old days when you didn't need to click 4 times to get to your pins whether you were on home or already in a game/app? Say I want to easily switch between TV and Netflix. 8 clicks. Say I'm watching NFL/NHL/Whatever streaming entertainment, and I want to switch over to Destiny. 8 clicks. Remember when your most recently used APPS appeared on your home page, and in the xbox button opened your side bar with the most recently opened apps? No longer. Only SOME apps appear in the side. First app i opened...NETFLIX. Doesn't appear on the top of home when I go back to the dashboard. Doesn't appear in the list of "recent apps" on the side menu either. Why not? Show me ONE action on this WIN8/10 interface that doesn't take 1 or more too many clicks to get to. Also, who designs a 10-ft interface with horizontal scrolling? It's just bad design. Period. Why are there icons you can interact with that don't have text or tooltips on them? I can tell you why...b/c they can't show them with a horizontal interface. You know how you show meaningful text to the user? List the items VERTICALLY with the text beside them. Let's talk notifications. I have to go to 8 different places to see all my notifications. Half the time, it is in the settings tab now. I have a favorite log in.
It shows the notification for that in SETTINGS. GARBAGE. Windows design has gone downhill big time since Win7 and 360 blades. But hey....we got all the ads we want now. Huzzah...

 

[RaptorMittens]

It bricked my console and MS says I’ll need to pay them to have it repaired. So, yeah, I’m not too thrilled about the update.

 

[mert cicek]

i was installing bf hardline and I cant continue downloading the game after the update. game seems completely downloaded but when i enter the game it seems at 62%. how can i resume to downloading

 

[ii Itss Shxdoww ii]

I like the new dashboard however i want less adverts on it so it doesn’t look cluttered.

 

[mattmossmusic]

Love the update and design! Very clean and nice!

 

[Bobarino777]

Love it. It's much cleaner and more pleasant to​ use.

 

[Darth1Joker]

The Xbox 2017 fall update is here, bringing tons of new features.

Now that it's out to the public, what do you think? Improvement or downgrade?

I'll forward the feedback to Microsoft too. )

Downgrade. Please bring previous home screen back. Not sure who's bright idea this was, but don't listen to them anymore.

 

[Lnglng]

The Xbox 2017 fall update is here, bringing tons of new features.

Now that it's out to the public, what do you think? Improvement or downgrade?

I'll forward the feedback to Microsoft too. )

Hate it. Really hate the fact they made the party snapping worse. I loved it when I could watch Netflix and have my party snapped and still be able to watch my show. Then they changed it to where you couldn't watch the full screen show with the party up. Just when I get used to that they change it AGAIN- and this time the party won't stay snapped once the controller turns off so I have to keep my controller awake, and burn through my batteries just to keep my damn party up on my screen.

The organization of the tiles in my games & apps is so freaking frustrating. I liked it better when I could keep my titles small and spaced out alphabetically and now they're just blocks all grouped together. Yes it's still in a-z but it looks horrible and all cluttered/mashed together.

The sign in used to be quicker, just had to swoosh left and be logged on, the new signing added 2 extra clicks on there.

There's no point in having a bio on the profiles now since nobody will ever freaking see it. I know I don't give a crap enough to have to scroll down and go past recent activity just to see it. Cramming the activity feed and followers into one tab is also frustrating and too extra for no reason. Speaking of which, the recent activity and the activity feed are the same freaking thing, why do we need them twice on the profiles!?