Xbox's community man Larry Hyrb, AKA Major Nelson, has released a video today detailing the upcoming March firmware update for the Xbox One. In it, Richard Irving of the Xbox engineering team details changes coming to the Xbox Live party system, friends list, and the console's UI.
The March update for the Xbox One will be seeing some improvements to how players interact with their friends, based on feedback from the community. For starters, the Xbox Live party system has been enabled by default when the console signs into Xbox Live. The party system UI has been streamlined a bit so that it will be quicker and easier to enter a party and differentiate chat channels (in-game or party) and see which friends happen to be in the same game as you. The ability to invite players to both a party and the current game you're in has also been re-introduced, as it was a function available on the Xbox 360 and was apparently missing or harder to access prior to this update.
As for the friend list, the March update is looking to not only improve the UI, but the speed in which things can be accessed. The engineering team has made improvements that reduce the amount of time to find friends through a search option; typing the name of the gamertag that you're looking for will quickly bring up suggestions. Irving states that access to the friends list will be accessible by just three clicks or one voice command. Friends can now be sorted by favorites, making it easier to find the people you talk to more often (or actually like).
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Along with improvements to interacting with your buddies via chat or the Xbox One's UI, the Recent Players tab will now allow Xbox One owners to filter through a list of people they previously encountered on Xbox Live. From this list, users can positively or negatively rate other players or befriend them. It's all friendly. Let's hold hands.
The Xbox One March update is set to release sometime in March. Who would have thought?