The media aspect of the system was one of Microsoft's marketing focus when they first launched Xbox One. The tech was supposed to be the all-in-one box that can seamlessly take care of ones streaming, television viewing, movie watching and game playing needs. But the recent Xbox One will be unrecognizable from its counterpart launched in 2013 as it bids goodbye to its media-focuses feature Xbox One Snap Mode.
Microsoft executive Mike Ybarra took to Twitter to explain the details of the upcoming changes says Video Games 24/7. Ybarra explains that the Snap mode which was originally featured by the Xbox One intended to allow players to do multiple things with on device; to play a game, watch a show, stream an app, or play music. Multi functionality was handy but on the downside, the game was squished in size and the other features about a fifth of the screen.
Ever since Phil Spencer took office as its head, Xbox One has been stripped of all features that promote anything other than gaming. Even Kinect was not safe and the DVR has been canceled. The HDMI pass through port was left alone, but many speculate that it won't make it through Project Scorpio, the Xbox One follow-up, unless adding it becomes very cheap and doesn't consume any system performance.
Polygon agrees that Snap is an amazing feature but gamers agree that only few use it on rare occasions. Xbox One might also say goodbye to Snap but gamers would probably even hardly notice that its gone. Snap demanded to reserve some processing power and memory and in effect held back developers and games alike for the longest time.
Snap's removal is expected to allow developers to save up more juice to power games and add stability to the system. Of course, the possibility that it be replaced with a more useful feature remain. Either way, this move goes to show that the Xbox team is serious about their dedication and commitment to games.