What you need to know
- Every month, Xbox releases a new ecosystem update with new features and improvements.
- The Xbox October Update for 2023 is now rolling out to all users, with two headlining changes.
- First, the keyboard mapping to controllers announced earlier this month is officially here.
- Xbox is also making it easier to edit game captures, by adding Xbox integration to Clipchamp.
It's a good day for Xbox players. Alan Wake 2 is just around the corner and is earning rave reviews as a masterpiece horror game, sure, but the Xbox ecosystem is also getting its monthly update today. The Xbox October Update, detailed on Xbox Wire, is rolling out now to players with two new features — one of which was announced earlier this month to significant interest.
So, let's just start with that feature! Xbox announced its latest batch of accessibility improvements and features earlier this month, and the most notable reveal then was the ability to map keyboard controls to your controller. Players with an Xbox Adaptive Controller or Xbox Elite Wireless Controller Series 2 can bind almost 90 individual keyboard keys to any of the controls or paddles, allowing them to play keyboard-only games entirely with a controller. This is a huge win for making games more accessible, and is available through the Xbox Accessories app on both Xbox and Windows PC.
Of course, it does mean you need a non-standard Xbox controller, as both the Adaptive Controller and Elite Series 2 controller feature additional controls. For players with limited mobility or other physical challenges, though, it could be more than worth the investment.
A little less exciting is integrating Xbox into Microsoft's Clipchamp video editor. Now, you'll be able to sign into your Xbox account in Clipchamp and access all of your game captures uploaded to the Xbox Network. From there, you can use the full suite of Clipchamp's video editing tools to trim, crop, and add effects, before sharing your finished creation with whoever you like.
Xbox is also updating the way it approaches your preferences to share diagnostic data. Now, the optional diagnostic data controls (which provide Xbox with valuable telemetry on your usage to help improve the experience), is account-based rather than device-based. In other words, you now have to set it once for it to apply to the entire Xbox ecosystem for your account.
Finally, Xbox is testing a new feature with a small subset of users. The experiment lets the lucky players head to their profile page in order to invite friends to parties or join games.
It's not the most exciting Xbox update, but any advancements in accessibility is a win in my book. You may not see the update on your console immediately, as Xbox likes to roll out new updates slowly to ensure there aren't any issues.
