As teased earlier in the week, users in the Xbox One's Alpha ring will be able to begin testing custom gamerpics, Arena, new activity feed features, and much, much more. This is the biggest update the Insider program has seen for a while, and brings us ever closer to general distribution.
Here's everything that's new, fixed, and broken in the upcoming Alpha build.
Update March 25, 2017: I just want to note, as it says in the build notes below that not every feature listed below will be available immediately. They'll be rolled out in stages over the coming days and weeks. But this update will at least lay the ground work.
DETAILS
OS version released: rs2_release_xbox_1704.170321-1900
Available: 6:00PM PDT 3/24 (1:00AM GMT 25/3)
NEW FEATURES:
Welcome to 1704 on Xbox One! This month we're rolling out several feature updates inspired by your feedback.
NOTE: Not all planned features for this update are available at this time.
Arena on Xbox Live
- World of Tanks fans will be able to participate in new tournaments on their Xbox One, created by ESL and powered by Arena on Xbox Live.
- Discover tournaments from your Xbox One or Xbox app on Windows 10, get notifications when your match is ready, jump directly into your match on the Xbox One, enjoy automatic results reporting, and show off the results on your activity feed.
Profile and Activity Feed
- Custom gamerpics are finally here! From your console, Windows 10 PC, or mobile phone, update your gamerpic with a custom image. We're excited to bring this top fan-requested feature to Xbox Live and expect it to be in preview longer than other features to ensure it's great for everyone when released.
- New 'Join broadcast' button in your profile, one of the many ways to access the game stream of someone broadcasting their gameplay.
- Your profile will display your Arena tournament history and upcoming tournaments.
- In your Activity Feed, we're adding the ability to hide individual posts, pin posts to the top of your feed, and filter posts by friends, games or Clubs.
Clubs and Looking for Group (LFG)
- When you create an LFG post, as the owner you will be able to see new vetting cards that include hero stats from gamers interested in joining your party. Hero stats are contextual to the game you're playing, showing you relevant stats like kill/death ratio, rank, or score.
- Achievement hunters, this one is for you! You will be able to search LFG posts from the Achievements tab, related to the Achievement you're trying to finish.
- We're adding the number of open LFG posts to the Game Hub and Club Hub headers.
- Have you made a successful LFG post that you want to create again? Now you can see previous LFG posts that you have created, participated or shown interest in, and can copy them to create new posts.
- When creating an LFG post, see all the recent tags you've used and easily select them.
- Club owners can upload custom images for their Club logo and Club background. Just like custom gamerpics, we expect this to be in preview longer than other features to ensure it's great for everyone when released.
- Club owners and admins will be identified and labeled in their text posts to better help them stand out and manage their community.
- Club owners and admins can pin a post at the top of their Club feed.
My Games and Apps, and Settings
- In 'My Games and Apps,' we're adding the ability to filter your game library by platform – Xbox One and Xbox 360.
- Captive Portal support for wireless internet is coming to Xbox One, which allows for Wi-Fi authentication through a browser. Great for colleges, hotels, or public Wi-Fi locations.
- In the Settings, we're adding the ability to select Kinect auto-zoom for Beam and Twitch broadcasts, as well as for the Skype app.
- On the Xbox app for Windows 10, we're adding the option to select the audio input and output sources for Party chat.
KNOWN ISSUES:
Settings - Display & sound
- The Audio output page is under construction and some of the new settings are not yet functional. New support is planned for Dolby Atmos for home theater, Dolby Atmos for headphones, and more in upcoming builds. An announcement will be made when these new features are ready to try out; enabling these settings now will have no effect.
Wireless Display
- The Wireless Display app fails to launch and immediately crashes to Home.
The Xbox branch of the Windows 10 Creators Update is getting ever closer to general distribution. Tomorrow, we'll do a video walkthrough of the newest features so those not in the Alpha ring can get a look!
