Xbox One April update preview brings party chat improvements, game hub links, more

Unlike previous preview releases, the April update preview will be released in two stages, with the first rolling out today. Each wave will add new features, with today's update bringing some improvements to party chat, the game hub, and achievement notifications.

Here's a rundown on what's new in this preview release:

  • Party chat improvements – Party chat is being improved with troubleshooting guidance for Xbox One owners. The Party App will help you get your microphone enabled and show you when privacy settings or networking issues are blocking communication with particular party members.
  • Game hub links – Members can more easily discover game hub content from activity feed items. You'll see activity feed items when any of your friends follow a game, and you'll also be able to get back to a game's hub from activity feed posts related to the game – including feed items about the game's achievements, game clips and screenshots. Finally, we've added a link to game hubs from the game's page in the achievements app.
  • Achievement notifications – With this preview release, you'll also see the achievement's description in the notification so you know what you did to earn this achievement without having to open the achievements app. If you do choose to open up the notification to see the achievement details, we've also made some performance improvements to make loading the achievements app from a notification faster.

While not as exciting as the March update, which brought the highly anticipated screenshot feature, the above changes are sure to be welcome nonetheless. As noted above, this is just the first of two waves, and the next is expected to bring even more feature updates next week.

Source: Major Nelson

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Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl