Xbox One Gets Windows 10 Underpinnings With New Xbox One Experience
by Brett Howse on November 12, 2015 10:15 PM EST
Today the New Xbox One Experience began rolling out, and with it comes a big change in not only the look and feel of the Xbox One’s Dashboard, but it also brings Windows 10 to Microsoft’s gaming console. The new update brings about a big shift in the user interface, as well as some very anticipated features.
The first thing you’ll notice is the new interface, which departs from the horizontal scrolling of the Windows 8 style interface, to something that fits more into the Windows 10 theme. In fact, the new dashboard is very similar to the Windows 10 Xbox app, including the navigation at the left, and vertical scrolling to access pinned content. Unfortunately, there is still a good 20-25% of the right side of the screen devoted to promotional items, which takes up too much of the on-screen real estate. The old dashboard would also show you the last several items that you did, which was nice since you often did things like Netflix and TV a lot. But the new experience just shows a single item other than the current active task, so you need to scroll down to find them. Luckily when you do, the items are bigger, and offer choices like Watch Live TV or Find TV.
Not all is bad though. The new experience is a lot quicker for social aspects like chatting and finding groups for games. Bringing up the Xbox guide while in a game is much quicker and doesn’t slow the experience to a halt. They’ve been improving on these aspects over the last year or so since they have been one of the top items on the Feedback forum.
I’m not in love with the new UI yet, but maybe I just need some time to get used to it. I had been using the previous UI for almost two years, and I think we’re all a bit stubborn about change.
One thing that looks much better though is the new OneGuide, despite it constantly asking me to plug in my Kinect (which stopped working a couple of weeks ago). The guide comes up much quicker than the previous incarnation, and it’s been subtly chanted to make it easier to use I think. I still wish there was some way to customize the channels, since I don’t get every channel in the listing. Perhaps someone has a better way to do this, but I’ve been setting the channels I do get as favorites, and then just using favorites instead of the guide. This kind of functionality was always part of Media Center, so it’s a bit surprising it doesn’t seem to be there. The new guide will work with either cable, which can be controlled through IR blasting on the Kinect, or you can hook the Xbox up to a TV tuner if you want to cut the cord. And in case you missed it, this is all set up to add DVR capabilities next year.
I think the big thing with today’s update though is the inclusion of backwards compatibility with Xbox 360 games. Out of the gate, Microsoft is support 104 Xbox 360 titles, with quite a few very popular games already on the list. More will be added over time. The Xbox 360 is actually running in a virtualized environment, so when you are in one of the 360 games, all of the menus and whatnot are actually the Xbox 360 menus, but you can still do things like record game clips and chat using the Xbox One interface. This was a much requested feature, and it expands the capabilities of the Xbox One, as well as the available software titles.
There are more features coming down the line as well. Cortana will be coming as a voice assistant, and it should help a lot over the very basic voice commands the Xbox One uses now. I’ve heard that Cortana will work with either Kinect, or with a headset, which is good since not everyone that might want to use it would own Kinect. Also, the store on Xbox One is being unified with the Windows 10 store, which will add the ability to use Universal Windows Apps tailored for the TV interface. That should open up a whole bunch of opportunities for developers for content consumption apps.
This is easily the biggest change to the Xbox One since it was launched, but over the last two years it has come a long way in terms of features and usability. Microsoft seems to be keen on keeping these updates coming too. I’ll need more time with the new experience to see whether or not I prefer it though. Change can be difficult.
Source: Major Nelson blog
Xbox One Backward Compatibility List
List from majornelson.com
| Content Title | Content Type | Publisher |
|---|---|---|
| Assassin’s Creed II | Xbox One Game | Ubisoft |
| Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts | Xbox One Game | Microsoft Studios |
| Borderlands | Xbox One Game | 2K Games |
| CastleStorm | Xbox One Game | Microsoft Studios |
| Condemned: Criminal Origins | Xbox One Game | Sega |
| DiRT 3 | Xbox One Game | Codemasters |
| DiRT Showdown | Xbox One Game | Codemasters |
| Dungeon Siege III | Xbox One Game | Square Enix |
| Fable II | Xbox One Game | Microsoft Studios |
| Fallout 3 | Xbox One Game | Bethesda Softworks |
| Gears of War | Xbox One Game | Microsoft Studios |
| Gears of War 2 | Xbox One Game | Microsoft Studios |
| Gears of War 3 | Xbox One Game | Microsoft Studios |
| Gears of War: Judgment | Xbox One Game | Microsoft Studios |
| Just Cause 2 | Xbox One Game | Square Enix |
| Kameo: Elements of Power | Xbox One Game | Microsoft Studios |
| LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean: The Video Game | Xbox One Game | Disney Interactive Studios |
| LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga | Xbox One Game | Disney Interactive Studios |
| Mass Effect | Xbox One Game | Microsoft Studios |
| Mirror’s Edge | Xbox One Game | Electronic Arts |
| Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising | Xbox One Game | Codemasters |
| Perfect Dark Zero | Xbox One Game | Microsoft Studios |
| Supreme Commander 2 | Xbox One Game | Square Enix |
| Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas | Xbox One Game | Ubisoft |
| Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas 2 | Xbox One Game | Ubisoft |
| South Park: The Stick of Truth | Xbox One Game | Ubisoft |
| Tron: Evolution | Xbox One Game | Disney Interactive Studios |
| Viva Piñata | Xbox One Game | Microsoft Studios |
| Viva Piñata: Trouble In Paradise | Xbox One Game | Microsoft Studios |
| A Kingdom for Keflings | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| A World of Keflings | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Alien Hominid HD | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Asteroids & Deluxe | Arcade | Atari |
| Banjo-Kazooie | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Banjo-Tooie | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| BattleBlock Theater | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Bejeweled 2 | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Bellator: MMA Onslaught | Arcade | 345 Games |
| Beyond Good & Evil HD | Arcade | Ubisoft |
| Blood of the Werewolf | Arcade | Midnight City |
| BloodRayne: Betrayal | Arcade | Majesco Entertainment |
| Call of Juarez Gunslinger | Arcade | Ubisoft |
| Castle Crashers | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Centipede & Millipede | Arcade | Atari |
| Crazy Taxi | Arcade | Sega |
| Deadliest Warrior: Legends | Arcade | 345 Games / Spike Games |
| Defense Grid: The Awakening | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Discs of Tron | Arcade | Disney Interactive Studios |
| Doom | Arcade | Bethesda Softworks |
| Doom II | Arcade | Bethesda Softworks |
| Earthworm Jim HD | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Feeding Frenzy | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Feeding Frenzy 2: Shipwreck Showdown | Arcade | PopCap Games |
| Golden Axe | Arcade | Sega |
| Halo: Spartan Assault | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Hardwood Backgammon | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Hardwood Hearts | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Hardwood Spades | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Heavy Weapon | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Hexic HD | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Ikaruga | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Jetpac Refuelled | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Joy Ride Turbo | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Lode Runner | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| LUMINES LIVE! | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Metal Slug 3 | Arcade | SNK PLAYMORE |
| Metal Slug XX | Arcade | SNK PLAYMORE |
| Might & Magic Clash of Heroes | Arcade | Ubisoft |
| Missile Command | Arcade | Atari |
| Monday Night Combat | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Monkey Island 2: Special Edition | Arcade | Disney Interactive Studios |
| Monkey Island: Special Edition | Arcade | Disney Interactive Studios |
| Ms. Splosion Man | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Mutant Blobs Attack!!! | Arcade | Midnight City |
| N+ | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| NBA JAM: On Fire Edition | Arcade | Electronic Arts |
| NiGHTS into dreams… | Arcade | Sega |
| Pac-Man: Championship Edition | Arcade | Bandai Namco |
| Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX+ | Arcade | Bandai Namco |
| Perfect Dark | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Phantom Breaker: Battle Grounds | Arcade | Mages. |
| Pinball FX | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Plants vs. Zombies | Arcade | PopCap |
| Prince of Persia | Arcade | Ubisoft |
| Putty Squad | Arcade | System 3 Software Ltd |
| Rayman 3 HD | Arcade | Ubisoft |
| R-Type Dimensions | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Sacred Citadel | Arcade | Deep Silver |
| Sega Vintage Collection: Alex Kidd & Co. | Arcade | Sega |
| Sega Vintage Collection: Golden Axe | Arcade | Sega |
| Sega Vintage Collection: Monster World | Arcade | Sega |
| Sega Vintage Collection: Streets of Rage | Arcade | Sega |
| Shadow Complex | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Sonic CD | Arcade | Sega |
| Sonic The Hedgehog | Arcade | Sega |
| Sonic The Hedgehog 2 | Arcade | Sega |
| Sonic The Hedgehog 3 | Arcade | Sega |
| Super Meat Boy | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Torchlight | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Toy Soldiers | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Toy Soldiers: Cold War | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
| Ugly Americans: Apocalypsegeddon | Arcade | 345 Games / Comedy Central |
| Wolfenstein 3D | Arcade | Bethesda Softworks |
| Zuma | Arcade | Microsoft Studios |
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ravyne - Friday, November 13, 2015 - link
Possible, but not so easy. The 360 had 3 cores, each with two threads -- however, each thread had its own dedicated 128bit SIMD unit (Altivec in PowerPC parlance). These altivec units were also customized for the Xbox 360 -- they extended the register file from 32 to 128 entries, and added a dot-product instruction. x64 processors have SSE (128bit SIMD) and AVX (256bit SIMD), which have only 16 and 32 entry register files, and furthermore SSE is a two-operand format, which is inadaquate to express straight-line conversion of Altivec's 3-operand format, even if instruction set itself was parallel; AVX is 3-operand format though, but still lacks sufficient registers.On top of that, recall that the Xbox 360 PPC ran at 3.2Ghz, about twice the speed of the One's Jaguar, and that Jaguar's IPC -- while significantly better clock-for-clock -- will struggle to make up that gap. Best case you can map the 360's 6 threads onto 6 full jaguar cores, and if those 6 threads are nearly-balanced you're kinda close to similar performance numbers once you account for making use of AVX for its 3-operand format, but without being able to take advantage of its extra width naively -- now you're at about game-parity, excepting for the fact that you've left no room for emulator overhead. If you do some fancy SIMD transforms you can catch back up there, so that's good, but you can't do that with the straight-line scalar code, and you just kinda have to hope that the longest scalar thread on a 360 isn't longer than what a jaguar's increased IPC can keep up with after accounting for emulator overhead and running at about half the speed. If not, perfect emulation is impossible.
On a PC with say a quad-core i7 at 3.2Ghz or so, you got clock-speed and IPC enough that scalar code is less of an issue, but now you're lacking SIMD resources to keep up -- you've got only 4 to go around for the 360's 6, of the same speed, you're still lacking total number of registers, and in fact the resources available (registers, execution units, bandwidth) per thread are cut down by 2/3rds. You have to jump through a lot more code transformation hoops just to get back to SIMD parity, and/or you need 6+ cores or need 50% more clockspeed from 4.
Morawka - Saturday, November 14, 2015 - link
each i7 core counts as 2 threads.. 1 core thread, and one HT thread.. by that measure a i7 quad has 8 cores total.i7's IPC is ridiculously more than those PPC cores.. probably 10X. Keeping up is not a issue
Morawka - Saturday, November 14, 2015 - link
the emulated games on the 360 are not just copies of the disc copy. When you insert a 360 game on the xbox one, it then downloads a optimized copy off of microsofts servers. The game disc is just there to make sure you own the game. Additionally the games on that list have been broken down and re-coded with less register entries to work on Jaguar cores.If we somehow got these newly coded game files, we could run on a emulator no problem.
Miller1331 - Tuesday, December 1, 2015 - link
Fingers crossedJoeMonco - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
Never.reuthermonkey1 - Friday, November 13, 2015 - link
MS is definitely going in the opposite direction - see: WMC gets pulled from Windows and is put into XBone.Jacerie - Friday, November 13, 2015 - link
It would make more sense for Microsoft to simply publish a XB1 app to the windows store to allow the use of XB1 games on a PC.Sttm - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
If they can get Red Dead Redemption backwards compatible on Xbox One, they can get me to buy one.zeeBomb - Thursday, November 12, 2015 - link
That backwards compatibility list though! I'll take it!(Backward compatibility is via download from the store, rite?)
BulkSlash - Saturday, November 14, 2015 - link
Yeah, if you own a game digitally you can just download it to the Xbone or if you own the disc you just put it into the console and it will also download the game from the store (presumably because it's a specially altered version of the game). Naturally you need to have the disc in the machine to play the game even though it's using the copy on the hard drive.