Welcome to our weekly Xbox news recap series, where we go over the top stories of the past week in the world of Xbox. Let’s get started.
Xbox Store will soon support gifting and wish lists
We’ve seen the writing on the wall for this feature for a while now. Having been standard in most digital marketplaces for a long time now, the Xbox Store will finally be able to support direct gifting and wish lists for those more generous gamers, out there. These two features have been highly requested, and mark one of the console’s biggest quality of life changes since its user experience was completely overhauled. While we don’t have any kind of concrete date to look at right now, the Xbox team at PAX West said that this feature would be coming “very soon.” That’s a good sign.
Analysts predict a weak Holiday season for the Xbox One X
Contrary to the reporting we’ve had since its announcement, analysts are expecting a relatively weak Holiday season for Microsoft’s new Xbox One X. The “premium console” is expected to sell just about one million units, according to the prediction of analyst Michael Pachter. He noted that the Xbox One X is an “exceptional device,” but the price point is just too steep to expect consumers to come out in big numbers – especially since it has nothing exclusive to pull away current Xbox One owners. Since the Xbox team doesn’t release its number of consoles sold during earnings reports, it’s hard to know for sure how the Xbox One X will do until launch day comes.
In-video links finally added to Xbox One YouTube app
People who use the Xbox One to watch YouTube videos are going to be getting a nice surprise, when they update the app on their console. The app has gotten a few meaningful tweaks, adding in the “in-video links” feature that has been requested for quite a while. Users can now click on embedded links put in videos by using the D-pad – it’s pretty intuitive, and should help content creators engage their audience regardless of platform. Along with this, the search function of the app has been overhauled, helping you fill out your searches with drop-down search history listings taken from all of your devices.
Killer Instinct on Steam to support cross-platform play
Killer Instinct is coming to Steam finally, after a few years of exclusivity on the Xbox. The fighting game should find a very comfortable home with the PC audience, but that doesn’t mean that the community is going to be split. It was announced recently that Killer Instinct is going to be supporting cross-play, allowing PC players to be matched with Xbox One players for online matches. The transition should be pretty simple, since cross-play is slowly becoming the industry standard – for everybody except Sony, that is.
Thanks for joining us. To keep up to date with all the latest Xbox news, keep a close eye on our Xbox One tag.
