Xbox development boss teases ‘exciting’ platform updates: ‘This is just the beginning’

Xbox’s platform development boss has teased “exciting” new features coming to Series X and S, stating that what’s been released so far for the console is “just the beginning.”

Speaking on the latest official Xbox podcast, director of program management Jason Ronald said that these new platform announcements would be made as early as “over the coming months.”

Director of programming Larry Hryb added that “there’s a lot coming… we can’t really say too much” and teased that, “I think that we’re going to have [Jason Ronald back] on sooner rather than later.”

Ronald said: “As a team, we’re just really excited by this initial response from fans all around the world. At launch, we say it all the time internally, this is really just the beginning. We’ve got a lot of really exciting things that are coming down the pipeline over the coming months and over the coming years.

He added: “We’re also partnering really closely with key game developers from all across the industry to really take full advantage of all the next-gen capabilities that we put in the Xbox Series S and Series X.

“We really are excited as we get further into the year and closer to this holiday to start sharing more of the details about what’s in development, and how you can really take advantage of these next gen platforms.”

The platform development boss said his team had taken an extended break following the launch of Xbox Series X and S last November, and that he saw it as an opportunity to “lean back and just listen to the community and listen how people are using the consoles, what they’re excited about, areas that we can improve.”

“Now that the team is back, we’re starting to release a series of updates,” he said.

“One area that we really focused on was at launch, we had to disable quick resume, on some titles in the launch window,” he explained. “The team’s been working really hard to be able to re-enable those titles so that people are getting that great, quick resume experience on all the titles that people are playing.

“In other areas like we’ve seen reports of things like controller disconnects as an example. That’s another area that the team’s really been investing in to make sure that you’re just getting that best in-class experience on the Xbox Series X and Series S.”

Ronald went on to reveal that some areas the Xbox platform team were focussing on were missing features on the Xbox app, and giving Series X and S users more control over Quick Resume.

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“So over the coming months, we’re going to be updating the Xbox mobile app to add things like Achievements. And then other areas that we’re really focused on. As we think about the console experiences, we’ve listened to the feedback about improvements of broadcasting as an example,” he said.

“Another thing is the sharing experience and the quality of things like game DVR. And then I mentioned earlier about enabling quick resume for even more titles since launch. We’ve also seen the feedback about people want more understanding of how quick resume works and more control over the experience.

“These are all areas that are really high priorities for us, as we’re looking at future updates over the coming months and you’ll be able to start seeing some of these experiences in the Insider rings really soon.”