Here’s The New Xbox UI In Action

The Xbox homepage will be getting a redesign next year, and ahead of that upcoming refresh, randomly selected Xbox Insiders from the Alpha Skip-Ahead ring have gotten an early look at some of the changes on the way. Microsoft plans to make the space more customizable and personal for its users, and will be tweaking the new design based on trends and fan feedback.

“We know the Xbox homepage is where our gamers spend a lot of their time, and it’s a space that’s very personal,” said senior product manager lead for Xbox experiences Ivy Krislov. “We also know we can always be listening and learning how we can do better here while keeping your experience fast and familiar. With that, we’re kicking off a multi-month series of experiments to learn how to create a more personalized home screen experience and address some of the top trends and fan requests.”

According to Krislov, testers will be able to see the new layout and quality-of-life changes designed to create smoother access to games and apps. Important system apps, visual identifiers, and more consistent design are some of the elements that users can expect, as well as a “jump back in” function that will give you quick access to your most recently played games and apps.

This redesign is one of several that Microsoft has introduced to the Xbox interface as of late. The consoles now go from a cold boot to active in just 15 seconds thanks to a shorter bootup animation sequence, and another handy feature in development adds additional warning badges to the My Games & Apps section of the console, which will notify users if they don’t have a license or a disc for a game before they play it.

On the PlayStation side, Sony has also added some helpful new features to the PS5 user interface including 1440 HDMI video output, game folders, and several new social features.