Ahead of the Gamescom conference today in Germany Microsoft unveiled some of the new features that will be landing on Xbox One over the next few months. The company praised fans who left a generous amount of feedback about features and services on the Xbox Feedback channel and says that all this played a “huge role in shaping these updates.” One feature that particularly stands out is the support for streaming TV from Xbox One to the SmartGlass app on smartphones and tablets.
At first support for this feature will be limited to markets where the Xbox One digital TV tuner has been released. Its mostly European countries for now so folks in the U.S. may have to wait a while before they can take advantage of this feature.
Xbox One owners will be able to stream TV across their home network to a mobile device that’s running the Xbox SmartGlass app. This app is available for Windows Phone, Android and iOS. Play, pause and rewind controls are included in the app and the feature won’t interrupt gameplay on the console itself.
Other new features destined for the console include ability to boot straight into TV, Snap Center which puts messages, friends, parties and achievements side-by-side with a game, ability to play media from an attached USB or DLNA device and threaded messages that keep the entire messaging history neat and clean.
The updates with all of these features will be rolled out gradually over the next couple of months. Microsoft promises even more down the line.