New friends app and more achievements on Xbox One

Xbox Live has been on the market since 2002. Microsoft's online gaming service has been with us for more than 10 years and, before Xbox One comes out, its development team intends to spend a whole week explaining the news that will come to the service with the next generation of the console. Today it was Major Nelson's turn to the new Xbox One friends app

To begin with and how could it be otherwise, on Xbox One we will have our Xbox 360 friends from the beginning. We can have up to 1,000 friends on our list and their activity on both consoles will appear on our feed, where we will also see the actions of those we follow.And I say good, because now it will also be possible to follow whoever we want.

This is one of the major changes. Similar to other social networks, Xbox One will allow you to follow other players even if they don't belong to your friends list. We will be able to search for any user by their gamertag and follow them to see everything they share publicly: like what they are playing or their score and achievements in games.

We will thus have two ways of relating to other Xbox Live members since the relationship can now be asymmetrical: we can follow whoever we want and it will be the other's decision to follow us or not. This leads to the existence of differences between a friend and a follower Regarding the latter, we will have the ability to limit the information he sees. In the other case, in which the two players follow each other, the available information is broader.

The novelties do not end there and far from being limited to changing the friends application, Microsoft is also looking to improve the online gaming experience with Xbox One. In addition to others already known, such as the Smart Match function, which makes it quicker and easier to find opponents; or the new reputation system; Redmonders have sought to improve the achievement system they popularized.

With Xbox One it will be necessary to differentiate between two types of achievements: achievements and temporary challenges The shape of the former is similar to those of Xbox 360, the novelty being the one incorporated by the challenges. These will be available for a period of time and it will be what we achieve during that temporary space that will help us to unlock them. Additionally, many challenges will require the community to work together to reach the goal and earn the achievements and rewards within.

These are changes aimed at improving what Microsoft claims is the largest online gaming service.With 48 million users and more than 20 billion hours spent on it over the past 12 months, Xbox Live seems set to be one more enticement for get an Xbox One.

Via | Xbox Wire