Xbox One multiplayer features and friends app shown off by Microsoft

Written by Brandon Hofer on October 14, 2013

Xbox One News: Microsoft releases two new videos showing off some of Xbox One’s multiplayer features and the friends app.

Xbox One is set to be released in a little over a month and Microsoft has just released two new videos showing some of what you can expect on November 22. The first video shows off the friend app and some of the multiplayer features for Xbox One. First we should start off by saying that your Xbox 360 friends will automatically transfer over to your Xbox One friend list. Xbox One allows you to have up to 1,000 friends as well as infinite followers. You will be able to see both Xbox One and Xbox 360 friends and their activity in your Activity Feed.

With that being said you might wonder what the difference is between a friend and a follower. For starters, both groups are considered “friends” but the privacy settings are different. You can follow anyone you want at any time and it is completely up to them whether they want to follow you back, similar to how Twitter works. You can also use the privacy settings to control what your followers can see about you. If you follow someone and they return the favor then your relationship becomes more interactive such as seeing when each other is online, what achievements you earn in real time and generally what you are up to on Xbox One.

“A great driver in ‘Forza Motorsport 5,’ for example, could have a huge group of thousands or even millions of followers all tracking their performance in-game,” Rob Lehew, Xbox Live Program Manager, said. “Those followers can have this driver on their personal leaderboard so that they can constantly keep track of how they stack-up, and they can potentially connect online with the driver to get into a race with him.”

Microsoft has stated that they have completely rebuilt Xbox Live from the ground up for Xbox One. Along with some of the community features outline above, the gaming experience itself has evolved. Xbox One will have two types of achievements with your standard achievements and time-based challenges. The standard achievements are what you are used to see on Xbox 360. The time-based challenges though are only available for a certain period of time. What you happen to accomplish during that timeframe will count towards unlocking the challenge.

Some of these challenges may require the community to work together. An example that was given in one of the above videos is to have the community as a whole drive a million miles in a racing game. Every person who participates and helps build towards the challenge’s goal unlocks that achievement and any associated reward.

The multiplayer video has various people talking about how multiplayer will work with Xbox One. It shows off some of the work the Xbox Live team has done to try and continue advancing Xbox Live. There are things such as “Smart Match” which supposedly makes it “easier, faster and more enjoyable” to get into a multiplayer game with gamers of a similar skill level to yourself. Over time the system will get better as it learns more about you and your friends. There is also no more waiting in lobbies as Xbox One will allow you to do other things while you are waiting for a match. You can play Forza 5 while you are waiting for your Smart Match to find something in Call of Duty: Ghosts, for example. Once Xbox One has found the right match it will prompt you with a message popping up on the screen so you can jump straight into playing your multiplayer match.

Take a look at the two videos and tell us what you think. Are you picking up an Xbox One on launch day?

Source: MajorNelson.com

Xbox One Multiplayer Video

Xbox One Friends App Video