Xbox One June Update Is Now Being Rolled Out By Microsoft

Written by Brandon Hofer on June 04, 2014

News: Microsoft has revealed that people should start receiving the June update soon which allows for external hard drive support and more.

Major Nelson has revealed that Microsoft has begun rolling out the June Xbox One update to everyone. The month of June will bring in some changes for Xbox One gamers bringing with it some features that have been requested for quite a while now. One of the most popular features is support for external hard drives and once you download this update you will be able to use an external hard drive with your Xbox One. Personally speaking I have a 2tb drive hooked up to my Xbox One and it works great. The way you hook it up to the Xbox One is really simple, just plug your hard drive into one of the USB ports on the back of the Xbox One. Once you do that the Xbox One will detect that you have external storage hooked up to the system and after a couple of prompts you will be ready to go. It should be noted though that the Xbox One will format your hard drive and you will only be able to use that hard drive with the Xbox One. If you are using an old hard drive be sure to backup anything you have on the drive because it will be completely erased. The only requirements for the external drive is that it has to be at least 256gb and be USB 3.0. The USB 3.0 requirement allows information to travel in between the hard drive and your console at a really fast rate. I have been playing Watch Dogs with the install being on my external hard drive and I haven’t noticed a performance difference between games on the internal and games on the external.

In addition to external storage support the June update brings the ability to use real names on Xbox Live. If you choose to enable your feature your real name will be right alongside your gamertag. I really like this feature and have used it on the PS4 since day one to help me keep track of my friends online. This will be especially helpful if a friend changes their gamertag. Of course you don’t have to share your real name online and Microsoft gives you some good customization options so that you are in control of what is shown and who sees it. There will also be an update to SmartGlass in the very near future that will allow you to reorganize the pins on your Xbox One dashboard. You can reorganize them on your tablet or smartphone using SmartGlass and then once you sign on to your console it should be rearranged how you wanted it.

This update also removes the paywall from services such as Netflix, Hulu and many others. You will no longer have to be an Xbox Live Gold member to access these services. Additionally, Microsoft has worked out a deal with Hulu where Hulu will begin rolling out free 3-month trials of Hulu Plus for all Xbox Live Gold members in the U.S. Any Xbox Live Gold members who are not already Hulu Plus subscribers can sign up directly from within the Hulu Plus app and will receive a free 3-month trial of Hulu Plus.

Microsoft has just started rolling out this update so if you don’t have it right now then you should receive it over the course of the next few days. You can also check your system settings and if there is an option on the lower left hand corner to update the system then you can force it to update instead of waiting for it to update by itself.

What do you think of the June update for Xbox One? What features do you want to see added next? Tell us what you think below.