New Xbox One Update Live, Here's What It Does

Today, Microsoft rolled out a new Xbox One update that brings with it a host of improvements and additions, such as improvements to friends list, messaging, and better options for sorting in "My Games & Apps." At the moment of publishing, the update is already live, so there's a good chance you've already downloaded it. But if you haven't already and are wondering what it's packing, well, here's the rundown.

First up, Friends lists now show where your friends are playing. This means it will show if they are playing on Xbox One, Windows 10, or mobile. And no, it doesn't show there actually geographically location. Not yet. Each platform will have a distinct icon so you can look at a glance and see what platform your friends are playing on.

There's also improvements to messages. Messages are now "smarter," according to Microsoft. There's now a Message Requests feature that will prioritize messages from friends and members of communities you want to communicate with while separating out messages from people you don't know into a secondary message requests tab. This will mean less clutter in your primary messages and less trash talk from angry opponents.

As part of this update, all previous group messages will be lost and will require manual action to archive. If you want to back up any previous group messages, make sure to copy and paste them from Xbox.com for a limited time. As for messages with individual users, they won't be impacted.

Lastly, there's now better sorting in "My Games & Apps." Articles such as "a," "an," and "the" will no longer be used to sort titles when using the "Sort A-Z" and "Group by letter" sorting options. For example, The Witcher will now be found under "W" not "T."

And that wraps it up for May's update. Unfortunately, Microsoft doesn't tease what's next, but with the Xbox One lifespan winding down, don't expect too many meaty updates to it.

For more news, media, and information on all things Xbox One, be sure to peep all of our previous coverage of the console by clicking right here.