Xbox One's first major update split in two, launching in February and March

When the first component of Xbox One's spring update
arrives on February 11th, it'll be a few weeks ahead of
the first spring flowers sprouting. Like those flowers,
much of what's contained in the February update is
under the surface: Kinect voice recognition
improvement, tools for developers and "stability and
product updates to improve the customer experience" to
name a few non-specific bulletpoints. What you'll
actually care about is the stuff you'll see, which in this
case is a battery meter for gamepads (visible on the
dashboard) and a reorganized My Games & Apps
section.

That first component is self-explanatory, but the latter
piece requires some detail. First, you can actually see
how much space you've got left on that 500GB HDD --
helpful! Second, the applications are being broken out
from games, and can be more incrementally managed.
"Now you can pick the order in which you want your
content to load and we've added a boot progress
indicator so you can better track updates while they
load," Xbox Chief Product Officer Marc Whitten says
in a blog post detailing the update. Additionally,
February's update adds USB keyboard support. Sure,
why not? There should also be some other bells and
whistles in there, which Microsoft says we'll find out
more about soon (er, uh, before next Tuesday).
Head below for more on the second half of the update,
due in March.

The second piece of seasonal update arrives on March
4th, and it's got a fully revamped party system just in
time for the launch of blockbuster game Titanfall (a
multiplayer-focused experience). What exactly does that
mean? We'll have to wait to find out, as Whitten's only
offering "a new party and multiplayer system" as detail.
And what of promised Twitch.tv streaming ahead of E3
this year? Microsoft's staying mum for now, but we'd be
shocked if it didn't show up in the first major system
update to Xbox One.

Regardless of the spring update, small and continuous
updates to the Xbox One will still occur as time goes
on. Whitten also says we'll hear "many" more
announcements regarding the upcoming update -- here's
hoping next time we find out HBO Go and Spotify are
part of the big spring refresh.

SOURCE: Xbox