With little over a month to go until the Xbox One hits shelves and signals a new generation of gaming, Microsoft has shown off one of the console’s core functions; a simple app called ‘Friends’.
Friends is basically how gamers can connect, communicate and see what one another get up to on the Xbox One. It’s very much like Twitter in that gamers can ‘follow’ other gamers and see a timeline of updates, showing what games are played, what apps are in use and other little changes.
Xbox’s very own Major Nelson posted the Friends walkthrough earlier today, showing off the social side of the Xbox One in a detailed video. Fortunately for those upgrading from 360 to One, the Friends app will automatically transfer over all your existing gaming buddies, provided you use the same Gamertag/Windows Live ID, of course.
Xbox One gamers can have both ‘friends’ and ‘followers’ – the former being capped at 1000 and the latter being unlimited. Friends can of course chat and play games together, whilst the idea of ‘following’ a gamer allows you to see what games they’re playing and view their Game DVR uploads. We can see this feature being pretty popular for those who like to see what the world’s best gamers play like.
Viewing a friend will show you their Friends, Followers, Reputation, Gamerscore and recent activities, as well as the usual options for sending messages, inviting to your party and so on. Gamers even have the ability to ‘Appear offline’, a true throwback to the days of MSN Messenger and one that’ll come in handy when that guy you don’t really know but played a game of Battlefield 4 with once bombards you with party requests.
Finally, your own profile page shows off your Achievements on the Xbox One, Messages, Friends and Followers and access to your Game DVR, which we believe contains your in-game recordings.
The Xbox One lands on November 22nd, so we’ve not long to wait to get some serious time with the next-gen console. Have you pre-ordered yours, or are you team PS4?