14 DAY TRIAL // The team working on the Xbox One home console at Microsoft says that many of the features that were initially associated with the next-gen consoles are still being explored, despite the fact that the company has not talked about them officially since 2013.
Speaking in a Gamertag Radio podcast, Phil Spencer, the leader of the division dealing with the gaming platform, says that developers are constantly looking for ways to improve the long-term user experience.
He states, “We looked at the digital features that we had talked about last year and as a gamer, there were a lot of those features that I think really resonated and were smart features for people who really have a lot of games and maybe play on a couple consoles or have bunch of people in the house or want to share with friends.”
All of the ideas are still on the roadmap for firmware updates for the Xbox One, but it’s unclear when they might actually be released.
Spencer says that the problem at the moment is that game disks features Digital Rights Management solutions and they need to be removed or bypassed in order for a family sharing feature to work properly.
The leader of the Xbox One division also says that an intermediate solution might be to create a way to share games that are offered via digital distribution on the platform, but that would involve long negotiations with publishers.
Phil Spencer also wants the Microsoft home console to have a pre-loading feature at some point, in order to mirror capabilities that Sony has recently introduced for the rival PlayStation 4.
The company is at the moment delivering monthly firmware updates for the platform, but it’s unclear for how long they can maintain that rhythm.
The Xbox One dropped the Kinect motion tracking system from the core retail package in early June and the price of the device was reduced to 399 dollars or Euro.
The move was designed to make the platform more attractive for players and Microsoft is expecting to see a solid sales boost for the month of June overall, which should be reflected in hardware charts that will be published around July 15.
Microsoft says that a standalone Kinect will be offered in the fall and has pledged that it will continue to listen to gamers and upgrade its Xbox One in order to meet their demands.