Xbox One Will Get Background Music During Summer, More Updates Planned

[LoneRanger]

The team at Microsoft that's working on the future of the Xbox One is announcing that it plans to introduce a range of new features to the home console before the end of the year, with custom background music for the menus set to be added at some point during the summer season.

The information comes from the official Twitter account of Phil Spencer, who leads the gaming division, and he says that his colleagues are constantly exploring the feedback coming from the fan community to see how they can enhance the functionality of the platform.

The executive has responded to Snoop Dog's outrage over the recent Xbox Live outage, saying that he understands how important fans are for the future of the Xbox One and that a solid relationship with them is an investment and requires constant work.

According to Phil Spencer, Quantum Break is at the moment in fully playable state, and the team at Remedy working on it needs to put the finishing touches on the experience before actually putting the game on discs.

Recently, Microsoft has also teased an improved party feature for the Xbox One, which is supposed to be introduced in the firmware update that will arrive during February and might also include other new functionality.

The January patch for the home console has not introduced any new features, delivering only unspecified fixes to problems that the community has recently flagged for Microsoft.

The Xbox One is lagging in the sales department

The most recent figures from the NPD Group are showing that the PlayStation 4 attracted more buyers during the month of December 2015 in the United States and is also leading the Xbox One for the rest of the year.

Microsoft has recently announced that it is offering two new bundles to make its platform more interesting, one featuring Rainbow Six Siege from Ubisoft and the other that allows players to choose from Rare Replay, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Gears of War: Ultimate, and Forza 6 Motorsport.

The company is also maintaining that it has no plans to introduce a price cut for the Xbox One during the year, although more packages with free games might be launched.

Rumors are also talking about a lightweight version of the console, which might be revealed and launched in the summer, with a lower price and the ability to only use content downloaded from the Xbox Store.

Finally, Microsoft aims to deliver more firmware updates in the coming months to improve features and to continue the integration with the Windows 10 ecosystem that started with the launch of the New Xbox One Experience in the fall of last year.

Meanwhile, Sony goes on to secure exclusive content for the PlayStation 4, recently announcing that gamers who get LEGO Marvel's Avengers will have access to an extra 20 characters linked to both Ant-Man and Captain America: Civil War.

Competition between the two home consoles seems to be good for the industry as their combined sales are much higher than those of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 at the same moment in their lifecycle.