Xbox One’s Dashboard Finally Won’t Be So Terrible To Use Soon

With some money to burn a couple of months back, I decided to get my hands on an Xbox One S.

In the time since, I’ve played plenty of great games and enjoyed the overall experience. What I will say, though, is that in the two months since I adopted Microsoft’s home entertainment box, I am no better at navigating its pretty poor dashboard.

Luckily, salvation is at hand. Xbox Platform Engineer Mike Ybarra recently spoke in a post about big changes to the system.

“Every Xbox One will see an update coming to the Guide that will make it faster to complete common tasks. Through one press of the Xbox button on your controller, you’ll be able to pull up the newly enhanced Guide as an overlay on the left side of your screen no matter what you’re doing. In addition, we’re rebuilding the most popular multitasking experiences for speed and ease of access. For example, you’ll be able to start recording your GameDVR clips, adjust your recording length, and access your captures directly in the Guide. We’ll also add a new Achievement tracking overlay, Gamerscore Leaderboard, a new Cortana design, and controls for background music, making these features easier to use.”

While this doesn’t mean a wholesale overhaul, it looks like taking out some of the confusion the Xbox One’s jumbled interface provides. Mainly designed to fall in line with the “benefits” of Kinect, it’s pretty myopic and antiquated, but worst of all, doesn’t seem that catered towards helping you do one simple thing: play games.

There’s no way to know exactly what it will look like or even when the update will happen, however. Early 2017 seems like a safe bet, so until that time comes, you will be able to find me struggling to launch Stardew Valley and instead somehow within the Wuaki app, deeply confused about what it even is.

READ MORE: Xbox One Games with HDR Support: The Full List