Party chat on Xbox 360 was one of the platform’s biggest selling points over its competition, so you’d think that it would be a slam dunk on the Xbox One, however this is not the case. Microsoft’s new console has been plagued with issues stifling user communication.
The company is aware of what’s going on, but why are things so different on the Xbox One? Recently, the folks at Polygon sat down with Xbox Group Program manager Jeff Henshaw to discuss the new direction of party chat on the Xbox One.
“Chat changed because the system is now able to do more than one thing at once,” Henshaw said. “In the old world when the entire console was basically consumed with exactly one thing — the game that it was running — everything that happened atop of it, like the tiny Xbox guide you used to get when you pushed the Xbox 360 button, or chat, had to be incredibly thin, little layers that basically enabled a tiny bit of functionality while keeping out of the way of the game. And that is just how the last generation of systems were architected, that was state-of-the-art technology at the time.”
Unlike its predecessor, the Xbox One runs three operating systems at the same time. One for gaming, another, that’s Windows 8-based for apps and a third that bridges the gap between the two. Such major changes affect how features like party chat works on the Xbox One.
“We have changed the state-of-the-art of the technology with Xbox One,”said Henshaw. “With Xbox One there is an architecture with both hardware and software resources there to enable us to do multiple things at once. So parties can become more robust things over time. Right now it is a basic collecting point to prepare to go play a game. Basic voice chat, ability to invite people, ability to pick a title along the side and ability to launch everyone into that title for multiplayer play while the party continues to exist.”
Prior to the Xbox One’s launch there was rumor of a Skype fueled party feature that let players take over a friend’s gameplay session remotely. This has yet to be announced by Microsoft, but perhaps this could be part of the company’s vision for the Xbox One.
[Polygon]
