Xbox One March 2015 System Update is Now Available: Here’s What’s New

This month’s Xbox One system update is now available, so fire up your console and get updated. Here’s a peek at the new features you can expect this month, including a long-awaited screenshot capture capability.

“This month’s system update on Xbox One brings you some of the most-requested features by our fans including screenshots and improved tile transparency,” an Xbox Wire posts notes. “We heard great things from members of the Xbox One preview program following their sneak preview and are excited to bring these great new features to everyone on Xbox One today.”

Here’s what you can do now on Xbox One.

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — and get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift!

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Take a screenshot

This is the big one, and I had been using an external capture device—a Hauppauge HD PVR 2 Gaming Edition, if you’re curious; it’s excellent—for taking screenshots (and recording game video). There are two ways to capture a screenshot. If you have a Kinect, as I do, just say “Xbox, take a screenshot.” Or, you can double-tap the Xbox button on your controller to bring up the new mini-menu and then tap [Y] to take the shot.

screenshot

Manage your screenshots in Upload Center

Upload Center has likewise been updated so that it now manages both videos and screenshots. And among the new features is the ability to set a screenshot as you Dashboard background: Just go into My Captures, select the screenshot you wish to use, and then press the Menu button on your controller and select Set as Background.

set-bg

Configure Dashboard tile transparency

Previously, you could configure the tiles on the Xbox One Dashboard to be transparent, but now you can choose between four levels: Solid, Mostly Solid, Partly Transparent, and Mostly Transparent. You can find this UI in Settings, My Xbox, Tile Transparency. Here’s how my Dashboard looks with the tiles set to Partly Transparent. Frankly, it’s kind of subtle.

transparent

Find suggested friends

If you navigate into the Friends interface, you’ll see a new Suggested Friends entry. This UI suggests people you might add to your friends list. My own list appears to be constructed only from those who are following me on Xbox Live, but Microsoft says that you will see Xbox “VIPs” in there as well.

suggeested

Share your real name

Most people have the type of Gamertag you’d see in a match at the local bowling alley, but a new feature will let you share your real name too, if you’d like. (This doesn’t impact me, personally: my Gamertag is Paul Thurrott. I’ve been a fan of real names since day one.) You can choose to share your real name with all of your friends, select friends or with everyone on Xbox Live. To do so, visit Friends, Profile, and then Name Sharing Settings. (I updated mine to share my real name with everyone on Xbox because it doesn’t really change anything.)

name

There’s a lot more of course. But you can find the full list of improvements in my previous article Microsoft Previews Improvements Coming in the March 2015 Xbox One System Update. And don’t forget that if you’re not seeing the update yet, you can manually trigger it by visiting Settings, System.

updating

Share post

Please check our Community Guidelines before commenting

Conversation

There are no conversations

Windows Intelligence In Your Inbox

Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday

"*" indicates required fields

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Thurrott © 2024 Thurrott LLC