Schlagwort: Community Updates

  • Community Update May 2024 – Movements and Requests

    Community Update May 2024 – Movements and Requests

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Order

    Since this month’s Community Update is on the lighter side with regard to specific projects, we’ve decided to try something a little different. In addition to the usual fare, we’ve included some highlights from our recently released features and bug fixes. Let us know if you enjoy these callouts and we’ll keep them in moving forward!

    Enterprise

    We’re making headway on some continued improvements to the Xbox Insiders subreddit. We’ve had a few internal discussions around content planning and support improvements, so we’re hopeful those will bear fruit soon. Granted, there’s still much to be done to truly get things where we’d like, but we’ve really appreciated all the continued feedback and discussions around the changes so far. Keep ‘em coming!

    State of Gold

    We’ve seen quite a few different features land across our entire ecosystem in the past couple of weeks. On the console side of things, we enabled the ability to remember up to ten different WiFi Networks for all Alpha & Alpha Skip-Ahead users (Alpha Ring (2406.240429-2000)). Additionally, just yesterday, Alpha users received “Update Pre-download” for games that have enabled that feature (Alpha Ring (2406.240509-2000)).

    Over in the PC/Cloud realm, we had a big update to Compact Mode go live to all PC Xbox Insiders that included a handful of new experiences (Compact Mode continues evolving in the Xbox App on PC). We also enabled a suite of “User Content Management” features for Xbox Cloud Gaming (Beta) that all Xbox Insiders can enjoy (Xbox App [2405.1000.39.0]).

    These are just a few of the numerous improvements we’ve made across our platforms recently, so remember to regularly check our Console and PC release notes at their new home! Also, if you’re thinking to yourself, “These are mostly going to Alpha/Alpha Skip-Ahead! I can’t get them yet!” I may or may not have good news coming soon for those of you that are recently highly experienced and want to join those rings.

    Integral

    Finally, we want to call attention to a few Community-driven fixes that were made possible specifically due to the efforts of Xbox Insiders’ feedback. For both a notification issue, as well as a party chat/game chat issue, the feedback that was submitted was instrumental in determining the root cause and delivering a fix for the platform. We greatly appreciate all the feedback that we receive from our Xbox Insiders, and we’ll continue to highlight this in future Community Updates.

    It’s Been a Pleasure

    As always, I hope everyone enjoyed this installment of the Xbox Insider Program Community Update. If you want to chat about this—and everything else XIP—hop on over to the r/XboxInsiders subreddit or throw us a follow @xboxinsider.

    Website: LINK

  • Community Update April 2024 – Seeking Updates of the Morning

    Community Update April 2024 – Seeking Updates of the Morning

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    The Fire Dawn

    Welcome back to another monthly Community Update. Thankfully, this year’s April 1st landed on Monday, so you can rest assured knowing everything below isn’t an elaborate ruse. (But watch out for next year!) We have a couple of updates, as well as a new development we think will excite everyone; so, let’s dive in!

    The Finisher

    We’re happy to confirm that we are in the final stages of two different projects. This month should see the formal transition of release notes away from the Xbox Wire to their new home on the Xbox Support website! This has been a tremendous undertaking so that all Xbox users can find their updates in one central location. There will be a larger article forthcoming that outlines all of the changes along with links/hubs for this new setup. This change will also enable some of the future content we’re planning for this blog, so stay tuned!

    The other conclusion we’re reaching this month is our “Get To Know The Team” articles. There are around a half dozen of these still to come, so expect those to come out throughout the rest of the month. It’s been a lot of fun getting to share more about the team, so we hope that everyone has enjoyed these chats with the Xbox Insider Team. (Yesterday’s was particularly fun to write. 😊)

    The Pitch

    Now, for an announcement of sorts. Over the past few months, we’ve been working in close partnership with the wonderful team over at Sumo Leamington on their preview for Stampede: Racing Royale, which launched late last week. If you haven’t seen it yet check this out!

    In the near future, we’ll be hosting the first ever “community/developer plays” event exclusively for Xbox Insiders. Hop into the kart-battling mayhem of Stampede: Racing Royale and challenge the developers themselves to become the ultimate champion! More details about this event will be shared on socials for Xbox Insider and Stampede: Racing Royale. See ya there!

    The Summit

    One other community initiative we’ll be doing this month is over on the Xbox Insiders subreddit. There was a great thread last week that a lot of our community members were passionate about, so we’re following that up starting today with a “Community Talk Back” thread to discuss the topic in greater detail. Stop on by and share your thoughts with the team!

    The Rise

    And that’s it for April! We still have projects in various states of progress (baking, simmering, heating; we like our cooking analogies), but nothing quite ready to share further.

    As always, I hope everyone enjoyed this installment of the Xbox Insider Program Community Update. If you want to chat about this—and everything else XIP—hop on over to the r/XboxInsiders subreddit or throw us a follow @xboxinsider.

    Website: LINK

  • Community Update March 2024 – Challenging Depths

    Community Update March 2024 – Challenging Depths

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Welcome to the Show

    We’re back with another Community Update to give you the rundown on everything you can expect this month. It’s a little less action-packed than we initially anticipated, but we still have a few updates to offer in this trying time.

    The Start of Something New

    Xbox Insiders who are on top of their Weekly Pulse Surveys may have noticed something a little different with this week’s question. For the month of March, we’re going to branch out from our traditional platform inquiries to learn a little more about our community. Specifically, we want to know what everyone’s ultimate pizza looks like.

    A different facet of pizza creation (crust, toppings, sauce, etc.) will be included in each week’s Pulse Survey throughout the entire month. Once all the results have been tabulated from the surveys, we’ll use that “recipe” to create an Xbox Insider Pie for the Xbox Insider Program. The team will then give their reviews on the ‘za and see how our tastes line up with the community.

    Is this an overly complicated way to throw a pizza party for the team? Or is it a test to see if the community will force us to eat a truly revolting, abomination of a pizza? To that I reply, “¿Por qué no los dos?”

    Immersive

    Despite a small delay toward the end of February, the train is still rolling for the “Get To Know Our Team” articles. Expect the remainder of these interviews to drop sporadically during March as we wind down the 10th Anniversary Celebrations. I’m excited for everyone to keep meeting the rest of the team, and some of my favorite stories are still upcoming!

    Additionally, the Release Notes’ migration to their new home is fully underway. The preparations are coming along smoothly, and the team is getting prepared for an official launch soon. In the near future, we’ll post a more detailed explainer on the changes, as well as where to access Release Notes.

    Famous Last Words

    Since starting these Community Update posts, a few different projects have been teased throughout. There’s been some chatter regarding the status of said projects, so we wanted to give a quick update just to say everything is still being worked on. We’re striving to provide more transparency into our processes, but that also means we might get a little ahead of ourselves sometimes. Hopefully, we’ll have more concrete plans to share soon.

    That’s the Hi-Fi

    Another month of Xbox Insider is now underway. It’s our first month as a newly minted “double digit” lasting enterprise and we’re more energized than ever. The journey has been great so far, but it’s just getting started!

    As always, I hope everyone enjoyed this installment of the Xbox Insider Program Community Update. If you want to chat about this—and everything else XIP—hop on over to the r/XboxInsiders subreddit or throw us a follow @xboxinsider.

    Website: LINK

  • Community Update February 2024 – 10th Anniversary Celebrations

    Community Update February 2024 – 10th Anniversary Celebrations

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    Overview

    This month’s Community Update will be short and sweet like those little candy hearts you got in elementary school. (Yes, we can hold hands. Thank you for asking.) We have TON of content still to come this month, but we wanted to highlight a few things here for everyone’s benefit.

    As History Would Have It

    This month marks the official 10th Anniversary of the Xbox Insider Program. You can actually still read the announcement article from February 20th, 2014 right here (Program Announcement). Then called the Xbox Preview Program, we’ve since evolved from an invite-only, platform-focused enterprise, into an open way for users across the world to deliver their feedback for console, features, PC, mobile, and games alike. The Xbox Insider Program, which we christened on the Wire back in 2016 (Program Rebrand), has flourished this past decade and that’s in an incredibly large part due to the millions of Xbox fans from our community (that’s y’all!). So, from everyone here at Xbox Insider, we want to give an enormous thank you for everyone who has contributed over the years.

    We also want to recognize and uplift all the people behind the scenes who work to make this Program a success. That’s why we’re doing a set of interview style articles for everyone currently working on the team, as well as a longer, more in-depth look at the entire history of Xbox Insider later in the month. We launched our first interview last Thursday, which you can check out here (Meet Joshua!), and our next interview will be out tomorrow!

    Re-Entry

    We’ve teased this a few times, but we’re making it official today. Over the next several weeks, you’ll see that Xbox Insider Release Notes will have a new home on the Xbox Support website! We’ve been working behind the scenes on this migration for a while, and we’re super excited to share our new home with other Xbox support content. This move is happening for a few reasons. We wanted to have a more static location where Xbox Insiders can find the newest updates (each Ring will have its own page now!), and we also wanted to free up our blogspace on the Wire to be able to deliver new—and improved—content. We’ve been working to realize some really cool content for the Wire, so look out for more in the future!

    As We Look On

    We hope everyone has enjoyed the brief look into the start of our content slate for February. There’s still plenty more to come, and we anticipate quite a few “firsts” to be headlining this blog in the coming weeks/months.

    As always, I hope everyone enjoyed this installment of the Xbox Insider Program Community Update. If you want to chat about this—and everything else XIP—hop on over to the r/XboxInsiders subreddit or throw us a follow @xboxinsider.

    Website: LINK

  • Community Update January 2024 – First Month Accounts

    Community Update January 2024 – First Month Accounts

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Passages

    I hope this Community Update finds you as well as all those emails, meeting invites, and “let’s start the year strong” messages you marked all as read have in your Inbox. We’re only a week into 2024 and so much has happened already. We saw a real-life “Getting Over It” cosplay at a New Year’s party, the Internet™ collectively decided that Leon Kennedy would absolutely smoke Joel, and these are the streets I grew up in.

    Over here at Xbox Insider HQ, we’ve also been busy chasing the hamsters back on their wheels (read: we are the hamsters) and getting back into the swing of things. It’s going to be a bit of a lighter January before we really kick it into high gear for the 10th Anniversary in February. So, let’s take a look at some of what we’ve been working on:

    Connections

    You might have noticed some changes to the layout, design, and overall look/feel of our lovely Xbox Wire pages over the last few months. As part of our strategy shift, we’ve been looking at different ways we can utilize the space we have here on the Xbox Wire and we think this redesign (as well as more interesting changes coming soon™!) is a great way to kick things off.

    We’ve also been working to make our current content even better. It turns out, our resident Release Notes Virtuoso, Joshua, never got off his wheel. In fact, he’s been secretly whipping up some improvements and updates to Release Notes across all categories. We think you’ll agree these changes will make getting details on new builds easier and faster than ever!

    Why Becomes How

    I know, I know. Another one for the collage. I had hoped I wouldn’t have to use this joke for a while, but it’s taking longer than we initially thought for this process to happen. Apologies for this continued delay. I’ll take this one firmly on the chin though. I didn’t foresee the additional investments we’re now making, but I’m glad we’re making them nonetheless!

    Full Tilt

    That being said, we’re actually sprinting ahead with some of our other initiatives, specifically those tied to the 10th Anniversary. One thing I’m excited to share is that we’ll be publishing an absolute glut of content in February to the Xbox Wire. Interviews from past, present, (and future?!) Xbox Insider team members, an oral history of the program, and more will all be coming out to celebrate ten years of wonderful Xbox Insider Program accomplishments and highlights. This is something we’re super stoked about and we can’t wait for everyone to learn more.

    Bright Future

    We’ve also been working under the proverbial hood on a few items that aren’t quite ready to be fully revealed yet. These items are being worked on “in-house” within XIP, and I think it’s some of the coolest stuff we have cooking. We’ll be talking more about this in February, so stay tuned! In the meantime, please enjoy an updated/modified content roadmap.

    As always, I hope everyone enjoyed this installment of the Xbox Insider Program Community Update. If you want to chat about this—and everything else XIP—hop on over to the r/XboxInsiders subreddit or throw us a follow @xboxinsider.

    Website: LINK

  • Community Update December 2023 – Virtually Optimized Month

    Community Update December 2023 – Virtually Optimized Month

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    Winter Is Coming Soon

    The chill of winter’s grasp is fast approaching those of us north of Earth’s hula hoop, and it’s times like these I look back fondly on my sojourn at our Fargo Campus. The days are short, the snow is freshly powdered, and it hasn’t yet gotten so cold that your eyelashes freeze over walking to your car. (A completely foreign phenomenon having grown up in a climate where all four seasons can happen in a single day.)

    Much like Fargo itself, things are slowing down around the office as everyone prepares for the upcoming holiday season. This means December’s update is a little on the light side, but we did want to keep everyone informed on a few things as we close out 2023.

    All Things Set Aside

    The big news this month is that, as with previous years, all new game and update flighting across Xbox Insider platforms will be temporarily paused sometime during the week of December 15th. This will continue through the end of year and into January to ensure that everyone is able to have reliable and enjoyable gaming experiences throughout the holidays. (Plus, it eases the load on a smaller contingent of engineers.) But worry not dear reader! Our teams will still be working on next year’s improvements, features, and content throughout this period, as well as having resources available to make sure any issues that may arise don’t impact this heavy season of gaming.

    The other main topic this month is a small revision to our planned decommissioning of Feature Fridays on the subreddit. The plan is still moving forward; however, the timeline might go beyond my initial projection for end of year. I want to ensure this change is something that will be a net positive for the community and not simply changing for change’s sake. As such, my research / proposals have gone a tad longer than anticipated for finding the next platform. Included in this was some great feedback from the subreddit, so please keep sharing your thoughts, opinions, and critiques!

    [re]connect

    Speaking of sharing your thoughts, since things will be a little quieter than normal this month, I wanted to do something fun with Xbox Insiders. So next week, on Tuesday, December 12th, we’ll be hosting an AMA* on the subreddit. It’ll mostly be me answering questions, but other members of the team might stop by and pop their heads in as well. *Disclaimer: “Anything” in this context doesn’t include items we aren’t able to discuss publicly. (inb4whenTESVI)

    All Eyes Look Ahead

    As I said at the top, this is a shorter update as we’re still working fastidiously toward the big 10-year anniversary celebration in February of next year. There’s still a ton of work to be done, and I’ll actually be spending the next few weeks building my presentation for the team to start the new year. What does everyone think of my title slide? 😎

    I hope everyone enjoys this issue of XIP Community Update, and has a wonderful month ahead. If you haven’t already, drop us a follow @xboxinsider or head over to our official subreddit r/XboxInsiders.

    Website: LINK