The Xbox Series X is releasing on November 10th, 2020, but many early reviewers have already gotten to see the next-gen console for themselves. While the Xbox One sometimes faced criticisms over its UI, the new interface for the Xbox Series X seems like an improvement. With plenty of quality-of-life changes and features built around speed, there's a lot to love about the Xbox Series X's new interface.
An update in August of this year already changed the way the UI looked and functioned on current Xbox consoles, bringing with it some much-needed changes to the way the Activity and Friends feeds work. The update also included some noticeably faster load times that made transitioning between apps and menus much smoother. This is especially important, since the UI of the Xbox One was sometimes criticized for being sluggish and unresponsive.
Now that the Xbox Series X and Series S are about to release, users are able to see how those UI changes work on the next-gen consoles. Early reviews for the consoles are praising the Xbox Series X for its speed, which means the latest interface changes are all incredibly fast. While speed is a big draw for Microsoft's new console, it's not the only way the Xbox Series X's interface improves on the Xbox One's.
How Xbox Series X's Interface Has Improved
Some of the biggest changes revolve around party and chat options. These menu features are more streamlined and showcase the console's growing emphasis on multiplayer experiences. In terms of customizability, there are lots of themes and color options to choose from, meaning users can make their home screens look the way they want.
However, the most noticeable change may be the Xbox Series X's new Quick Resume feature. While the Quick Resume feature is vital for being able to suspend a game and then restart it effortlessly in the same spot, it also allows the UI to run better. This is because the Quick Resume feature basically turns apps and games into tabs on a web browser. Paired with the Xbox Series X's speed, this means transitions are seamless instead of sluggish like the Xbox One's UI. It also makes menu navigation easier, since users can toggle back and forth between various apps, menus, and games.
All of this indicates the Xbox Series X's interface is vastly improved compared to the UI the Xbox One started off with. Whereas the Xbox One's UI was unintuitive and slow, the interface of the Xbox Series X is fast and seamless. It's a welcomed (and much needed) improvement to Microsoft's next-gen console.