Xbox Addict

Xbox Insiders to Get Killer Instinct Tourneys & More This Month

Microsoft has announced that later this month Killer Instinct tournaments and more are coming to Insiders.

Here is a little more about the great new features coming to Arena, as well a look at other features coming to Xbox Insiders in the coming weeks.

Arena on Xbox Live

In addition to World of Tanks on Arena in partnership with ESL, later this month Killer Instinct on Arena is back for select Xbox Insiders! They can discover, register, and play in both official and user-generated tournaments in Clubs across Xbox One and Windows 10. Get notifications when a match is ready, enjoy automatic results reporting, and show off the results on your Activity Feed when you’re done.

Want to create your own Killer Instinct tournament? Starting this month, Club owners and administrators can create and host tournaments in their Clubs. To be able to do this you need to download the Xbox app (beta) on your Windows 10 PC, go to your Club and click on the “Tournaments” tab then select “Create tournament.” Fill out your tournament info and publish your event. Other members of that Club, or guests if they are allowed, on either PC or Xbox One can then discover, join, and play in your tournament.

Party Overlay

Microsoft recently shipped several multitasking features, including the Achievement tracker, to improve the Xbox One gaming experience. With this update, they are adding a new overlay that will tell you who’s speaking in your Party, without having to open the Guide.  

When you are in a Party, go to the Guide to enable the overlay. Just like the Achievement tracker, you can choose where on the screen you want to place the overlay and how transparent it will be. The window will show the Gamertag of the player whenever they speak, and when no one is talking, the window will be invisible. This is particularly useful for Looking for Group and other scenarios where you might not know all the members of your Party.

Fan-Requested Feature Updates

Building on the update Microsoft shipped last month, they continue to improve features based on input from the community, which you can read about below:

• Share your Looking for Group post on the Activity Feed or through a message.

• Unfollow a Club or Game Hub directly from your Activity Feed.

• Your profile will display your Arena tournament history and upcoming tournaments.

• For Beam and Twitch broadcasts, you will now have an option in the Guide for your Kinect to locate you automatically.

• Captive Portal support for wireless internet is coming to Xbox One, which allows for Wi-Fi authentication through a browser. Great for colleges, hotels, or public Wi-Fi locations.

• Filter posts on your Activity Feed on the Xbox app for iOS and Android.

• On the Xbox app for Windows 10, we’re adding the option to select the audio input and output sources for Party chat.

If one thing amazes us here at XBA, it’s the amount of time and effort that the crew at Redmond continues to put in as they improve and refine the Xbox One user experience, and it’s something we think is very overlooked by many users.  It’s great to see them continue to work on improving the experience and we can’t wait to see what they offer next.