As Xbox Insiders, your feedback helps inform the decisions and updates we make on Xbox. Everything from brand new features to refinements to how gamers interact with the console itself are born within the Insider program. Based on your valuable feedback, we’ve been continuing to iterate on the following experiences and will be delivering them to select Insider audiences in the 2004 system update.

Simplified Guide Layout

The Guide is the heart of navigation on Xbox One, and we want to deliver an experience that makes it easier to find the features you need during gameplay.

With this week’s update, we’re experimenting with a streamlined user interface incorporating the following changes:

The new default tab order opens Guide with tabs in a left-to-right configuration, the order of which can continue to be customized from the “Profile & system” tab.

Party, messaging, and invites have been combined in the new “Parties & chats” tab, providing one single location to communicate with other players.

Settings, audio, and power options are now located in the “Profile & system” tab on the left side of Guide, as identified by your gamerpic.

Looking for Group can be found in the “People” tab next to the “Find someone” option.

App & system notifications are now grouped under the bell icon with other alerts.

The new, customizable tab order opens Guide in a left-to-right configuration.

Party, messaging, and invites combined in the new “Parties & chats” tab.

Settings, audio, and power options in the “Profile & system” tab on the left side of Guide.

We need your help with the new Simplified Guide! The new Guide began rolling out to Xbox Insiders earlier in the month to Xbox Insiders, with more groups receiving the feature in the coming weeks. Keep an eye on the Xbox Insiders section of Xbox Wire for future updates on the rollout.

The Home experience will continue to evolve and change based on your feedback, so please let us know what you think by joining the discussion on the Xbox Insiders subreddit! You may see this layout change and even come and go as we iterate on your feedback.

My Games and Apps Updates

With the 2004 update, we’re bringing you more ways to explore and manage your games faster! We moved the Storage Management page into My games & apps and gave it a small visual update.

We also brought back the popular “Surprise me!” button that we experimented with over the holidays. For the times when you’re not quite sure what to play next, “Surprise me!” will suggest a random game in your library that meets your selected filter criteria. The button is located in the upper-right corner of My Games & Apps and can also be found by pressing the Menu button on your controller while hovering over the title of a Group.

“Surprise me!” suggests a random game from your library to play.

Even more Mixer Viewing Improvements

We’ve once again made improvements to your Mixer viewing experience on Xbox One! You can now see emotes and subscriber badges in chat, while your Ember messages will also get the flare they deserve, with special styling to help them stand out.

Additionally, we’ve made it easier to access stream settings (for selecting chat layout or video quality) with just one press of the Menu button on your controller. Beyond these changes, we’ve also made a handful of quality-of-life fixes, such as improving the UX on channels that are Hosting another stream and loading chat history when viewing a stream with the classic chat layout.

Emotes and subscriber badges are now present in Mixer chat.

As a reminder, a subset of users may also see additional features that are not listed here. These features are only enabled for a portion of the Xbox Insider audience to gauge interest and collect feedback. Your participation in the Xbox Insider Program helps us improve the work-in-progress content and features coming to Xbox!

Thank you to all Xbox Insiders who are actively helping to shape the Xbox experience. These 2004 updates are possible due to the valuable feedback we receive as part of the program!

If you’d like to help create the future of Xbox and get access to early features, download the Xbox Insider Hub on your Xbox One or Windows 10 PC today. You may also visit the Xbox Insider Blog for the latest release notes or join the Xbox Insiders subreddit to submit feedback and join the discussion. We host a weekly refreshed thread (Xbox Requests) for all gaming ideas and feature requests.

Let us know what you think – we’re always listening!