Microsoft video shows new friends, party features coming to Xbox One

Microsoft announced a few weeks ago that an upcoming firmware update for the Xbox One will offer changes and improvements for the console’s friends and party features. Today, the company released a new video showing what Xbox One owners can expect when the update is released in early March.

The video, posted on YouTube, is narrated by Microsoft’s Xbox Live leader Larry “Major Nelson” Hryb as he chats with Richard Irving, a member of the Xbox One’s engineering team. Irving points out that party chats between players start by default and that it should be easier to find which folks are chatting with Xbox One users versus the ones that are actually playing games. Friends can be invited to either the chat or the game, along with an option for both at the same time.

Users will be able to access the Xbox One friends list faster with the update, the duo said, with the top friends marked as “favorites.” It’s also possible to search for a specific gamertag via the Bing feature.

The video follows Microsoft’s announcement earlier today that the Xbox One Twitch.tv app will get an update in early March to finally allow users to stream their games to others, among additional features.