Microsoft Teases Xbox One Guide Menu And Performance Tweaks For Creators Update

Little by little, Microsoft has been revealing new things about its upcoming Creators Update for Windows 10, both for PCs and Xbox One. With regards to the latter, Microsoft recently touched on some performance improvements and changes to the Guide menu that will make navigation easier and faster. There is now a video showing the updated Guide menu in action, as demonstrated by Xbox Platform boss Mike Ybarra.

Ybarra offered up a sneak peek of the new menu system during a stream on his Beam channel. He also took a screen capture and posted it to Twitter. If you missed the stream, don't fret—YouTube user Jakosaur posted a clip of Ybarra's quick demonstration of the new Xbox One Guide menu. It is only eight seconds long, but viewers can see how smooth and fast navigation is.


The time it takes for some menus to appear when navigating the Xbox One has been a point of frustration for gamers, one that gets exacerbated when trying to access them in-game. Microsoft is addressing that in the Creators Update, as well as adding some new features. In the short clip above, notice the new recording options that appear when Ybarra presses the menu button with the Guide open.

"Every Xbox One will see an update coming to the Guide that will make it faster to complete common tasks," Microsoft stated in a recent blog post. "Through one press of the Xbox button on your controller, you’ll be able to pull up the newly enhanced Guide as an overlay on the left side of your screen no matter what you’re doing. In addition, we’re rebuilding the most popular multitasking experiences for speed and ease of access. For example, you’ll be able to start recording your GameDVR clips, adjust your recording length, and access your captures directly in the Guide. We’ll also add a new Achievement tracking overlay, Gamerscore Leaderboard, a new Cortana design, and controls for background music, making these features easier to use."

It's good to see Microsoft paying so much attention to gamers. In addition to what it has planned for the Xbox One, Microsoft is adding a Game Mode to Windows 10 PCs that will allocate resources for the best performance possible when playing games. Though it's not enabled yet, the feature was discovered in latest Windows 10 Insider Preview build.