Xbox Holiday Update begins rolling out today

Microsoft is officially rolling out their feature-packed Xbox Holiday Update to both Xbox One consoles and the Xbox app for various devices.

The new update amplifies the platform’s social capabilities with a convenient Looking for Group features, Clubs, Gamerscore Leaderboards, Xbox Live Group Messaging, a more detailed Achievement display and emojis!

There is a little bad news though, the Arenas feature will remain in preview while the developers continue to refine the tournament creation and management experience.

See the announcement below along with a walkthrough from Microsoft.

Xbox Holiday Update Walkthrough:
[youtube_sc url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vpf2OhGKb4″]

Read on.

Today, we?re thrilled to announce Clubs, Looking for Group, Achievement Rarity, Group Messaging and more will start to roll out to the broader community on Xbox One and the Xbox app on Windows 10, iOS, and Android devices. With this holiday update, Xbox Live becomes even more social as we unite gamers across devices, giving you access to more people to play with that share your interests and more choice in how you play. The update also builds upon our vision to foster a welcoming experience on Xbox Live where everyone is included, respected, and supported. The updates start to hit Xbox One consoles and the Xbox app starting today. Haven?t downloaded or used the Xbox app yet? Windows 10 PC and mobile owners, just look in your apps. Android owners get it here; iOS owners get it here.

These new features have been in Preview alongside Arena on Xbox Live. We plan to keep Arena in Preview through the holidays to ensure it?s great when we launch it more broadly. Big thanks to Preview members that have competed in daily Killer Instinct tournaments over the past few weeks ? we?ve gotten great feedback. We?re excited about the potential of Arena, and continuing to work with developers to deliver a great experience for our fans. We?ll have more to share as we expand the feature and get closer to its launch.

Here are details about some of the top new features rolling out to Xbox Live on Xbox One and the Xbox app starting today:

• Clubs on Xbox Live. Clubs are gamer-created and managed groups that can help you meet people and grow communities of gamers who love the same things you do. Anyone can join or create a Club, and you?ll probably see a Club for just about everything. If you do not, creating a Club is quick and easy. As a Club member, you?ll be able to set up parties, play games, share content, and easily communicate using voice and text chat with the Club across Xbox One and the Xbox app on Windows 10, iOS, and Android devices, which is great if you want to stay in touch with your Clubs on the go, or find and join new Clubs from your phone. You can search for Clubs (or create your own) in the Community tab on Xbox One and the Clubs section on other devices, and Clubs associated with a game will be accessible in the title?s Game Hub. As a Club admin, you?ll have the tools to ensure that everyone is having a great time and help create a lively and inclusive environment. In case you missed it, check out our tutorial video on Clubs here.

• Looking for Group on Xbox Live. Looking for Group (LFG) helps you quickly find other players that you want to game with. It?s like posting a gaming ?want-ad? to the Xbox community. You can use LFG to help complete daily quests, Achievement hunt, or even get a group together to annihilate hordes of the Swarm and DeeBees in Gears of War 4. You?ll be able to add certain requirements to make sure that you?re finding the right gamers. You can specify the game, the game mode, the language the party will be speaking, how many people you need, rules like no trash talking or casual friendly, and any other in-game requirements like level, gear or character type. Here?s how LFG works: gamers can browse open LFGs and request to join the ones that they?re interested in. The LFG host chooses from the list of gamers who have expressed interest and, once the group is full or the host is ready, the host can quickly get those people into Party Chat and start playing. You can even create an LFG post for future gaming sessions up to seven days in advance! For example, if you?re on your way home and want to make the most of your gaming for the night, you can set up everything in advance from your phone, so when you?re home and ready to go, you can just jump right in. Quick and easy. Whether you?re playing on Xbox One or Windows 10 PC, you can quickly find other gamers to play with on Xbox Live. Check out our LFG tutorial video on LFG here.

• Achievement Rarity. Achievement Rarity, a top fan request on Xbox Feedback, helps you discover just how unique an Achievement is among players of a given game. When you earn a rare Achievement, you?ll get a special notification and diamond icon highlighting it. Unlock one today and let us know how you like the new animation!

• Group Messaging on Xbox Live: Group Messaging helps you coordinate and keep in touch with your friends and fellow gamers by sending a single group message to everyone in a single conversation. You can also add people to the group and dynamically change the conversation topic. Group Messaging works across Xbox One and the Xbox app on Windows 10, iOS, and Android devices. To help you write your messages even faster on Xbox One, we have added a new predictive dictionary which you can quick access with the right thumb stick on your controller.

• Gamerscore Leaderboard. We?ve improved the Gamerscore Leaderboard on Xbox One and the Xbox app on Windows 10 devices. The Leaderboard now resets at the beginning of each month instead of displaying results for a 30-day rolling period, meaning you and your friends will have a clean slate to compete against one another at the start of each month! You can keep an eye on the Gamerscore Leaderboard through the Achievements tab in your profile.

• Emojis for your Xbox One virtual keyboard. Emojis will be joining your virtual keyboard on Xbox One! In addition to the existing alphabet and symbols that you can use, you?ll now be able to express your likes, dislikes and more with a host of different emojis on Xbox Live. Once on your virtual keyboard, you can get to emojis by pulling the left trigger until they show up. From there, select any emoji, or press and hold on one to see more related emoji.

The team has worked tirelessly to bring these features to Xbox Live ? we hope you enjoy them! Be sure to let us know what you think at Xbox feedback! And don?t forget, Clubs and LFG are great for gamers on the go. Set up or respond to LFG posts and stay connected with your Clubs with the Xbox app on Windows 10, iOS, and Android devices.