Xbox One console and Xbox Beta app receiving updates this month

Last week we saw the first Windows Insider update for Windows 10 released to testers and now the Xbox division is revealing details about their first preview program update that is expected this month.

Similar to the Windows Insider program for desktops, laptops, tablets and phones, the Xbox One Preview program ships updated console OS builds to testers for evaluation and bug reporting. Those updates usually ship to all consoles the following month in a routine update.

Consider it Windows as a Service but on your Xbox One console.

After the long holiday weekend here in the US, we are now seeing news from the Redmond company in several areas and Xbox Live's Major Nelson, aka Larry Hryb, has taken to his blog to share details of what the first Xbox One console update of 2016 contains.

This update will return a couple of very popular features that were not initially included in the first Windows 10 build of the consoles OS.

Here is a quick summary of those new and returning features:

- Ability to see who is in a Party session

- Gamerscore Leaderboard

- Ability to re-arrange pins on the Home screen and to have them accessible when offline

- Alerts when new items appear in your Activity Feed

- Easier to join a friends Twitch broadcast of a game through Preview, Game Hub and the Game Tile

- Improved Suggested Friends listing

- Hide games from the ready-to-install list that you may have tested, trialed or used as beta

Along with these console based updates there are new features coming to the Xbox Beta app.  Just like the Xbox One Preview, the Xbox Beta app gets new features for testing before the get rolled out to the standard Xbox app.

Thew new features for the Xbox Beta app include:

- Avatar Store

- Xbox News

- Improvements to Trending items across console, PC and phones

- Suggested friends

- Compact Mode

Final tidbit of info about Xbox in 2015 - Microsoft received over 6.5 million votes on Xbox related feedback. 

But, wait...there's probably more so be sure to follow me on Twitter and Google+.