Xbox One April Update: better party chat, voice messages coming to preview

Hot on the heels of Sony‘s PS4 Yukimura update this week, Microsoft Xbox has launched a preview video of what to expect from the April Xbox One system update.

Read more: PS4 ‘Yukimura’ update brings social, UI and practical improvements

There are three major updates arriving to the Xbox One experience that focus primarily on the social side of the gaming experience.

Firstly, Microsoft has announced that it will now offer dedicated servers for Party Chat, as Xbox head Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb explains in his blog:

Parties where players are unable to form direct peer-to-peer connections for party chat will automatically leverage dedicated server infrastructure to relay traffic. This service is only enabled for parties where one or more members are previewing the April system update.

This essentially allows users who experience issues with changing their NAT to bypass this, and will make Party Chat more reliable.

Secondly, friends will now be able to send one another voice notes on the Xbox One, which is quite a nifty feature.

Double tapping the Xbox button on the controller inside the messages app will allow the user to blurt out a few ideas without the need to actually type out the entire message. Nifty.

Lastly, there’s also an update coming to the What’s On area, which will showcase more interesting “popular videos, movies, TV shows and game broadcasts,” notes Hyrb. This preview will also be available beyond US borders, in Canada and the UK.

Of course, if you need a more substantial wrap up of the updates coming to preview users later today, have a look at the video below.