Xbox One SmartGlass: What’s new and what’s different

Xbox SmartGlass turns your smartphone, tablet or laptop into the perfect companion to your Xbox for unique second screen experiences. There are great SmartGlass companions for Xbox 360 today and we’re hearing that you want to know more about the next generation of SmartGlass and Xbox One. We caught up with Xbox Live General Manager Ron Pessner, who leads the engineering team developing the new SmartGlass, to talk about how it unlocks a multitude of activities for Xbox One. Here’s what Ron had to say about the experiences he and his team of engineers and interface and design gurus have built, based on the great feedback from customers.

Xbox Draht: What is SmartGlass?
Ron Pessner: Grundsätzlich, it’s a free downloadable companion application that extends your Xbox game and entertainment experiences to your smart devices. With SmartGlass for Xbox One you can use your phone, laptop or tablet as a remote to easily navigate the web on your console, turn up the volume on your TV, and select a video, music or game to play. SmartGlass is more than just controlling your TV content though. We are working with all of our game and entertainment partners to build really cool experiences that take advantage of the fact that you have smart devices connected to your Xbox One.

XW: How do you get Xbox One SmartGlass?
RP: The free Xbox One SmartGlass app ist separate from the Xbox 360 App. The Xbox One SmartGlass app will be available for download this holiday on Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, iOS- und Android-Geräte.

XW: What can gamers expect from SmartGlass for Xbox One?
RP: SmartGlass is maturing with the evolution of Xbox 360 Xbox One. Xbox One was designed from the ground up with SmartGlass in mind, and an immediately noticeable difference with Xbox One SmartGlass compared to Xbox 360 SmartGlass is the connection speed and performance. On average it only takes about four seconds for SmartGlass to recognize your Xbox One and create an instant connection. Natürlich, this is based on the speed of your wireless connection, but generally SmartGlass is about three-and-a-half times faster on Xbox One than its Xbox 360 Ozeanhorn. And that’s just for your first connection, once you’re synced up, re-connecting will happen even faster.

A core feature that was super important for us is that gamers can use SmartGlass for matchmaking on Xbox One. If you’re in the middle of game on your console, you can begin matchmaking for a multiplayer session through SmartGlass and you won’t interrupt your action on the big screen.

We’ve also expanded the number of devices that you can connect simultaneously to Xbox One. You can now have up to 16 SmartGlass devices working with an Xbox One so there are more people connecting to a game experience—that’s four times as many as Xbox 360. An interesting implementation of this would be playing poker with friends or maybe an MMORPG where there can be lots of hands in the pot. We’re excited to see where developers will take …mehr lesen