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After some time in insider testing on PC, the new Xbox dashboard has been officially unveiled. With a video taking you, very briefly, through some of the new features. This follows the unveiling of the new store, which shares the same curved corner look, a couple of weeks back.
The key improvement is to speed, with the new dashboard loading around 50 per cent faster from boot and around 30 percent faster when coming back from a game. Those figures appear to refer to improvements over the current dashboard, as opposed to the performance on the upcoming Xbox Series X, which will be faster still than current gen machines thanks to its SSD storage.
More importantly possibly is better integration between the console and the new mobile app, which will unify notifications, allow messaging and parties to move across seamlessly, and allow users to share content from games, such as screenshots, easily via their phones.
Coming back to the store improvements from earlier this month. The new store launches twice as fast as before, it’s easier to browse, provides more information on games upfront, has better wishlisting and an improved shopping cart. And of course better and clearer integration of Game Pass into listings. Whether all of that actually improves sales for developers and publishers remains to be seen.
