Xbox Insider Program Community Update – October 2024 Spooky Edition

Hello insiders! Happy Halloween to everyone who celebrates. The team is currently hard at work preparing the next releases and game previews (and isn’t playing Black Ops 6 at all between meetings).

It’s been a while since we posted one of these. We wanted to reach out to update you on the program and celebrate some of the things Team Xbox and the Insider Program have been doing. As always, a big thank you to everyone who has participated in the Xbox Insider Program over the years. We have a big list of things we need to go through.

‘Freaky’ Feature Friday

There’s one elephant in the room that I wanted to address first: the “Feature Friday” plans for the subreddit that were announced a while ago. We haven’t forgotten our commitment to greater transparency and sharing more detailed information about our process, and Feature Friday is part of that.

First we read everything that is posted. We’re here to support your feedback and help make the Xbox community the best it can be. If we can’t do this in a way that the community feels heard, something needs to change. The team is currently having further discussions internally about some specific options. I don’t have anything more to share today, but I thought it was important to let you know that this is still on our minds.

In scarier news, here are some of them frightening Highlights of our operations team:

Game Preview “Failed to Start Loading” – Tim W.

Everyone loves playtests where you can preview new games or updates. We’ve had some great games over the last few months including 33 Immortals, Starbound, Rhythm Towers, Off the Grid, FragPunk and The First Berserker Khazan. We look forward to any participation and your feedback! We continue to work with various developers to bring you more playtests. So keep an eye out for new previews and announcements in the Xbox Insider Hub app. The Rhythm Towers preview is still available to participate. So give it a try if you haven’t already.

If you launch the Xbox Insider Hub and don’t see the game you expect, it may be because we’ve reached the user limit for this preview. Sometimes the developer only wants to target certain regions or requires you to log in to their website. There are many reasons why you may not see a preview. Although we try to provide details about preview eligibility in our posts, we always recommend that you use the Report a Problem feature if you think there is a problem.

Console “Installs in the middle of your ranked match” OS – Joshua C

The last few months have been marked by more than 100 updates in the Xbox Update Preview rings! Together we’ve seen major updates to the friend and follower experience and quality of life improvements, such as: B. the ability to select specific components before starting to install a game. Great accessibility features have also been released, such as: Such as the shift key and the ability to map buttons to thumbstick directions, as well as improvements to custom images for backgrounds and player images. From the smallest changes to the biggest features, Xbox Insiders are always the first to experience the latest and greatest we have to offer.

Of course, we’ve uncovered a number of issues over the last few months, and the feedback you’ve submitted using Report a Problem has, as always, been invaluable. Your continued diligence in providing feedback has played a role in many recently resolved issues, including text-to-speech and magnifier fixes, unexpected game map navigation, and significant improvements to game clip capture and screenshot taking. Thank you for helping make Xbox better for everyone!

PC “Wait, there’s a PC Insider Preview?” Flight – Jon H

Over the past few months, Xbox Insiders on PC have had the opportunity to preview several new features: Compact Mode for Game Bar, the new Friends and Followers experience, and just this week, a new Home experience in Xbox -App. If you’re interested in previewing the new features for PC and supported handhelds, be sure to sign up for the PC Gaming Preview on the Xbox Insider Hub. 

Interested in registering? You can find out how to do this here

The immersive lifecycle of insider feedback:

I’d like to think I’m a good singer and wanted to post this segment as a video similar to a particular song some of you may have seen in school about bills being passed on Capitol Hill (You know the one I’m talking about). Luckily for everyone, this was vetoed.

However, I would like to give the community some insight into how bugs work and explain why we need specific feedback.

So you’re playing your favorite game and it suddenly crashes back to the dashboard. To access the Report a Problem prompt, press and hold the Xbox button on your controller and select Report a Problem. What happens to your feedback after you follow the instructions and click submit?

Here’s the simplified version: Your feedback ends up in the pool of all submitted insider feedback. The Insider team reviews all feedback. All of it. Each day, the team sends actionable feedback to a different pool, where engineering teams investigate the matter and resolve or redirect as necessary.

That’s why it’s crucial to provide specific details. What was the problem and when did you encounter it? If you can tell us what you did, great! “It Crashed” is helpful because we know your game crashed. “It crashed on the splash screen” is even more helpful because we know when it crashed. “It crashed on the splash screen after I quit a game and then tried to launch it,” includes what you did. If in doubt, I recommend refraining from providing any further details. The easier it is for engineers to reproduce the problem, the more likely they are to be able to fix it. If you don’t want to use your controller, we have a few other options (including a USB mouse and keyboard or using a different device entirely). Read more here: Give Team Xbox | Feedback Xbox Support

Thanks again for being an Xbox Insider. We appreciate you.