Featured Image Credit: Microsoft
Topics: Xbox, Xbox One, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X
Xbox has been through a lot over the past few years but it might finally be out of the trenches, as long as it doesn’t scrap anymore genuinely brilliant features.
It feels like the last couple of Xbox consoles have all had an assortment of “gimmicks” to make them more appealing.
While they’re cool at first they either outstay their welcome, or are ripped away despite actually being good ideas.
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The Xbox One for instance intended to be an all-media console that owners could use for TV in addition to gaming. Now the upcoming Xbox is going all-in on gaming like never before by essentially being a PC disguised as a console.
That said the Xbox One wasn’t all bad. In fact it arguably had one of the best features ever seen on an Xbox, maybe even all consoles.
On launch day the Xbox One boasted Snap, a brilliant, handy little console feature that’d let you watch videos why you play games.
Your screen would be divided with the bulk of your display being the game you're playing, and then a smaller window playing whatever video you wanted to watch. You could of course adjust the audio too depending on which one you wanted to hear more.
It sort of lives on in a different form, as while you can stream music while you play like through the Spotify app you can’t stream anything you can watch.
Now it doesn’t sound like a lot but trust me it had mass appeal, and would do well nowadays if it was brought back through a core update.
There were some slight teething issues of course. As said before only a small portion of the screen would be used to play the video so if your goal was to actually watch it that was a far cry from the best way to do it. The quality of the video also suffered.
However if you like a bit of background noise while you play it is ideal and a much better option than using your phone or having a video open in another tab on your computer.
It was a solid feature but was sadly taken away. With all the power of an Xbox Series X/S it deserves another chance to shine, and I’m sure there are plenty of players out there who’d appreciate its return.