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Xbox App features included with Windows 10 January build outlined

The January build of the Windows 10 Technical Preview includes a basic version of the Xbox App announced earlier this week.

With the initial preview release, the team at Microsoft wanted to only include the basics such as high resolution monitor support along with keyboard and mouse input.

Additional functionality will be released with each new Windows 10 build until the full release later this year.

Here are some of the features included with the initial version of the Xbox App straight from Major Nelson:

  • Your Profile – provides you quick access to your Xbox profile and recent activity and achievements. With the initial preview build, you can see your Gamerscore, recent Activity, Achievements, Following lists and Game Clips.
  • Activity – provides detailed information on your last game played and also allows you to post updates to your Activity Feed.
  • Achievements – allows you to browse all of the games you have recently played across all platforms and see how you are doing on Achievements.
  • Following – displays your Friends and also enables you to see games that you are following. You can “Follow” a game by clicking on the Follow button on the game details page.
  • Game Clips – provides you access to your recorded game clips
  • Home – the Xbox app home page will provide you quick access to your Recently Played games, your friends and their online status and an Activity Feed of recent events, game clips, etc.
  • Recently Played – you can see your recently played games, along with your gamer score and achievements earned across all platforms, you can also filter this list down to Xbox One and eventually other devices. When you click on a game, you bring up the Game Hub – where you can see your Gamerscore, Achievement status, Time played and Game clips for a particular game. Additionally, this is where you can choose to “Follow” a game.
  • Friends – you can see your friends across devices and search and find new friends. Additionally, you can go the profile page for your friends and followers and view their recent activity, achievements, friends, games they follow and game clips.
  • People you might know – the new Xbox app on Windows 10 provides you with a list of people that you might want to add to your Friends list, for example people that are Following you.
  • VIPs on Xbox – You can now also choose to follow key gamers and content creators across the Xbox Live community, such as Clip Creators and Popular Broadcasters.
  • Activity Feed – you can view your activity feed and post text, like and comment on your friends’ recent achievements and Game clips. In this version of preview build, the sharing functionality is not yet enabled.
  • Messages - Users can view messages from other users and system messages and notifications.
  • Settings – Within settings, you can see the current Version number of the Xbox on Windows app, and choose to Sign out from the app. Additionally, you can turn on/off the following items:
  • Live tile – choose to display # of friends online, unread messages and activity alerts on the Xbox app tile on the Windows 10 Start menu
  • Favorite online – Notify when favorite friends are online
  • Twitch broadcast started – Notify when favorite friends start broadcasting
  • Message – Notify  when receiving a new message

You can try this build of Windows 10 by signing up for Microsoft's Windows Insider program.

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