Xbox One October 2018 update; New Avatars, Dolby Vision, Alexa support

The latest update for Xbox One is a huge one. Microsoft’s latest October 2018 update for the Xbox One is headlined by the return of Xbox Avatars with a new look and style.

The update went live today and introduces the “new Xbox Avatars.” This update was supposed to be launched last year since it’s been in development ever since the reveal at last year’s E3 conference. Microsoft has delayed the release and started a beta program with Xbox Insiders this June. Now, the update is live and ready to deploy.

So, let’s get to the details.

Players can now easily customize themselves with an expanded take on personalization. Your new Avatar will show up on your profile pages, feed, community posts, and pretty much anywhere you can make yourself show up. You can also switch back to the original Avatars if you don’t like the new ones- AKA Xbox 360 Avatars.

The new Avatars offer plenty of customizations such as a variety of body types, clothing, and gender-neutral selections. People with disabilities can also represent themselves with the use of prosthetics and such. Naturally, skin hair, clothing, and accessories can all be customized indivually to the player’s choice- all the way down to the color of the object. Players can also buy themed merchandise from popular games like Halo in the Avatar Store.

Besides Avatars, the new update also adds support for both Cortana and Alexa for voice control. This means you can ask Amazon’s Alexa to launch a game or shut down the Xbox. Players who use Amazon devices can now integrate it with their Xbox if they’d rather use Alexa over Microsoft’s Cortana.

Another feature is the awesome support for Dolby Vision. The update can be used for Xbox One X and S, but only for streaming apps, not 4K Blu-Rays. Right now, you can test out Dolby Vision in video apps like Netflix (if you have the right 4K HD plan). However, other apps will soon support the same update.

Lastly, there will be a special offer for players interested in Xbox- Microsoft will give a free Amazon Echo for players who buy select Xbox One S or X bundles at Amazon. This offer is limited to US residents only.

This is a huge update and adds a lot of improvement to the overall capabilities of Xbox’s online service and gives it the boot over Sony’s limited feature set. PS4 can only support HDR to HDR10 standards. Though, Sony has been making headlines recently with the ability to finally change PSN usernames and backward compatibility for the PS5.

Source: Polygon