New Xbox UI rolls out a month early, but gamers aren't happy

The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S aren't coming out until next month, but Xbox One users are getting a sneak peek of their UI as the fresh new look is already being rolled out. Early reactions have been a mixed bag, with many commenting on the clean and fresh design, but plenty bemoaning various aspects of the new dashboard, including that it covers up their backgrounds.

Much of the new UI was revealed a few months ago, so the changes aren't a huge surprise. But what we didn't know was that these improvements would be making their way to the Xbox One, or that this would be happening a full month before the new consoles launch.

This new look is designed to help gamers reach their games faster, with Microsoft claiming (see the video below) that this new UI is 15 per cent faster at loading on startup, and a third faster to load when returning from a game. The Xbox design team also says they have streamlined every aspect of getting into games and have updated the visual language across the board. You would've thought they did a lot of user testing to get to this point, but if some of the comments on Twitter are anything to go by, there's a few things they've missed.

Plenty of people were dismayed with various aspects of the new dashboard, complaining about the search functions, lack of animated backgrounds and elements of the UI covering up their own backgrounds.

Some, however, were excited by the update:

And some tweeters have pointed out that Microsoft seem to be constantly updating the console's UI. Some are pleased about this, others not so much...

Either way, releasing the new UI to older consoles is certainly a good way to get people talking about the upcoming release of the Xbox Series X/S, and is at least moving the conversation on from brutal memes about the design of the Xbox Series S or gripes about the Xbox Series X logo. If it's enough to tempt you, you can pre-order the upcoming Xbox consoles below.

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