Since GTA VI is the only thing anyone is talking about lately, Xbox thought it would be a good time to announce a few experimental features it’s been cooking.
Before you get excited, the features, which include one earth-shattering change, are only available to those in the Alpha Skip-Ahead ring. That’s Xbox’s invite-only program, reserved for die-hard Xbox fans.
Getting on with it
After first allowing 15-character gamer tags, then limiting them to 12 characters, insiders are once again testing support for 15-character gamer tags. If our maths is correct, that would be a three-character increase, or a 25% increase. The future is now.
As long as your gamer tag is unique and available, it can be up to 15 characters long. That means “Chris_P_Bacon” is allowed, although there’s a good chance it exists already. However, in that case, you could still use it, as Xbox will just attach numbers to the end to make it unique. Unfortunately, “InfantSeatbeltAssembly” is still too long. One day, Brett, one day.
Also being tested for free are game hubs in the game cards for Xbox 360 games. Insiders with a death-grip on nostalgia can open up the game card for any of their installed 360 games and see their achievement progress and in-game captures. There’s nothing like being reminded you still haven’t completed Halo 3‘s achievements. Neat.
Inarguably, the best bit of news from this lot is that Insiders don’t have to wait to play a game while it’s updating. Provided they have a Game Pass subscription (what die-hard Xbox fan doesn’t?), if the game in question is available through the streaming service, they can get on with their progress while it updates in the background.
Lastly, adding released and upcoming games to your wishlist is now possible from the game cards, if you’re an Insider, that is.
If you’ve always wanted to help giant corporations squash their bugs for free, you can indicate your interest by following the directions here. Maybe you’ll be invited to the special gang, maybe you won’t.
