Skip to main content

Latest Xbox One update lets Mixer viewers control your game

Xbox One X review gaming
Les Shu/Digital Trends
Les Shu/Digital Trends

Microsoft’s Mixer service offers a great streaming alternative to Twitch, with a higher level of interactivity and great video quality, but the service needed more if it wanted to draw streamers away from its much larger rival. With the most recent Xbox One update, Mixer added an additional layer of interactivity that just might make it the best place to stream.

Recommended Videos

Rolling out now to those in the Xbox Insider program’s “Alpha Ring,” the Xbox Spring Update adds a new “share controller” option to Mixer streamers. While streaming a game through the Mixer app, you can allow a viewer to take control of your game using either an on-screen gamepad emulator or their own controller plugged into a PC. They won’t be able to use the home button to exit your game, but they’ll be able to play through the game on their own or work with you to get through particularly tough sections.

The update also adds the ability to continue broadcasts while you’re switching games, with a pause screen showing for viewers in a similar manner to the Twitch app on PlayStation 4.

If you’re looking to fine-tune your video and audio settings on your Xbox One, the update also has something for you. Specifically, 1,440p resolution is now supported for games on both Xbox One S and Xbox One X, and a new settings option allows you to balance game audio with background music you have running in a playlist.

“The system sounds on home and in the guide have also been completely revamped to support spacial audio, so the audio cues from your surround sound system will match the actions you see on screen,” Xbox Insider team lead Brad Rossetti added in a post on Xbox Wire.

Other changes coming in the update include an easier-to-navigate Microsoft Edge web browser, new filtering tools for clubs, and new activity feed options. You’ll also find a dedicated redeemed Games With Gold tab, so you can easily sort through all the game’s you’ve received through the program and pick which ones you want to install.

Xbox Insider members will get access to the Xbox Spring Update over the next few weeks, and it will arrive to the rest of Xbox One users later this spring.

Gabe Gurwin
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
All upcoming Xbox Series X games: 2025 and beyond
A hero sits on giant glasses with a sandwich.

The Xbox Series X and Series S have now been out for over four years, bringing better resolution, higher frame rates, and ray tracing to gamers around the world. And the best upcoming video games continue to show off all those bells and whistles in fun, new experiences.

If you're eager to find out what Microsoft has in store for the years ahead, we've rounded up every game confirmed so far, including new offerings, franchise installments, and ports of existing titles. We're looking beyond the first-party projects here to encompass all the great games coming to this powerful piece of gaming hardware. Maybe some of them will end up being among the best games on Xbox Series X.

Read more
A classic platformer trilogy is coming to Xbox Game Pass tomorrow
Spyro flies off away from an attack with white mountains in the background.

After a little tease earlier today, Xbox quickly confirmed that the Spyro Reignited Trilogy is coming to Xbox Game Pass shortly. Best of all, it's hitting multiple tiers, including Game Pass Standard.

Spyro Reignited Trilogy includes Spyro the Dragon, Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage!, and Spyro: Year of the Dragon, and will be added to the subscription service on November 12 -- so, tomorrow. It'll be available on Game Pass Ultimate, PC Game Pass, and Game Pass Standard.

Read more
Xbox Game Pass is getting tons of new games following Black Ops 6 success
A cockpit view in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024.

We know a lot of you are playing Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 on Xbox right now, but the company just announced some games coming to Xbox Game Pass -- specifically the Game Pass Standard tier -- in the first half of November.

The biggest game coming to the service (and we mean that literally) is Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024. Xbox and developers Asobo Studio previously reported that it will have a smaller install size than its predecessor -- 127GB versus 157GB -- but it'll also require 64GB of RAM. All of this is to help stream immense detail to the player as they fly around the world. Asobo says helped it to increase "the detail of its virtual environment by a factor of 4,000." Alongside the hyperrealistic graphics is a new career mode where you go through training and missions to become a pilot and a challenge mode where you compete against other pilots. Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is coming to Game Pass at launch on November 19.

Read more