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.

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.

Editors' Recommendations

Gabe Gurwin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
Persona 3 Reload leads a surprisingly strong batch of Xbox Game Pass additions
A character uses a bow and arrow in Persona 3 Reload.

Microsoft unveiled the next batch of new Xbox Game Pass titles, which are dropping between January 18 and February 8. Of the seven new titles coming to the video game subscription service over that time span, four are new games being added on the day of their release. The most noteworthy of those games is Persona 3 Reload, Atlus' highly anticipated remake of an RPG classic.

Persona 3 was first released for the PlayStation 2 in Japan in 2006 and came to North America just a year later. While its sequels would go on to garner a bit more immediate acclaim, Persona 3 provided the solid foundation that they all built on. It is darker than those future entries, though, as you'll go from living your life as a Japanese teenager to shooting a gun at your own head to summon a Persona in stylish turn-based battles. Persona 3 is considered one of the best RPGs of its generation, and this remake brings the experience to modern platforms with a visual overhaul that makes it look more like Persona 5.

Read more
These Activision Blizzard games need to come to Xbox Game Pass this year
Sekiro easy mode mod FromSoftware Souls games gameplay difficulty

In October 2023, Microsoft completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and by the end of the year, the latter company's CEO had departed. Now, this will be the year where we’ll see how Activision Blizzard functions when fully integrated into Microsoft. The most immediate change for those who play games will likely be Activision Blizzard titles coming to Xbox Game Pass, Microsoft’s subscription service.

Microsoft and Activision have explained that because of the tribulations the acquisition encountered, it was impossible to have Xbox Game Pass additions prepared almost immediately after the acquisition, as it did with ZeniMax Media. In the coming months, I expect we’ll finally start to see Activision Blizzard games trickle onto the service, even if we shouldn't expect it from this week's Developer_Direct. As Activision Blizzard is one of the oldest game publishers out there, having released hundreds of games, there are plenty of titles to choose from. I’ve cherry-picked the ones I want to see most.
Diablo IV

Read more
Xbox’s first stream of 2024 will include Bethesda’s Indiana Jones game
Harrison Ford holds a sword in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Microsoft announced the first Xbox presentation of 2024 on Xbox Wire: another Developer_Direct meant to provide insight on upcoming first-party titles. Of the four games confirmed for the January 18 event so far, the most surprising of the bunch is the Indiana Jones title from MachineGames.

This Indiana Jones game was announced by MachineGames in January 2021, just prior to the completion of Microsoft's acquisition of ZeniMax Media. Bethesda Games Studios' Todd Howard is apparently a big fan of the Lucasfilm franchise and is working closely with the developers of the Wolfenstein reboot games to craft this new adventure. Bethesda has not stated much publicly about it since then, although its Xbox exclusivity came up during the FTC trial Microsoft was engaged in 2023.

Read more