Second Xbox One April update preview rolls out with voice messages, party chat servers, more

Today's update brings voice messages, dedicated servers for party chat, and expands the What's One section to users in Canada and the UK. Here's the full breakdown of what's new in this wave of the April update preview for the Xbox One:

  • Voice messages – Xbox One preview program members will be able to compose and playback voice messages in the messages app when snapped on Xbox One. Quickly and easily record audio to send to your friends or others through your snapped messages app accessed through a simple quick double tap of the Xbox button. Additionally, voice messages can be exchanged between Xbox 360 and Xbox One consoles.
  • Dedicated servers for party chat – We're enhancing party chat with dedicated chat relay servers that will enable Xbox One owners that may have historically had NAT issues to party chat more reliably. Parties where players are unable to form direct peer-to-peer connections for party chat will automatically leverage dedicated server infrastructure to relay traffic. This service is only enabled for parties where one or more members are previewing the April system update.
  • What's On – The Xbox engineering team is continuing to experiment with the What's On area, which highlights popular videos, movies, TV shows and game broadcasts. We're continuing to test different experiences for preview members in the U.S. and this month, the preview of this feature is being expanded to Canada and the UK as well.

Of course, all of this is in addition to the party chat improvements, game hub links, and changes to achievement notifications that came with last week's update preview wave. If you're in the Xbox One preview program, the preview should be available for download on your Xbox One now. And while you're waiting on the download, check out the video above to see Xbox's Major Nelson go through each of the new features.

Source: Major Nelson

Dan Thorp-Lancaster

Dan Thorp-Lancaster is the former Editor-in-Chief of Windows Central. He began working with Windows Central, Android Central, and iMore as a news writer in 2014 and is obsessed with tech of all sorts. You can follow Dan on Twitter @DthorpL and Instagram @heyitsdtl