March Xbox update ends eight years of TV features

March Xbox update ends eight years of Idiot box features

(Image credit: Tom'southward Guide)

Xbox will follow in PlayStation'south footsteps this month past killing off a longstanding Telly feature. Simply as Sony announced the terminate of PlayStation Video two weeks ago, Microsoft has announced the terminate of Boob tube listings in OneDrive.

If you're not familiar with this useful Xbox feature, yous may not miss it one time information technology's gone. But if you've been using your Xbox every bit a Television receiver tuner since 2013, your panel is almost to lose a valuable feature.

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The information comes from the official Xbox Wire blog, in a post virtually the Xbox's latest software update. Starting today (March 10), players tin can download updates for the Xbox Series X, Xbox Series Southward, Xbox One and Xbox apps in Windows x. The big focus here is on compatibility for the upcoming Xbox Wireless Headset, only the update will also deliver some per-game graphical options, also every bit an end to TV listings in OneGuide.

f yous didn't jump on the Xbox I bandwagon way back in 2013, y'all may non even know that the console had Television receiver listings. Initially, however, Microsoft leaned hard into the "Xbox One equally a comprehensive media middle" bending, before settling into the more familiar "Xbox One equally a game console, showtime and foremost" image.

The Xbox 1 was inseparable from the Kinect peripheral, which let you control the whole arrangement with voice and gesture commands. Furthermore, the Xbox Ane featured an HDMI passthrough for antenna and cable boxes.

Tv set passthrough was an interesting feature, and Microsoft all the same has a setup guide available, if you'd like to acquire more than near it. The relevant flake, yet, is that the Xbox used a program called OneGuide to process channel listings and plow them into a navigable interface. In one case yous install the new Xbox software update, OneGuide will no longer support Tv listings.

While yous can still utilize your Xbox's passthrough to watch Idiot box, you won't be able to see any listings for what's currently on, or what'south coming on adjacent. If you enjoy quondam-school channel surfing, this won't exist much of a hindrance; for the rest of us, it's arguably a bargain-breaking omission.

While losing a useful feature is ever a hassle, it'due south understandable why TV listings on Xbox may feel a piddling less relevant today than they did viii years agone. Back then, you could hook up a digital antenna to your Television, but virtually TVs didn't take the necessary interface to show anything across a channel's proper name. Now, smart TVs can process and compile listings past themselves, without the need for additional, expensive hardware. (You needed a special adapter to get Telly signals on your Xbox One.)

Whether y'all use the TV listings feature every day, or only merely learned almost its existence, the key takeaway here is that Microsoft's focus now is very different than it was at the beginning of the Xbox Ane era. (Remember: the Xbox Serial X doesn't have a TV passthrough at all.) Await to see more gaming features in the future, and fewer focused on streaming.

Marshall Honorof is a senior editor for Tom's Guide, overseeing the site's coverage of gaming hardware and software. He comes from a science writing background, having studied paleomammalogy, biological anthropology, and the history of science and engineering. Later hours, you can find him practicing taekwondo or doing deep dives on archetype sci-fi.