Xbox One Themes

Xbox One's November update will bring in a gang of new features. You can find that list everywhere, including

Major Nelson's blog

. This post is not about all that, this post is about one part of that. Something Xbox One owners have been asking for the whole time.

Custom backgrounds.

This update will allow you to take the beautiful images from unlocked achievements and allow you to set them as your background. However this is still not what this post is about. THIS post is about custom backgrounds, or Themes, as they are referred to. You may have heard this term in regards to Android devices. A theme is more than just a background or wallpaper that you would apply to say a desktop or an iPhone. A theme suits and works with the UI of the device in question.

Shown below is a Forza Horizon achievement set as the wallpaper. The reason this is a little lackluster is because it is an image where the focal point is the center of the image. Which when applied to say a desktop screen, where you can adjust your icons, is great, you get a clean center focal point. However it doesn't work so well once the Xbox One tiles are present.

This is where "Themes" come in. As mentioned a theme will work with the interface. Major Nelson posted a .psd template that has the tiles present, which you can find

here

. (Note that the template does not have the time/battery shown in the bottom right corner) Now themes do require a bit of work. You will need some form of Photoshop/GIMP skills. Even with a minimal amount of skill you can produce a great theme.

Below are a few of my initial attempts. The idea is to use the "available" space, the top and bottom slices of free space. Lots of people also add to the Pins/Home/Friends/Store to highlight them as well as the Clock/Battery. I have started a

Xbox One Theme

album on imgur, and I'll be sure to update it as I get more done. (Already have a few requests from Reddit)

Xbox wants to take over your living room!

Xbox's 5 year plan is to take over your living room, and I couldn't be a more excited fan boy!

The Xbox 360 is Microsoft's biggest cash cow right now, and has been for the last few years, so you can guarantee that they will continue to innovate it and bring as much as possible to your living room in the future. Xbox doesn't just want to be the little black box in your living room that you play games on and watch the occasional movie, it wants to be the only black box in your living room. Providing gaming, movie experience, tv station subscriptions, social media, connection to friends and family and more.

If you are thinking of getting a video game system then Xbox is the clear choice. Within the next 5 years it will blow the other 2 systems out of the water by transforming from a video game system to an entire home entertainment system.

The current gen console, 360, is already on its way to take over your living room. Aside from the games, there is more to the Xbox than the average consumer might realize...

For a while now Xbox has had a Facebook and Twitter app. While these apps are good for a quick update they have plenty of room for refinement. I would like to see these 2 apps expanded. As of right now the smartphone apps are a much better quality. None the less, they are there.

With all the streaming video and music apps such as Netflix, Zune and Hulu(+) there are plenty of places to find movies, TV shows, and music videos to watch, all at the push of a button or the swipe of your hand with the Kinect.

With Kinect you can video chat with family and friends around the world. Assuming they have an Xbox LIVE account and a Kinect.

Recently, with the latest dashboard update, Xbox has introduced additional apps and channels. There is the YouTube app, allowing you to sign into your account and catch up on your subscription updates right there, or browse any other video YouTube has to offer. TMZ has its own app, ESPN. The UFC channel had it's first run this past week, with poor results, however it is there and I can promise you the next one will not fail.
That's not to mention all the other companies they are looking into, such as HBOgo, allowing you to watch any HBO show ever right on your Xbox.

The latest news, which inspired me to write this was this article, found Here explains how the next gen Xbox could potentially house a DVR, allowing you to record anything, TV or movies from your cable provider, similar to any PVR proivided by your cable company, even while you play a game, are watching something different, or even if the system is off. However the main thing I am excited about is the ability to record video game content

There has never been a better time to be a gamer, and now there has never been a better time to live with a gamer.