Passages

I trust that this Community Update discovers you as well as all those emails, meeting invites, and “let’s start the year strong” messages you’ve encountered in your Inbox. It’s just the first week of 2024 and we’ve already witnessed quite a lot. A real-life “Getting Over It” cosplay at a New Year’s party, the Internet™ collectively ruling that Leon Kennedy would completely defeat Joel, and these are the streets I grew up in.

Here at Xbox Insider HQ, we’ve also been occupied with putting the hamsters back on their wheels (read: we are the hamsters) and getting back into the groove of things. January will be a bit lighter before we gear up for the 10th Anniversary in February. Let’s delve into some of what we’ve been up to:

Connections

You may have noticed some changes to the layout, design, and overall look/feel of our delightful Xbox Wire pages in recent months. As part of our strategy shift, we’ve been exploring different ways to utilize the space we have here on Xbox Wire, and we think this redesign (along with more exciting changes coming soon™!) is a great way to kick things off.

We’ve also been striving to make our current content even better. It turns out, our resident Release Notes Virtuoso, Joshua, never got off his wheel. In fact, he’s been covertly working on some improvements and updates to Release Notes across all categories. We believe these changes will make getting details on new builds easier and faster than ever!

Why Becomes How

I know, I know. Another one for the collection. I had hoped I wouldn’t have to use this joke for a while, but it’s taking longer than we initially thought for this process to happen. Apologies for this continued delay. I’ll take this one squarely on the chin though. I didn’t anticipate the additional investments we’re now making, but I’m glad we’re making them nonetheless!

Full Tilt

That being said, we’re actually sprinting ahead with some of our other initiatives, specifically those tied to the 10th Anniversary. One thing I’m excited to share is that we’ll be publishing an absolute wealth of content in February to the Xbox Wire. Interviews from past, present, (and future?!) Xbox Insider team members, an oral history of the program, and more will all be coming out to celebrate ten years of wonderful Xbox Insider Program accomplishments and highlights. This is something we’re super excited about and we can’t wait for everyone to learn more.

Bright Future

We’ve also been working behind the scenes on a few items that aren’t quite ready to be fully revealed yet. These items are being worked on “in-house” within XIP, and I think it’s some of the coolest stuff we have cooking. We’ll be talking more about this in February, so stay tuned! In the meantime, please enjoy an updated/modified content roadmap.

As always, I hope everyone enjoyed this installment of the Xbox Insider Program Community Update. If you want to chat about this—and everything else XIP—hop on over to the r/XboxInsiders subreddit or throw us a follow @xboxinsider.