Xbox engineering lead, Eden Marie, recently shot down hopes that the Xbox Snap feature would be returning.
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The statement came via a reply from her Twitter account (reported on by Eurogamer), where she responds to a fan asking for a return of the feature by claiming, “While we all miss snap, I don’t think it’s coming back.”
Snap was one of the Xbox One’s features that has since been abandoned, and was one of the more useful ones, allowing players to essentially split the screen by placing an app running alongside a game. It wasn’t too dissimilar to a dual monitor setup, albeit less flexible. It allowed users to watch YouTube videos or Twitch streams while playing a game, or let players dock Achievements so players could more easily keep track of any they were working towards.
While it wasn’t an essential feature, it was a handy feature that meant people didn’t need to keep a laptop or smartphone on hand to access outside content when plugging away at their game’s library. The decision to scrap the feature in 2017 came from Microsoft wanting to improve the speed of and streamline the Xbox One’s UI. Anyone who had an Xbox One in its early years can attest to how cumbersome and slow it felt to navigate around, so it was an understandable trade-off.
Regardless, it’s a shame that it’ll likely never see a return, as it was an authentically smart and relatively intuitive feature for its time that only had the potential to grow.
A 2022 Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase will air June 12 at 6 PM BST/10 AM PDT/1 PM EDT, with Microsoft stating, “The Xbox & Bethesda Games Showcase will include everything you need to know about the diverse lineup of games coming soon to the Xbox ecosystem, including upcoming releases to Game Pass on Xbox and PC.”
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In other news, Soulcalibur 2 HD has recently been delisted from Xbox.