Xbox One's 'Recents' home screen based on 360 users' playing habits

The Xbox One's main menu — the screen that pops up when a user logs in, and the screen the console snaps to whenever that user presses the controller's Home button — is composed mainly of five icons showing the last five games and applications used on that console.

Users can still pin their favorite games and applications to a menu just to the left of the home screen, but the console's opening screen lets players hop into whatever it is they were doing previously.

That setup, Albert Penello of Xbox One's planning team explained during a TGS 2013 demo, is an example of how Microsoft turned to Xbox 360 users' habits when designing the new console's interface.

"Totally, exactly — that's how everybody does it," Penello said. "It's the same team of people that have been working on this that have been working on the other ones, so we know — we have all the data of how people use the box. By the way, we also use the box, and I almost don't go anywhere but 'Recents' anymore. So, the fact that pins are right here, and we log your five most recent things is totally that; that's how real people are going to use their system."