Xbox Home Screen Customisation

Hi Dwavid, I hope you're doing great out there despite the issue that you're experiencing. I am an Independent advisor and I am here to help you in regard to your concern.

On my end, everything seems to be up and running. Kindly perform a power cycle and then try again.

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POWERCYCLE CONSOLE​​​

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1. Turn off your console by holding the Xbox button on the front of the console for approximately 10 seconds. The console will turn off. ​​​

2. Turn your console back on by pressing the Xbox button on the console or the Xbox button on your controller. ​​​

There is next to no customisability now unfortunately. It's awful IMO. One giant Game Pass ad, even though I've been a Game Pass Ultimate subscriber since it was in beta.

The only customisability is being able to add up to 2 groups to your home screen. That's literally it.

Kinda makes me wanna sell all my related xbox stuff and go buy a PS5. Great hardware on the series X but strongly dislike the home screens lack of customisable options. The customize option is a joke.

I agree - these changes, removing customisation flexibility and personalisation, are a significant downgrade for users who had been making real use of Home Screen customisation tools previously. It very much takes away gamers' sense of ownership of their own consoles. It feels pretty bad. (I'm sure that the plan was not to create an experience that felt bad, so I would encourage the Xbox UI Devs to quickly move to correct this mis-step.)

I really want to see the ability restored, for gamers to add many of their own Groups to their own Xbox's Home Screen ; also, of course, the ability to re-order/rearrange those Groups, and to remove unwanted content from the user's Xbox Home Screen.

This is really important customisation for many users.
Xbox has encouraged the move to having a digital game library, and the only way to effectively display such a library is with self-collated Groups of games and apps, displayed on the Xbox Home Screen.
Having to dig through menus to view and launch games is no way to enjoy one's digital game library.

Additionally, when you're used to having easy access to your games and apps in your custom Groups on your Home Screen, having to go back to digging through menus is *so* cumbersome and inconvenient.

Why on earth did someone think that this big step backwards for personalisation/customisation was a good idea?
Obviously, to push more content from the Xbox Store.
But, the thinking here seems too shallow; more thought, and empathy for your loyal longtime fanbase of gamers, is required.
We already know how to find these promotions in the Xbox Store.
We have been using the Xbox Store for some time now.
That's why we have large digital game libraries already.

So, we don't need to be pushed towards the Store; we're already active users of it.
But now, we can't organise and interact with our Game Libraries in the way we want to, because this Home Screen space has been stolen from us by promotional dreck spewed from the Xbox Store.
Tell me... does anyone really think that any advertising that starts by stealing something valued by its audience from them is going to work?
Or, is it more likely to alienate that audience, and make them disinclined to interact with the Xbox Store, and any promotions that have taken over their space? (How about a metaphor? If I had a physical library, displayed on shelves, all arrayed just the way I like it... and then someone came in and dumped all my games into boxes, threw them in a nearby cupboard, and put a bunch of games I don't own - and am not interested in - up on the display shelves in my gaming room...? So I need to go and dig through an inconvenient box to look at or play my own games, but have to look at a bunch of games that aren't available for my use, and that I'm not interested in playing, every time I come into my own gaming space? I think we'd have a serious problem... and we kinda do here, actually.)

If we're not going to be able to organise and display our Digital Game Libraries any more, what is the motivation to add new games to the collection?
I have a large back-catalogue available to play now; you'll make more money from me if I can have the ability to add games to it as I choose, and display them in my Groups on my Home Screen, than if I come to hate the Xbox Store, and will only deign to open it for buying a few games I definitely know I want to own. The fun of exploring sales and promotions, and finding new games I might not have considered, relies heavily on being able to display many custom Groups on my Xbox Home Screen. It makes business sense to restore and improve that fun, that positive experience, rather than to remove it.

The Home Screen Customisation tools we had prior to the UI downgrade were working well.
They are essential tools for many owners of digital game libraries.
There is no good technical reason for these Home Screen customisation tools to have been removed.
We appreciate that Xbox is moving to a focus on Game Pass, but doing so to the significant detriment to long-term, loyal, invested Xbox gamers is a callous mistake.
Please get these Home Screen customisation tools restored to the Xbox Home Screen, as soon as possible (if not sooner!).
There should be no impact to those now enjoying the new Home Screen customisation tools.
(Pretty pictures in the background, right? But, most of the actual customisation utility removed. Feels like a pretty unfair trade.)
The new tools can stay, the old tools can return - no-one misses out, no-one is penalised, everyone wins... and Xbox gamers will all be more empowered to create an Xbox Home Screen experience that they can once again enjoy.

Xbox UI Devs - let's get this done!

(TL-DR - the new Xbox UI isn't completely terrible, but it's come with the removal of some very useful Home Screen customisation tools, that many users had been enjoying using. There's no need to abandon any of the actual improvements in the new Xbox UI/Home Screen, but it is very important to many Xbox gamers that the Home Screen customisation options we had enjoyed using previously are restored to the Xbox UI ASAP.)

You don't.

The only customisation options now are adding up to 2 groups of pins to your home screen. That's literally it. They removed all of the other options so they could advertise Game Pass to you.