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November will be huge for the Xbox One

Are you ready for your Xbox One to get a whole lot more modern?

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Starting in November, the Xbox One is getting updated with Microsoft's newest operating system, Windows 10. Sounds boring, right? OK, fine – it's pretty boring. What's not boring is what Windows 10 will do for your Xbox One: a massive visual update to the game console's dashboard and the ability to play Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One.

Windows 10
Microsoft

That second bit is especially important. The Xbox 360 is one of the most popular game consoles ever made, and it has some of the best games.

It's no surprise that fans have been clamoring for access to those games on their Xbox One consoles for some time now.

Microsoft announced the ability to play Xbox 360 games on Xbox One back in June, and people in Microsoft's "preview program" have been enjoying that functionality for a few months now. In November, the functionality goes wide to all Xbox One users: Microsoft says at least "100 games" will be available at launch, and they will come from a variety of publishers other than Microsoft. Among the publishers listed are big names including EA, Warner Bros., Ubisoft, and Square Enix.

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Xbox One
Microsoft

Better yet? If you subscribe to the Xbox Live "Gold" program, you will get a whole mess of free Xbox 360 games on your Xbox One. Every month, Gold subscribers get access to a few free games; there are usually two on Xbox 360 and two on Xbox One. Going forward, all games added to the Xbox 360 side will be instantly compatible on the Xbox One. That's double the free games!

Beyond updates to the Xbox One operating system and the ability to play Xbox 360 games, this November brings the much-loved "chat pad" to the Xbox One. It's a controller attachment that enables much faster text entry on both the Xbox One and Windows 10. (You can hook your Xbox One game pad up to your Windows 10 computer). No word on pricing just yet, but we would guess in the $30 to $40 range.

The chat pad looks like this:

Xbox One chatpad
Microsoft

And here's how it looks connected to an Xbox One game pad:

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Xbox One chatpad
Microsoft

If it looks a bit unwieldy, that's because it is. But it is significantly faster for navigating text entry on both the Xbox One and a Windows 10 device that is not connected to a keyboard.

Should the chatpad and added functionality not do it for you, perhaps a brand new exclusive game will? "Rise of the Tomb Raider," the next entry in Lara Croft's action-adventure series, arrives on November 10. Here's a look at that in action:

Gaming Xbox One Xbox
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