The Xbox PC: An Overview of Microsoft’s Plan to Become the Home of PC Games in the Era of the Unified Windows and Xbox Platform
We are very close to figuring out exactly how Microsoft lists the extra games in the app for the Xbox PC. The big question will be whether Xbox console games will actually be playable on PC, and Microsoft may need to leverage its cloud infrastructure for that unless it has an emulation breakthrough ready to finally make the dream of playing old Xbox games on PC a reality.
This is a bug that is the result of Microsoft’s plans to more closely combine its XBOX and Windows stores. I wrote about this in March when I mentioned that Microsoft is working with ASUS on a handheld. “It’s part of a larger effort from Microsoft to unify Windows and Xbox towards a universal library of Xbox and PC games,” I wrote at the time.
Over the past year, Microsoft has been trying to make the XBOX app the home of PC gaming, and it has recently begun referring to its Xbox PC app as simply “Xbox PC.” The new PC branding and logo was first seen in Microsoft’s announcement of the Gears of War game and in the new trailer for the game.
Microsoft demonstrated this handheld-friendly combination of Windows and Xbox to The Verge in a briefing earlier this week, but it was a virtual demo so we haven’t been able to try it fully yet. Once a new Xbox full-screen experience has been installed on these devices, you can start playing PC games with a graphical interface that will be a part of the game’s title.
The device that galvanized those teams and got everybody working towards a moment is what we are excited about putting into the hands of players, according to Roanne Sones.
This new update will work with all PC games, but you will still be able to interact with Windows apps and other devices in this full screen handheld experience. Sones says Microsoft is “working closely with leading storefronts to have them optimize their full screen experience,” to make it easy for everyone to play a full library of PC games from Steam, Epic Games Store, and elsewhere.
You can still exit this full-screen mode and launch the full version of the Windows desktop, but by default it will by hidden away. Sones says that the team will listen to the feedback of the players and continue to improve.
The Xbox Ally Game Bar and Task Switcher: A New Tool for Exploring and Enhancing the Game Bar Experience on Windows 11 Devices
The improvements to the Game Bar over the last year led to the creation of the device. A short press on the Xbox button on the Xbox Ally devices brings up the Game Bar interface, and you can use this to access device settings like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, Asus’ Command Center interface, and even Microsoft’s new Gaming Copilot. The task switcher that you can get if you long press the button is a handheld device that allows you to alt+tab between games.
Microsoft is promising that this isn’t just lipstick on top of Windows, so I’ll need to try it out for myself. “This isn’t surface-level changes, we’ve made significant improvements,” says Potvin. “Some of our early testing with the components we’ve turned off in Windows, we get about 2GB of memory going back to the games while running in the full-screen experience.”
Potvin claims that if you put your device down and put it into the sleep state, it draws 1/3 of the power draw than if you put it into the Windows desktop experience. Microsoft is focused on battery life and power efficiency for this full-screen mode, so we could see more improvements before devices ship later this year. Microsoft has also made improvements to the Windows lockscreen, so you can now use a controller to log in using a PIN code, or navigate around in this part of Windows.
“The aggregated gaming library within Xbox on PC will be available for all Windows 11 devices,” says Sones, so you’ll soon be able to see all of your Steam games within the Xbox app on any PC.