The new Xbox PC app, which we recently dived into in its earlier forms, is finally going live for testers today. Here's what you need to know.

On Xbox Wire, Microsoft's VP for Xbox Experiences, Jason Beaumont, revealed that the latest Xbox PC app iteration offers 60% improved launch speed and detailed some of the usability refinements we previously saw in earlier versions.

I demonstrated the upcoming Xbox PC app in a couple of videos recently. It is a web app, but it's orders of magnitude faster than previous versions, and rubber banding on devices like the Xbox Ally X has been virtually eliminated.

"We’re also bringing the refreshed XBOX web experience to more players and rolling out updates to XBOX cloud gaming apps on supported TVs and VR headsets," Beamont explained. "These changes are part of our work to make XBOX faster, simpler, and more familiar wherever you play."

Indeed, the Xbox Cloud Gaming app has also received a similar overhaul, the interface of which has been in testing and early rollout for a few months. The idea revolves around unifying the different Xbox experiences across PC, TV, mobile devices, cloud, consoles, and handhelds so that the most familiar parts of the apps are always within muscle memory.

If you want to test out the new Xbox PC app today, you'll need to enroll your gaming PC in the Xbox Insider test on PC specifically, using the Xbox Insider Hub app from the Microsoft Store.

1. Download the Xbox Insider Hub on your PC from here.
2. Navigate to Previews from the left panel.
3. Scroll down to find "PC gaming."
4. Click "Join" and wait while it says "Pending." You can leave the app.
5. Check 10-15 minutes later to see if it now says "Manage." If so, you're now enrolled.
6. Reboot your PC and check the Xbox app and Microsoft Store for an update.

The Xbox PC app has improved leaps and bounds

The Xbox PC app still has a big feature gap compared to Steam, for sure. There's a lack of community tooling, in-app mod delivery and curation, and the search functionality is often slow to catch up with recently launched products. There's also still a big catalog gap between Xbox's PC store and other platforms, although Microsoft's initiatives with Xbox Play Anywhere have been doing some strong heavy lifting recently.

As someone who primarily games via Xbox, I've found recently that I don't really need Steam at all anymore for new PC games, given that so many now support Xbox Play Anywhere across devices.

I'd love to see more customization features go live in the Xbox PC app to line up with what we have on console. I'd love to see more community tools and ways for developers to interact with their audiences. I think Microsoft's game recommendation is very poor overall (why are you recommending me Roblox when you literally know I'm in my 40s, Microsoft?).

But the work is being done; Microsoft has uncharacteristically stuck it out with this aspect of its platform despite being very late to the party, and it's great to see as an Xbox customer. But it remains to be seen if Microsoft can win over non-Xbox customers in a PC universe dominated by Steam.

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On October 23, 2026, AMD began rolling out FSR 4.1 for Xbox, starting with beta drivers for Xbox Ally handhelds. Now, AMD has announced that FSR 4.1 is available for Xbox developers working on Series X|S games.

FSR 4.1 is the latest version of AMD's AI-powered upscaling technology, rendering games at lower internal resolutions before reconstructing them to a higher output resolution while preserving detail and improving performance.

It's also part of Microsoft's wider push toward a more unified Xbox ecosystem across consoles, handhelds, and desktop gaming PCs. While the tech has mostly been showcased on Xbox Ally X hardware so far, early beta driver results showed meaningful improvements to image quality and frame rates, at least in supported games.

In our own testing, demanding games such as Cyberpunk 2077, Control Resonance, and Gears of War: E-Day showed more consistent frame rates on the Xbox Ally X with FSR 4.1 enabled, while titles like The Witcher 3 Remaster ran closer to 60 FPS with even more image clarity improvements.

Certain games that previously appeared noticeably soft or blurry in their Quality modes on Xbox Ally X also showed substantial image-quality improvements while maintaining strong performance, even in games that show dozens of enemies on screen at once, like Warhammer 40,000: Darktide.

How much of a difference FSR 4.1 makes on Xbox Series X|S will depend on per-developer implementation, and we already know that certain games that rely on ray-traced lighting, like Silent Hill 2, need more work. Still, those early Xbox Ally X results suggest FSR 4.1 could act as a software-driven mid-generation upgrade of sorts, helping developers squeeze more performance out of existing hardware. Good news.

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