Microsoft has announced a big update for the Xbox app on Windows 11 that brings it one step closer to becoming a hub for all of gaming on the platform. Starting today, the Xbox app now supports showing and launching all your installed Windows games, regardless of where you acquired them from.
The new update brings "your game collection together with the new aggregated gaming library that shows your installed games from multiple PC storefronts, including your Xbox library, Xbox Game Pass, Battle.net and other leading PC storefronts"
Those other storefronts include the big names such as Steam, Epic Games Launcher, GOG, and others. The new Xbox app will let you filter which games actually appear in there, letting you turn off specific sources if you don't want to see them appear in the Xbox app.
With this new aggregated library, you can now use the Xbox app to launch any game you have installed on Windows 11, without needing to navigate through their respective storefronts or launchers first. It also makes launching these games with a controller easier, which will be a huge user experience improvement for those using Windows 11 on a handheld device.
The new Xbox app also adds a "My apps" tab, which provides a quick and easy way of launching other storefronts if you wish to acquire a game from outside of the Microsoft Store. This will also be handy for the upcoming handheld gaming mode, which we recently had hands-on time with and is expected to ship first on the upcoming Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X this fall.
Lastly, Microsoft says the Xbox app will soon sync your cloud-playable games across devices so that you can easily pick up where you left off across PC and console. All of the improvements announced today are going to be available on all Windows 11 PCs, whether that be a laptop, desktop, or handheld.
The new Xbox app update is rolling out now via the Microsoft Store on Windows 11.
