Windows with an important change in April. Players will benefit from this

Microsoft shows more and more clearly that the future of the brand Xbox sees not only in consoles, but also in computers. The company wants to combine both worlds even more closely, a The full-screen Xbox interface will be available on virtually every Windows 11 computer in April. We’re talking not only about handhelds, but also about laptops, desktops and tablets. Importantly, the solution also has a new, simpler name – “Xbox mode”.

This is another step towards a strategy in which PC is to become one of the pillars of the Xbox ecosystem. Especially since the next generation of the Xbox platform, developed under a codename Project Helixis supposed to allow you to run computer games. The project is scheduled to enter the alpha phase in 2027, but Microsoft does not intend to wait that long to implement changes.

Full screen Xbox mode isn’t entirely newbecause it could be checked from November 2025, as long as someone participated in the programs Windows Insider and Xbox Insider. In practice however, the solution required refinement. When Microsoft initially introduced them to portable devices, it was difficult to talk about a full-fledged experience.

During the fair GDC 2026 Microsoft also announced that it will make the feature available to all creators in the Xbox Store Advanced Shader Delivery. In practice it does reduce game loading times by providing pre-compiled shaders at the download stage. This is a technique well known from the world of consoles, and a similar solution is also used Steam.

It doesn’t end there. Microsoft also mentioned further development of DirectXincluding traffic towards neural renderingas well as about updates DirectStorage and graphics debugging tools. More technical details are available on the official blog.