Microsoft continues to release all of their first party games in Microsoft Store (previously Windows Store) which was introduced with the release of Windows 10 back in 2015. A large number of third-party titles are available in Store but after all these years, users are still facing issues while downloading, installing and updating apps and games through the Microsoft Store.

There are many store titles which come with restrictions like no support from apps like Discord, NVIDIA Shadow Play, Fraps etc.

But things are likely to change as Microsoft is rethinking about the Microsoft Store from the gamers point of view. Few fixes are already showing up in Store with the latest update but still, there is room for improvements and Microsoft shared some exciting news at XO18.

Microsoft’s Xbox Chief Phil Spencer in a statement confirmed that a new update for Microsoft Store is planned and it would improve the gaming experience on PC.

“I think we’ve got a ton of work to do on Windows” Spencer stated at XO18. “Windows is something I’m very committed to, I’ve heard the feedback about our Store. I’m going to take a bigger leadership role on what’s going on with the Windows Store, make it really tailored to the gamers that we know want to see the best from what we have to offer,” he added.

Windows 10 has an Xbox app which allows certain control over gaming if the user already has Xbox consoles. However, the true PC gaming requires additional features which are already available on third-party platforms like Steam, Origin, GOG.

Right now, Steam dominates the PC gaming market and amazing first party games like ‘Forza Horizon 4’ and ‘Sea of Thieves’ are Microsoft store exclusive. A few months ago Spencer announced a big update for Xbox app and today Microsoft confirmed that Store will be also updated with important compatibility improvements soon.

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Microsoft Research document showed off a prototype of the Xbox controller for the mobile devices and tablets. It’s a prototype from Microsoft Research so there is no confirmation whether such a product will be produced by Xbox hardware team or not. But these prototypes provide us with a glimpse into how they could work.

The document shows that the software giant’s research team has developed a prototype which would split into two pieces and attach to both sides of a phone to expand its gaming capabilities. In other words, Microsoft’s controller would be able to convert the device into a full-fledged gaming console.

The smartphone gamers using Microsoft’s controller won’t need to touch the screen controls when playing games, thanks to the company’s hardware-based input method. It’s likely that Microsoft is still working on the controller and it could hit the market soon.

“A number of cheaper products allow a smartphone to be clipped into or onto a modified handheld gaming controller; these include the ION iCade mobile, the GameCase, the GameVice and products from Moga. However, the fixed form of these accessories means they are bulky and inflexible,” Microsoft explains in a document.

It certainly makes sense to improve the mobile gaming and as Microsoft is fully committed to the gaming business, we won’t be surprised if the company brings such a controller to the market. Microsoft has stopped making smartphones so the controller would be aimed at Android and iPhone.

Microsoft’s gaming business

Microsoft is working on several other projects including the long-rumoured Project xCloud which is supposed to bring the high-quality gaming experience to any computing device via the streaming technology powered by Microsoft’s cloud.

This is a huge project for Microsoft and CEO Satya Nadella discussed it recently during the earnings call.

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Microsoft says that the developers would be allowed to decide if they want to add the support to their games. The support for mouse and keyboard won’t be enabled by default as the development team will be using the input method on a title to title basis to provide the best gaming experience.

“It’s important to note that mouse and keyboard support for games is added on a title-by-title basis, entirely at developers’ discretion. For all other titles, nothing changes,” Microsoft explains.

The Redmond Giant also announced that Warframe will be the first game which will be getting the mouse and keyboard support once it begins to roll out in the coming weeks.

“We’ve been working closely with studios of all sizes to ensure mouse and keyboard experiences on the console are fun, fair and correctly balanced, and look forward to introducing more games with support for mouse and keyboard input in the future,” Jason Ronald, Director of Program Management for Xbox Platform, explains.

Microsoft in partnership with Razer will be using USB keyboards and mice that work with the Xbox One. There are not many details provided by the company in regards to the global availability of this feature to all gamers on Xbox One but we could expect it to be made available sooner than later since its already in the testing phase.

If you are interested and want to become an Xbox Insider, you would need to download the Xbox Insider hub app on your Xbox One from the Store.

Microsoft and Razer’s partnership to improve gaming on Xbox

Microsoft has teamed up with Razer to bring improve the gaming experience on Xbox. The reports revealed that the Razer’s Turret keyboard and mouse should work fine with the Xbox One and support for other variants is arriving soon.

A leaked presentation revealed that the mouse on the Xbox One console would support wheel movements, relative pointer movement and support for up to 5 buttons. The mouse would also support absolute pointer location on Xbox One that would be useful in some games.

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The company is working on a new Xbox Lineup which will include a new console on similar lines to the Xbox One but which will be powered by cloud service called Scarlett Cloud. The new console is expected to be a mix of hardware to run series of tasks locally and cloud.

The console is expected to give a boost to the hardware sales and the company is also concentrating on the service part like Xbox Live. The new console is expected to be priced slightly higher than the regular Xbox One console since it features advanced hardware. Report the new console will, however, be affordable in spite of it being priced higher.

As the new console will with cloud integration, it is expected to offer low latency and improve the performance by letting users run a multiple games at the same time.

The two instances are synced with the cloud service thus allowing a performance boost since the local hardware runs tasks which do not require much power. As reported above we are expecting Microsoft to release the product in 2020 but there’s always a chance that product might undergo modifications that would result in a delay.

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The patent suggests that Microsoft would be using machine learning to detect cheating in video games, rather than using anti-cheat programs. It apparently applies to the gaming platform, but it’s likely this tech will make its way onto Windows 10, too.

What’s more important to note is that the patent has not yet been approved or rejected.

The technology is powered by machine learning so Microsoft would be looking at player behaviour to determine whether or not they are playing legitimately.

“Examples are disclosed that relate to detecting cheating at a game platform level using machine learning techniques. One example provides a computing system comprising a logic subsystem and a data-holding subsystem. The data-holding subsystem comprises instructions executable by the logic subsystem to receive notifications related to user progress in a game provided by the game to the online game platform, apply a classifying function to classify the user progress in the game as normal or outlying based upon the notifications, if the progress is classified as outlying then taking an action in response to the outlying classification, and if the progress is not classified as outlying then not taking the action,” the patent reads.

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We’ve also seen many software references in Microsoft’s own insiders builds. In fact, we recently reported about the previous insider build with a massive API changelog that had multiple APIs and event handlers with terms such as “hinge-states” which align perfectly with this type of device.

Over the span of years, many designers have also imagined Andromeda in their amazing concepts. While they all have tried demonstrating productivity and basic functionality in such a device, this concept is rather unique.

A Microsoft enthusiast and designer, David Breyer on Twitter tweeted out a render of how gaming would work on such a dual-screen foldable device.

laptop mode & gaming mode pic.twitter.com/VRD8Z9wKgD

— David Breyer (@D_Breyer) June 30, 2018

As you can see, David imagines one of the two displays of the device being used as a usual display for gaming and the second display being used as an Xbox controller. David has been behind many such popular images across the Microsoft community and some of them show us how the second display can be used as a keyboard just like this Xbox controller.

Replacing an actual physical Xbox controller with a virtual software controller might not make any sense to many of our viewers. However, we’ve seen a similar evolution before. Remember when software keyboard was introduced on an iPhone back in 2007? The idea was rejected by many at the time. But today, the same tech has become the most essential thing of today’s mobile devices. So, who knows?

Speaking of Andromeda itself, this device is reportedly launching this fall. We’ve also reported about a leaked Microsoft’s internal email that claims the existence of Andromeda. This ambitious project by the Surface team has gained a lot of hype already and such concepts are adding a whole lot to it.

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Recent leaks throw light on how Microsoft is getting close to bringing keyboard and mouse support for Xbox and also partnering with other third-party vendors for this. A prominent gaming hardware manufacturing company have reportedly got into a partnership with Microsoft to bring in their renowned Turret keyboard and mouse support for the Xbox. Further leaks from the presentation detail how they are planning to support Razer Chroma RGB lighting for Xbox titles that desperately need a keyboard and mouse support.

Details have come forward regarding the guidelines and features for the Mouse and keyboard support on Xbox. The main catch is that one console can support only one keyboard and mouse, unlike controllers.

Features listed for the Mouse are as follows:

In addition to these, existing USB-enabled mice including wireless ones working with Windows can also be supported on the Xbox without custom drivers. It should be noted that these use the same APIs same as the Universal Windows Platform. To prevent abuse of mouse and keyboard peripherals which mimic controller behavior, plans have been laid out to introduce new APIs which can potentially find and block such devices.

Impact on Multiplayer Xbox titles has been detailed giving a fair amount of freedom to the developers to use the keyboard and mouse support. They can use this to find the right balance in matchmaking and look into the details on how players on controllers and players on keyboard and mouse go up against each other. Microsoft also suggested using separate matchmaking rules for this.

Only future can tell if these plans will come to fruition as Xbox is in dire need of a keyboard and mouse support. Windows 10 Redstone 5 has popped up to include support for the Razer RS5 lighting support. This can mean various titles showing up on Xbox that were only playable with keyboard and mouse support. Gamers would be the winners here as they can choose how they want to play their favorite games on the Xbox.

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While Phil Spencer currently can’t say more about the next Xbox console, but he confirmed that Microsoft remains committed to the gaming business, and we should expect the next console to have backward compatibility.

“Why other people might not want to say, hey, there could actually be another console, when we all know there likely is, is because it’s a, hey, I need to keep people buying the console that’s there,” he said.

Microsoft buys four game studios

Microsoft recently announced that it’s buying four different game studios, to expand the range of exclusive titles for Xbox One. The new team will be “creating groundbreaking new worlds, characters and game experiences.”

Microsoft said that it’s also taking over Playground Games, and it’ll work on a new project. Playground Games Limited is a British video game developer located in the United Kingdom, and the maker of the Forza franchise. Microsoft is also acquiring Ninja Theory, Undead Labs and Compulsion Games.

The big bet on the gaming industry

The analysts recently said Microsoft is going to be the Netflix of Gaming, and the company’s investment in the gaming industry is also projected to help the software giant in the road to $1 trillion market cap.

“We see Microsoft building out the ‘Netflix of Gaming,'” Morgan Stanley analyst Keith Weiss was quoted as saying in a note to investors. “We think that gaming has historically been largely ignored, misunderstood, and undervalued by analysts and investors.”

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At E3 2018, Seagate announced a brand new SSD that’s been designed exclusively for Xbox One. The SSD is available in 2TB, 1TB and 500GB storage. You’ll be able to store up to 500 games in 2TB Seagate Game Drive for Xbox One, including the achievements and other data.

Seagate has also improved the read and write speeds, and of course, the performance is better than the standard drive since it’s designed for a gaming console. You will not notice any lags or crashes while playing the games stored on the external hard drive. It feels as if your games are playing from the internal hard drive itself, thanks to the improved read and write speeds.

The game drive costs a bit more than the standard hard drive, but it’s not surprising given that Seagate’s SSD for Xbox One will offer an unbeatable performance.

Pricing and availability

Seagate plans to launch the new range of SSD for Xbox One in the US, later this summer. The 2TB variant is priced at $600, the 1TB and 500GB storage variants will cost $300 and $150 respectively.

Microsoft at E3 2018

E3 2018 is going particularly busy for Microsoft, as the company will be expanding the first-party development again. Microsoft’s briefing at E3 2018 is going to be as frantic as ever.

You can expect an episode of Inside Xbox from the show floor, Xbox experience at Microsoft Theater, and new games.

You’ll be able to watch the Xbox E3 2018 briefing on Sunday, June 10.

“During the Xbox E3 2018 Briefing, you’ll have a chance to check out everything from in-depth looks at previously-announced games to trailers for our unannounced titles coming in 2018 and beyond,” the company said.

It sounds like Microsoft will be bringing a lot of stuff to E3 2018, and we may learn more about the company’s future plans for its gaming business at this year’s E3.

Disclaimer: This article is based on a report from TechRadar. Windows Latest makes no claims or guarantees.

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Morgan Stanley analyst Keith Weiss believes that Microsoft is building out the Netflix of Gaming. The analyst believes that the business has been “undervalued” by analysts and investors. Needless to say, the Microsoft’s gaming business is going strong and CEO Satya Nadella is also proud of it.

“We see Microsoft building out the ‘Netflix of Gaming,'” Morgan Stanley analyst Keith Weiss said in the analysis to clients. “We think that gaming has historically been largely ignored, misunderstood, and undervalued by analysts and investors.”

“Google, Amazon and Microsoft are all working on cloud-based, streaming video game platforms designed to compete with PlayStation and Xbox, and these could launch before the end of the decade,” Jefferies analyst Timothy O’Shea also expressed similar thoughts.

Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella recently said that the Xbox One is the console with the highest engagement, and it’ll continue to grow in the coming months and serve more opportunities to the gamer. Microsoft also talked about the impressive revenue performance and growth in the gaming segment.

Microsoft is quite happy with the Xbox business, and the company will be bringing a lot of stuff to E3 2018. Microsoft unveiled a lot of stuff last year, and the 100 minutes briefing is going to be as frantic as ever.

Microsoft’s latest Xbox One X is getting an incredible response and is currently the most advanced and most powerful console ever built. It seems like gaming matters quite a lot to Nadella, and Microsoft is fully committed to the gaming business. What do you think? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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