Xbox App on Windows 10: Social Updates Available Today in Beta

At Team Xbox, we want to make it easy to connect with your friends on any device where you play games. This week, we’re excited to start previewing two more ways to expand your social gaming network and share your gaming content with your friends on Xbox Live.

• Facebook friend finder: a top requested fan feature, we’re bringing two of your favorite social networks together—Facebook and Xbox Live—and making it easier than ever to find more people to play games and have fun with.

In the Windows 10 Xbox beta app (available in the Windows 10 Store here), look for the Facebook icon in the Suggested Friends area or Settings. Click it to link your Facebook account to your Xbox Live account and start seeing suggestions for friends on Facebook who you can add on Xbox Live. As your friends link their Facebook accounts to their Xbox Live accounts, you’ll see increasing numbers of Facebook friend suggestions, so be sure to spread the word!

• Record your voice in your Game DVR clips on your PC: Windows Insider Program and Xbox beta app participants can now plug in a headset and narrate their Windows 10 game clips with their own voice using Game bar and Game DVR hotkeys.

 To turn microphone recording on or off for a gaming session, just press Win + Alt + M. Want to turn microphone recording on for all gaming sessions? Go to Game bar > Settings > Audio or Xbox beta app > Settings > Game DVR > Audio. And if you like personalizing your Game DVR hotkeys and want to customize the microphone recording hotkey, do it here: Game bar > Settings > Shortcuts or Xbox beta app > Settings > Game DVR > Keyboard shortcuts. Share your Windows 10 Store game clips with voice over commentary to your friends on Xbox Live through the Xbox app or any social network or sharing option on your PC. Also lighting up in the Xbox beta app today are improvements in the way that gamers can find games and redeem codes. Our goal with these changes is to enable quicker and more relevant access to content.

• The Store link in the Xbox beta app will now bring you to the Xbox Store—a launching point for browsing and searching for both Windows 10 and Xbox One games. The new interface allows you to see more products at a glance and brings you the latest crop of most popular Windows 10 and Xbox One games, sales and specials, plus your Deals with Gold and Games with Gold games.
• In the Xbox One section of the redesigned Xbox Store, gamers will enjoy a persistent search box, reducing clicks between searches. Also, when you type in the name or a description of the Xbox One content that you are searching for, the search box will suggest some top matching search results.
• Once you’ve found the content you are looking for, fans will enjoy quicker and more contextual actions. Own the content already? Click the ‘play on console’ button and kick off a game streaming session. Don’t own the content? Just click on the ‘buy’ button to purchase.
• Redeeming codes gets easier too! Just like on Xbox One, when codes are sent to you in a message, simply click ‘redeem code’ to redeem. The ‘Redeem a code’ link in the Xbox One section of Xbox Store allows you to enter-25 digit codes right in the app as well.

Check out these new social features arriving in the Windows 10 Xbox beta app today and let us know what you think. Stay tuned for more updates coming to the beta app each month. See you on Xbox Live! Mike @XboxQwik Gamertag: Qwik