Microsoft isn’t great when it comes to branding. And the Xbox is ground zero for that — the original Xbox console has become iconic, but its names have become progressively worse with the Xbox 360, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Microsoft kept up the tradition with its Steam-style, gaming-focused UI for Windows, originally christened Xbox Fullscreen Experience. Now it’s just Xbox Mode.
Oh, sorry, it’s “Xbox mode,” with a lowercase m. Because even when Microsoft makes an improvement it can’t help but mess it up.
Xbox mode is a streamlined interface, first developed for handhelds like the Asus ROG Xbox Ally (see what I mean about clunky branding), but now expanded to all Windows devices. The full rollout was announced to be finalized sometime in April, with an “Xbox mode” button in the upper-right corner.
Or at least, it should for some people, either rolling out today to Xbox Insider program members (which I’m using) or in a few weeks for regular users. I’m not seeing it in the Xbox app on my desktop PC or my laptop. Whatever capricious god controls staged software rollouts, they are not favoring me today. But I did get an ad for an Xbox MasterCard. I could try more direct ways of enabling it, but I don’t want to mess up anything.
Anyway, I wanted to highlight this because 1) a console-style gaming interface for Windows was a good and necessary idea, especially for handhelds, 2) Xbox Fullscreen Experience was a bad name for it, and 3) Xbox Mode mode is a much better name. As Microsoft attempts to bring the Xbox platform and PC gaming closer and closer, we can expect a lot of complementeary moves.
