This week brought an onslaught of Microsoft news across the Surface event and the Ignite conference, including a beautiful new Surface Pro 9 and the announcement of iCloud integration in the Windows 11 Photos app. There was a major piece of news that got lost in the shuffle, however. This week, Microsoft also announced that the Xbox app for Windows finally supports Arm-powered devices, such as the Surface Pro X and the new Surface Pro 9 with 5G. That means you can now use the Windows app to play games using Xbox Cloud Gaming, effectively making it possible to use thin and light Arm devices as gaming machines.

The Xbox app for Windows has supported cloud gaming for a while now, but unfortunately, the app only runs on x86-based PCs. If you had a Windows PC with an Arm processor, you were forced to use a browser, because the Xbox app wouldn't even run on Arm devices through emulation. And if you're using a browser, the only ones optimized for Arm devices are Microsoft Edge and Firefox, which aren't ideal for everyone. Thankfully, now you can use the Xbox app, with an updated version rolling out this week with support for Arm devices.

Xbox Cloud Gaming gets you access to "hundreds" of games that are rendered remotely and streamed to you over the internet. That means you don't need an incredibly powerful device to enjoy popular titles, including free access to games like Fortnite, making them even more accessible. With Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, you also get a lot of paid titles, including major launches from Xbox Game Studios such as Halo Infinite or Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Windows devices powered by Arm processors have faced a number of hurdles that make them feel like they're not quite ready for mass adoption, despite first making their debut five years ago. In our recent review of the Lenovo ThinkPad X13s, Rich Woods noted that many apps still don't work or aren't well-optimized, which makes these devices hard to recommend. At the time, the Xbox app was one such example, but thankfully that's no longer the case.

Beyond Xbox Cloud Gaming, Microsoft has been making strides towards making Windows on Arm devices more appealing in general recently. Built-in Windows 11 apps like the Camera and Calculator have recently added native support for Arm, PowerToys also supports the architecture, and even Visual Studio is getting updated with native Arm support. Microsoft is also working on Project Volterra, an Arm-based Windows development machine.

Source: Microsoft