Microsoft Adds Xbox Game Bar Widget In Windows 10

The Xbox Game Bar is a practical, but probably not used by everyone or many, functionality of Windows 10. It allows you to achieve an overlay when playing at the push of a button, which offers chat and some practical widgets. The latter is now being greatly expanded.

Many offer overlays in PC games, Steam has something like this, and the graphics card manufacturers also enable such functional fades or fades while a game or app is running. Whether you use something like this depends to a large extent on whether you like this type of operation or not and whether you have got used to it. Because essentially the Game Bar (by Win + G) replaces opening the desktop or other programs by Alt + Tab and that is extremely practical.

All developers can develop and offer widgets

Microsoft has gradually improved its Xbox Game Bar, which can be activated as part of Windows 10, in recent years, but now it is taking the biggest step so far. The Redmond company has announced that it will open the Xbox Game Bar and will allow all developers to program widgets for it. These are then offered through a separate store.

All interested parties can now access the beta version of a Software Development Kit (SDK), so developers can create custom widgets. Microsoft also introduced the first “third-party widgets” and partners in a post on News Wire: XSplit and Razer. XSplit will offer the Gamecaster tools through the Xbox Game Bar. The streaming application will allow broadcasts to start or stop, chat, or check stream statistics. Razer, on the other hand, developed the Cortex System Booster widget, which allows processes and services that run in the background to be viewed and terminated. Intel has also announced that it will offer widgets for the Game Bar.
Opening the Xbox Game Bar widgets is undoubtedly a huge step forward for the feature and the Microsoft overlay has the potential to outdo everyone else, or rather put it together. While it is unlikely that Nvidia, AMD or Steam will give up their own solutions, it would be more than desirable if they also offered some features for the Game Bar.