First, Epic claimed its “vibe coded” launcher was faster than Steam. Then Steam quietly shipped a performance update of its own. Now Xbox has entered the launcher speed race — with a rebuilt Xbox PC app that Microsoft says launches up to 60% faster.
The overhauled app is available now to Xbox Insiders, and it brings more than stopwatch bragging rights: unified search, a reorganised library and friends pulled into the main navigation. Whether that’s enough to make PC players actually open it is another question entirely.
What’s actually faster
Announced on Xbox Wire by Jason Beaumont, Microsoft’s VP for Xbox Experiences, the update delivers three headline numbers. The app launches up to 60% faster; pages like Home, Store and Game Pass load up to 50% faster; and in-app windows open up to 65% faster. The inevitable caveat: those figures come from Microsoft’s internal testing, and real-world results depend on device, internet connection and system configuration.
Early impressions suggest the gains are real. Windows Central reports that the app, rebuilt as a web app, is “orders of magnitude faster” than previous versions, with the rubber banding that plagued devices like the Xbox Ally X “virtually eliminated”. For an app that has spent years as a byword for sluggishness on PC, that is a meaningful turnaround — even if “up to” is doing a lot of heavy lifting, as ever.
The competitive context explains the marketing push. When Epic said its rebuilt store launcher beat Steam on load times, the response was part mockery of its AI-boosterism and part shrug — speed alone rarely convinces anyone to move their library. Steam then dropped its own performance update the same week, blunting the impact of everyone else’s gains. Xbox is the third launcher to plant a flag on the same hill in a month.
The bigger fix: search, library and friends
Speed aside, the structural changes matter more day to day. The library gets simpler navigation, updated filters and new ways to organise games. Search is now unified across games, installed titles, add-ons and people in one place. And friends and social features have been promoted into the main navigational window, alongside refreshed game cards, a redesigned Home page, new Settings and cleaner animations.
That last change lands with particular force for PC Gamer’s Andy Chalk, who admits he only opens the app for Sea of Thieves — and found connecting with crewmates “kind of a headache compared to the super-simplicity of Steam“. Finding your friends shouldn’t require an expedition; now, at least, it shouldn’t.
How to try it early — and what comes next
The update is currently gated behind the Xbox Insider Program. To get it: install the Xbox Insider Hub from the Microsoft Store, open Previews, find “PC gaming”, click Join and wait for the status to switch from “Pending” to “Manage” (ten to fifteen minutes, typically). Reboot, then check the Xbox app and Microsoft Store for the update.
It is worth separating what this update is from what it isn’t. This is not a new storefront strategy, a subscription change or a hardware announcement — it is Microsoft fixing a piece of software PC players have complained about for years, on the same timeline it has spent rebuilding trust elsewhere. Handheld owners benefit most immediately: the Ally X and similar Windows handhelds are exactly where a slow, janky launcher hurts most, and where the rubber-banding fixes will be felt first.
Everyone else won’t wait long. A refreshed Xbox web experience — improved library tab, more efficient use of screen space, and light, dark and high-contrast modes — is rolling out over the next few weeks via play.xbox.com, with matching updates coming to cloud gaming on the web, TVs and VR headsets. Barring major issues in testing, the new app should reach the wider audience in the coming months.
Which leaves the question Epic’s own speed claims couldn’t answer either. Faster is good, and friends-in-the-nav is better. But when PC gamers don’t have to use the Xbox app at all, how many milliseconds does it take to make them want to? Microsoft has finally fixed the app’s worst problem. Convincing anyone to switch habits is the harder boss fight.
