I’m a PC gamer, and I love the Xbox Game Bar for all of the cool little things it can do, but something I never expected, nor wanted, from the bar is now a feature – Microsoft Teams support.
Microsoft Teams is that program widely, and lovingly, referred to as ‘Slack but worse’ – it’s a business-oriented application designed for internal communications, similar to Discord, which is the most popular comms platform among gamers. Structurally, all three of these programs are very similar, but in recent years, Discord has been reorienting itself to be more of a social media platform, while still being the go-to server-based app for gamers and online communities.
Where Microsoft Teams is different to Slack, however, is by positioning itself as the whole package – text-based messages, video calls, and voice calls are all possible on the app, with shareable invite link support to align it as even a Zoom or Google Meets competitor, while Slack’s video and voice call features are really just extras beside what it does really well – text-based comms.
And now, Microsoft has decided that maybe Microsoft Teams could be a gamer app as well.
‘Microsoft Teams Play Together’, as brought to our attention by the fine folks at The Verge, is a new widget that PC users can install onto the Xbox Game Bar. With the widget installed, users can live stream their gameplay directly to their friends, with support for up-to 20 people to watch, and the ability to share links to other people to watch the gameplay across all devices, like with other link-sharing video call programs. Whole-screen or application-only footage can be live-streamed, with up to 30fps streaming available.
If you’re on a Windows 11 PC right now, go ahead and press Windows Key + G, and you’ll see the Game Bar (it’s also toggled by pressing the Xbox button on an Xbox controller). It’s built, obviously, for gaming, but you can also do some pretty easy window-based recordings and screenshots through the shortcut. It’s also great for being able to quickly see your system resources, but it is oriented towards gamers, which is why most of the features revolve around the Xbox PC app (which sucks, despite Game Pass offering tremendous value).
Anyway, the Teams extension is quite barebones at the moment. Microsoft may add server chat support for Microsoft Teams in the Xbox Game Bar in the future, so users can just click the Win + G shortcut to access chats with their friends (this may cut the grass of Xbox’s social features), but I highly doubt this is going to even make a dint in Discord’s domination of PC gaming, especially private game streaming like this, which Discord does incredibly well.
It’s also absolutely not going to do anything to Twitch with that maximum of 20 viewers per stream. Microsoft already gave that a go and it sucked.
But hey, if you don’t mind Microsoft Teams, and neither does your gaming friend group, then this feature might be worth trying out.