Microsoft Teams Up With Google To Allow Xbox One Control Via Google Assistant

Currently, Xbox users can rely on Microsoft’s Cortana and Amazon’s Alexa to control their console, and now, Google Assistant has been added too.

Thursday blog posts revealed that an announcement from Microsoft and Google that they are rolling out a beta of this new functionality. Like with other digital assistants, this integration will let users turn on or turn of the Xbox, launch games and apps on the console, capture screenshots, adjust the volume, control play/pause, and record game clips.

It’s simple to add the beta. All you need to do is joining Microsoft’s Google Group using Google account. Next, to begin the process, open Google Home, click on Add > Set up device > Have something already set up?

Here, search for the “[beta] Xbox” device and select it, then sign in to your Microsoft account on your system and you’re done. In case you own more than one Xbox, you can change their names.

As soon as the process is complete, you can start controlling your Xbox using any smart display, speaker, or Android device integrated with Google Assistant or the Assistant and Home apps of Google on iOS. The integration is available in English, but the tech giants say that they are on the work to include more languages before launching the full version some time this fall.

Last year, in September, Microsoft released an Xbox Skill for Cortana and Alexa-enabled devices, with voice control for Xbox One. This announcement took place on Xbox Wire, saying that the skill let users do all the tasks mentioned above via the voice assistants. The Skill also helps used bypass steps, for example, if they tell Amazon Echo to launch a game while the console is off, it will turn the console on, sign in, and boot the game all on itself.