A version of Microsoft Edge, the new browser included with Windows 10, is coming to Xbox One.
Microsoft confirmed the news this week on Twitter by bluntly responding to a user, “Yes, Edge will be coming to Xbox One.” The company did not say if Edge on Xbox One will have the same features as the PC edition, but you can probably expect some fine-tuning for its console release.
Edge will presumably replace (or live alongside) the existing Internet Explorer Xbox One app. Edge became the default browser with the release of Windows 10 on PC, but it did not entirely replace Internet Explorer.
The new browser, on PC at least, supports Microsoft’s virtual assistant technology, Cortana, and functionality that lets you draw directly on-screen via Web Note to annotate pages and then share them. The browser also comes with a new page layout for tabs, including links and thumbnails for websites you visit most frequently. For more on Edge, check out the video preview above from GameSpot sister site CNET.
During a recent podcast, Microsoft’s Mike Ybarra talked about Windows 10’s forthcoming integration with Xbox One, which is scheduled to land sometime “post-summer.” Bringing the OS to Xbox One is not as simple as you might think, he said, noting that it involved the team creating a highly customized version of Windows 10 built specifically for Xbox One. This is called OneCore.
“Windows 10 for desktop PCs has incredible momentum right now,” Ybarra said. “We’re going to bring all of that efficiency to Xbox One.”
As of the end of August 10, Windows 10 had reached 75 million installs. Overall, Microsoft is aiming to hit 1 billion Windows 10 devices by 2018. In other recent Xbox/Windows news, a top Microsoft executive said the Xbox One is “literally a Windows device.”