By Tom Warren, a senior editor covering Microsoft, PC gaming, console, and tech. He founded WinRumors, a site dedicated to Microsoft news, before joining The Verge in 2012.
If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement.
Microsoft has added a new Microsoft Teams feature to its Xbox Game Bar that lets you stream your gameplay to friends over Microsoft Teams. The new “Microsoft Teams Play Together” widget is available for the Xbox Game Bar and supports streaming your entire desktop over Teams and also the ability to join video calls to see friends overlaid on top of games.
Microsoft describes the new Game Bar integration for Teams as “a place to hang out while watching and playing games,” which sounds a lot like what people use Discord for. You’ll see friends overlaid on top of a game, and up to 20 people can join a call at any one time.
The integration is fairly basic, though. I briefly tested out streaming Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and while the picture quality was solid across the web and mobile clients, it was very much streaming at 30fps or less, which is not how you want to watch a stream of a PC game.
I wasn’t able to see video participants overlaid on top of the game during my testing either, so that feature might not be working fully just yet. Either way, this feature is definitely not going to replace Discord or Twitch anytime soon.
Microsoft has been trying to entice communities over to Microsoft Teams in recent months. The free version of Microsoft Teams for Windows 11 got Discord-like communities in June. These are Microsoft’s answer to what you might find on Facebook or how people use apps like Discord, WhatsApp, and Reddit to organize groups.
/ Sign up for Verge Deals to get deals on products we’ve tested sent to your inbox daily.
The Verge is a vox media network
© 2023 Vox Media, LLC. All Rights Reserved
Leave a Reply