Microsoft adds Xbox features to Edge to entice gamers

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Microsoft wants Edge to be known as the “best browser for gamers”. The company announced a slew of updates coming to the default Windows browser, most of which focus on things gamers (probably) want.

I’ve been gaming for over 25 years and I’m not that impressed, but I also just don’t like using Edge. But Microsoft doesn’t want you to use Chrome. Or Firefox, for that matter. It wants you on Edge.

Because of that, it just added a slew of gaming-centric features that you can launch from a central hub. The new gaming-focused home screen in Edge packs news, streams, tournaments, new releases, game guides, and more in one place.

It’s accessible by way of the new “gaming” header you’ll find on the Edge home screen.

There’s also a new Games menu that you can open from the home screen or the Edge Options menu. From here, you can play a variety of casual free-to-play games like Battleship, Surf Game, Microsoft Jewel, and more.

It’s not a lot, really. But if you literally have nowhere else to open up some free games, then it’s kind of cool.

A much more interesting feature is the Clarity Boost option. You can utilize it to improve the way your games look when streamed through the Xbox Cloud Gaming app.

It’ll do work when it comes to upscaling your games, no matter what hardware you play on, and it’s free to use.

Finally, you can use Edge’s Efficiency mode to keep the browser from sucking up resources like it tends to do when you’re gaming.

With this and Clarity Boost, gamers do have some viable reasons to turn to Edge. But honestly, as much as I use my Xbox and PC, I’m probably still gonna use Safari because I’m lazy. Sorry.

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