The next time you go digging through your PC’s Xbox app for a game to play, you may find something interesting: an estimate of how long the game will take to complete.
Microsoft has partnered with HowLongtoBeat to provide estimates of how long it will typically take a player to complete each game. The estimate will appear at the bottom of the screen, providing a time (in hours) of how long the main game will take to complete, but any additional DLC content. There’s even an estimate on how long it will take to complete everything in the game, also known as “100%” or “completionist,” which is what HowLongtoBeat uses.
So far, this feature appears to be only part of the Xbox app for the Windows PC, rather than the Xbox console.
The Xbox app is Microsoft’s gateway into its gaming ecosystem for the PC, competing with Steam, Epic, GoG Galaxy, and other gaming libraries. It’s also the entry point for Game Pass and Game Pass Ultimate, a monthly subscription that acts as a “Netflix for games” by providing rotating access to a large library of PC games. (Though Microsoft charges $14.99 per month for Game Pass Ultimate, there’s a trick to sign up for it that allows a fantastic discount.)
Microsoft also said it had updated the speed and reliability of the Xbox app itself.
“We’re committed to continuing to improve the performance and reliability of the app,” Jason Beaumont, partner director of product management, player experiences and platform, wrote in a blog post. “With the most recent update, the app now launches up to 15 percent faster, and we’ve also made some fixes for overall better responsiveness when you interact with key experiences in the app. We’ve seen crash-free sessions improve to 99.9 percent, and player reports of games that didn’t download or didn’t install successfully reduced by nearly half. We’ve also focused on increased relevance for search results, and getting results back is now up to 20 percent faster.”
Author: Mark Hachman, Senior Editor
As PCWorld's senior editor, Mark focuses on Microsoft news and chip technology, among other beats. He has formerly written for PCMag, BYTE, Slashdot, eWEEK, and ReadWrite.