On Team Xbox, we put customer choice at the forefront of our decision making and regularly use community feedback to help guide the experiences we deliver to gamers. One piece of feedback we’ve heard loud and clear is that you’ve wanted more options for using digital assistants to interact with your Xbox.
Based on your feedback, we expanded our voice command capabilities with the release of the Xbox Skill for Alexa and Cortana last fall. We are excited to announce we’re further expanding our digital assistant capabilities on Xbox One with the Xbox Action for the Google Assistant. The new Xbox Action for the Google Assistant releases to public beta on Xbox One today and is available to all customers in English during the beta period. Google and Xbox are working together to expand language support before launching more broadly to the Xbox community later this fall.
With the release of the Xbox Action for the Google Assistant, you can now interact with your Xbox One in even more ways using just your voice, including the ability to turn your console on and off, launch games and apps, play and pause videos, and more, from the Google Assistant and Home-enabled devices, as well as the Google Assistant apps on iOS and Android.
Here’s how to get started with the beta:
- Join our Google Group with the Google Account you intend to use
- Sign into your Xbox
- In the Google Home app for iOS or Android:
- Tap “+ Add”
- Tap “Set up device”
- Tap “Have something already set up?”
- Search for and select “[beta] Xbox”
- Sign in with the Microsoft account you use on Xbox
- Follow the instructions to link your Xbox and give it a device name
Once you’re all set up, here are a few actions you can try to get you started with controlling your Xbox One with Google Assistant:
- “Hey Google, play Gears 5 on Xbox.”
- “Hey Google, turn on Xbox.”
- “Hey Google, turn off Xbox.”
- “Hey Google, launch YouTube on Xbox.”
- “Hey Google, pause on Xbox.”
- “Hey Google, resume on Xbox.”
- “Hey Google, volume up on Xbox.”
- “Hey Google, take a screenshot on Xbox.”
You’ll notice the default device name for Xbox consoles is “Xbox”; however, you can change the device name for your smart home commands at any time in the Google Home and Assistant apps if you have more than one Xbox in your home. When triggering an action, just use the device name you set in your commands. For example, you would say, “Hey Google, turn on Basement Xbox.”
For a full list of commands, setup instructions, or for troubleshooting, please visit the Xbox Insider Subreddit.
Over the coming weeks as you begin to check out this feature, we’d love to hear from you so you can help us test and refine this new capability. Your feedback is invaluable in helping us shape the experience for all gamers on Xbox. We will also continue to improve on this experience following release and will be listening to your feedback to help determine how we expand our capabilities in the future.
See the rest of the story on Xbox Wire
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