Xbox Testing Big New Quality of Life Feature
Xbox is rolling out a new feature for certain Insiders that significantly improves the Microsoft Store's search bar on consoles. The upgrade is currently available to a small subset of Xbox Insiders across all rings.
The Xbox Insider program allows participating members to test new features before they are released to the general public. Earlier in March, Alpha ring Insiders received an additional update that introduced small but meaningful upgrades to Microsoft Edge's UI and more. In case readers are curious or confused by the mention of rings, the Insider program consists of five of them: Omega, Delta, Beta, Alpha, and Alpha Skip-Ahead, with each one being progressively more exclusive.
The newest Insider update is available to all five rings, but only a selection of randomly decided members have received the improvement so far. The upgrade improves Xbox's Microsoft Store search bar by using AI enhancements to provide better search results and allow greater flexibility with user input. Now, users can type in general ideas like «cozy games» or «arcade racers» and should get legitimate results that match what they are looking for. Insiders who have received the upgrade will see a new «tip» underneath their console's Microsoft Store search bar. The tip briefly explains that users can «search for a lot more now.» New features rolled out to the Insider program are usually released to the public within a couple of weeks, so non-Insiders probably won't have to wait too long before they can test out the new search bar themselves.
The update should help Xbox users find games much more efficiently. Hopefully, the new search feature will be usable with Xbox Game Pass as well, allowing users to easily explore Game Pass' best games by typing in their favorite subgenres or preferences. However, the update's patch notes only mention the Microsoft Store's search bar specifically.
In February, Xbox Insider released a significant update that added Game Hubs for PC members, which
