Cortana fans, take a deep breath, Microsoft is expanding where and how you can control your Xbox by releasing a new skill for Google Assistant. Available starting today, you can now let your Google device integrate with your Xbox.

While Google Assistant isn’t natively being installed on the Xbox, Microsoft has released a new plugin for Google’s virtual helper that will allow you to control your Xbox. You can tell the Google Assistant to launch a specific game, turn the Xbox on or off, launch apps, take screenshots, and a few other controls.

If you want to add this functionality to your Google hardware, you will first need to join the program here. After that, you can find a list of all the commands here.

The addition of the Google Assistant support for Xbox is a net-positive for anyone who uses the Google hardware, for Cortana fans, it’s another painful realization that the Cortana is no longer the priority for Microsoft. With Alexa integration and now Google Assistant, there is little value to sticking with Cortana as a consumer unless you are a die-hard fan.

Seeing as Microsoft is now supporting Google Assistant on some of its software/hardware, it does make me wonder if we will ever see additional support in Windows 10? We have already seen an Alexa app for the desktop and if Microsoft is now supporting Google Assistant, the likelihood of it happening doesn’t seem too far fetched.

Tagged with Google Assistant, Microsoft, Xbox