XBOX mode
Giving Windows the feel of a console while keeping everything that makes it Windows.
- My role
- Design Director, co-led experience with XBOX design
- Team ownership
- Windows-side design, from handheld through PC
- Launch
- ROG Xbox Ally · October 2025
Windows 11 PCs · April 2026 rollout
Xbox mode gives players a controller-first home on Windows, with their games up front and the full PC one step away. It launched as the Full Screen Experience on the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally in fall 2025. In April 2026, it began rolling out to Windows 11 laptops, desktops, and tablets in select markets.
The original plan for Windows on handhelds was a round of setup polish. That was never going to be enough for a device you hold in two hands. So we asked how far existing Windows surfaces could move toward a console before they stopped being Windows.
A designer on my team proposed adapting the Windows Task Switcher and prototyped it in code. It let players use a controller to move between running games and apps while retaining Windows multitasking. We shared the prototype with Xbox and co-designed the experience from there.
I directed a vision film set in an Indiana Jones–themed world so both organizations could see the experience we were aiming for. Shared design reviews gave us a place to make decisions together.
Windows design held the line on the design system and how Windows behaves. Xbox design represented players and the console experience. My job was to protect what made the experience Windows while pushing both teams to ask what this form factor deserved.
Xbox mode would ship without a dedicated taskbar icon. Task View already offered an entry point through virtual desktops. A separate icon beside it would have given people two answers to one question. I made that case to design, product management, and engineering, and the signed-off spec followed it.
The cost was real. In our study, no participant named the Task Switcher as a way in. We chose to keep the taskbar clear and accepted that people would have to learn where to find the mode. Task View and Game Bar remained entry points in the shipped experience.
The handheld work earned the move to PC. When Xbox strategy shifted from handhelds toward general PC gaming, what we’d learned carried forward. Xbox has publicly credited that work with shaping Xbox mode on Windows 11 PCs. My team designed the Windows side of that version too.