Microsoft says Windows 11 will be better for gaming in 2026, pinkie swear

With the Steam Deck still the favorite of the handheld gaming PC market by a wide margin, and Valve poised to make a swing at console-style living room PCs with the second-gen Steam Machine, Microsoft might be feeling a little nervous about gaming on Windows 11. As well it should. A short Windows blog update says that Microsoft is working on gaming performance.

“We’re committed to making Windows the best place to play,” says the Windows Experience blog in a 2025 wrap-up, “and we will continue refining system behaviors that matter most to gaming: background workload management, power and scheduling improvements, graphics stack optimizations, and updated drivers.” If that paragraph made your eyes glaze over like a Google Discover auto-generated headline, then just substitute in “games will run fast” and you’ll get the gist.

To be fair to Microsoft, it has made some recent improvements in that very area. The company unveiled its Xbox Fullscreen Experience on the Asus ROG Xbox Ally handheld, and recently expanded it to all handheld devices that run Windows 11. The system bypasses a lot of the stuff you don’t need if you’re only playing games, like the Windows desktop and a bunch of background apps, as well as presenting a fullscreen, controller-friendly game navigation interface. It really does help game performance, albeit in a pretty small sliver. Microsoft is even allowing users to try out this interface on desktops and laptops if you jump through a hoop or two.

This is an improvement over trying to run Windows 11 on a 7-to-9-inch screen, and a far better solution than the various Steam-ish interfaces that manufacturers like Lenovo and Asus have managed to cobble together on their own. And it successfully avoids hamstringing the more flexible elements of Windows — you can get back to the “real” desktop quickly, even if reversing the process isn’t so smooth.

But the Xbox Fullscreen Experience isn’t anywhere near as smooth or polished as SteamOS (or Steam’s Big Picture Mode, available to all desktop users). Perhaps that’s an unfair comparison, since Valve has been refining this stuff for over a decade and Microsoft’s product is still in testing. But if I may switch into editorial mode, I’d take this inclusion of “performance fundamentals” in the year-end summary as Microsoft being keenly aware of a loss of face.

Between the anticipation for new Steam hardware, discontent from gamers who feel like they’ve been strong-armed off a perfectly functional Windows 10 so Microsoft can shill more and more AI and subscription features, and rising prices for the flagship Game Pass service, 2026 could be a make-or-break time for PC gaming on Windows. It’s an opportunity for Valve and others, and a gauntlet for Microsoft.