Cortana can now connect to your Xbox Live account for gaming news, activity and more

Microsoft is continually improving Cortana for Windows 10 and Windows 10 Mobile. This morning, we had a report that there is a new connected feature available to users even on the non-Insider build of Windows 10: Xbox Live.

The feature is found under Cortana > Notebook > Connected Accounts along with LinkedIn, Office365 and Uber (for Insiders). Users can then log into their Xbox Live account to connect the two services.

Once completed, Cortana can help you:

Stay up to date
Get insights about your gaming activity
Provide you with relevant content, updates opportunities and offers
Notifying you of your friends availability to play
Scheduling game sessions per your request

There should be little doubt that we are seeing the nascent stages of getting Cortana on the Xbox One, which is set to received Windows 10 later in November. Indeed, many of us already had Cortana in an earlier preview of the Xbox One dashboard (it was later removed, but you can see our hands-on here).

Clearly, in the coming months Cortana really will be the go-to hub for all of Microsoft's products and services.

For now, our connected account simply shows a very cool countdown widget to Halo5: Guardians including a 'learn more' button.

Thanks, Anthony G., for the tip!

Daniel Rubino is the Editor-in-chief of Windows Central, head reviewer, podcast co-host, and analyst. He has been covering Microsoft since 2007 when this site was called WMExperts (and later Windows Phone Central). His interests include Windows, laptops, next-gen computing, and for some reason, watches. Before all this tech stuff, he worked on a Ph.D. in linguistics, watched people sleep (for medical purposes!), and ran the projectors at movie theaters because it was fun.

65 Comments

I approve
Very cool feature.
I still don't want to talk to my devices...
So type. Problem solved. You do type on phones and computers, right? Or are you saying you want Cortana to have telepathy? Cause that is just crazy talk.
Hahahaha
Upcoming feature in hololense. Telepathy.
Not as crazy as you think
One update at a time Daniel
Well...now that you mention it I want telepathy for my Cortana.
It wont be crazy talk to his devices though
I approve this (although I don't have Windows 10 Mobile yet.)
Off topic (I know i'm not suppose to) but has anyone noticed that 'Music Search' is missing from Cortana??
On the PC right? Yeah, find the feedback and upvote please...also she has her own feedback as well. I think this should work? Windows-Feedback:?contextid=163&feedbackid=2244f266-d581-4546-802b-6e9b1cea9f4b&form=1&src=2
It wasn't showing up on the latest mobile build. That's how i noticed it.
Is back on insider preview build.
Sure because I don't see it
go to "Microphone" icon, and on the top there's the music icon.
If we're going off topic, any body know if you can set up automatic quiet hours based on calendar events on mobile or PC anymore? I keep forgetting to silence my phone in class, after I got used to Cortana doing it for me.
On my Surface 3, I can't find anything about quiet hours other than the quick action toggle. Submit this idea to Microsoft's or Cortana's UserVoice pages if it isn't there already.
Sounds pretty cool.
Now let me send Xbox Messages with Cortana (and Messages app)
Still no cortana here...
Good...and now how about launching Cortana in my country? Any timeline?
After ios and android.....
Which country is that, is it anything like the US? I really don't think you'd enjoy it if she acted like she was in the US where you are...out of context is never amusing, it'd be like she was making fun of you. =[
I'm in the UK and have her as US, everything is fine. Although I'm starting to talk American...
Submit your request to the Cortana UserVoice page if someone han't already. Posting this here won't help your cause.
Not really a question...lol
I still don't have an option for LinkedIn. But it's great how quickly they're adding things. Hopefully we'll start seeing integration by big third parties somewhat soon, rather than Microsoft doing it themselves. Unless I misunderstand how this works.
It's on my 640 but I can't turn it on for whatever reason
It only allows you to setup the connection from Cortana on a PC. Activate it there then it will work on your phone.
Annoying, I don't see why?
On my XPS 13, it goes up to the step of permissions and then immediately after the page loads, I am thrown at a "cannot connect to Xbox Live services right now".
Still not in Canada... like WTF? Get your sh*t together Microsoft.
Contact Microsoft and voice your concerns, or submit something to their UserVoice pages. Posting this here won't help you get it any sooner.
I'd be highly surprised if they even read the comments. Cortana has been around for 2+ years now and there STILL isn't localization for most countries. Just the US and UK.
So another takeaway for me here is that Cortana is becoming a "hub" (forgive the term) for all kinds of streams. A way of consolidating the information flow from different sources and apply some machine learning to it, do something useful with it (hopefully). This is something I have been missing from the Microsoft Universe. Other things I would like to see is if people have shared files with me on onedrive, commented on my photos, selected activities from linkedin, and so forth. Oh, and am I the only one who would like to be able to make the Cortana Window wider? You know, Continuum... take advantage of the full screen? I find it odd that even in tablet mode, Cortana is still the same width... These things might have been apparent to everyone else, but I am only now realizing what they are doing. I wonder why you have to go in and reenter your credentials in Cortana, though. Why couldn't the Xbox app just feed information into Cortana? (after you giving permission of course)
Yes! I was thinking the same thing today, the Cortana window is small and I wanted to drag it out.
+1
You guys should submit this to the Cortana UserVoice page if someone else didn't already. Microsoft is actively reading through submissions and integrating them into their services.
Very frustrated that I can not do this from my phone. It just doesn't makes sense to me. I decided earlier this week that I was done waiting for future Microsoft when it comes to mobile. I ordered a Moto X Pure. When (I still have faith) Microsoft gets their mobile game in line and stops ignoring current customers in favor of potential customers, I will happily be back. Until then, I will use their great services on a platform that they care enough about to update frequently.
you *can* do it from the phone, you simply can't do the setup from your phone. once its setup, it works on W10M.
I'm talking about the abandonment of WP8.1, Cortana is an app, not a system component, there is no reason that we can't get this feature. Microsoft is taking a stance of not giving us apps to force a new phone. I'm not blindly following them again this time. The promise with 8 was that everything would be built from a single core. And that all apps would be universal.
WP8.1 isn't abandoned though. A good deal of phones will get upgraded to W10M. And Cortana is definitely a system component in W10 and W10M, hence the ability to have all this functionality. There's a reason Cortana on Android is limited. Because it *needs* to be a system component. You don't need to get a new phone to get W10M (unless its a fairly old phone, in which case *every* platform will treat you that way).
Cortana is very much a stand alone app. They is why they are able to update it on the backend in smaller updates vs major overhauls. Microsoft did this with most of their platform. It's similar to the old music/video hub vs the new standalone apps for those services. Cortana is limited on Android because she is specifically designed to work with other apps that may not be found on an android device. As far as not abandoning 8.1, you are delusional. It's okay to be a fan (I am too) but I have groove music on my Android I don't have it on my Lumia. Same goes for the outlook mail app. They did a mass reboot after 7 to unite the operating systems, yet here we are again doing the same thing.
Come on. Bring Cortana to more regions, even if in English. Denmark, Sweden, Norway etc....
Looks like another reason for Cortana to bug me. Does it keep the same info on your phone (Win 8.1) as Win 10 PC? Cause mine doesn't, despite being under the same account.
is that MetroTwit you have installed? How did you get it?
Is that MetroTwit I see there? How dod you still have that? I miss MetroTwit and Rowi :(
When in Canada? Cant get her to work on test builds.
It won't connect for me.
Nice, I like this feature :)
Doesn't seem to be working for me. Crashes each time.
I have activated this feature. We'll see how it turns out.
Booked an Uber from Cortana :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OACgvLsN5VQ
Sounds good, but pointless in Australia with no Cortana to begin with. I've said it elsewhere, I'd be happy with the US beta, not the UK robot too.
it takes work. but She is in Australia with the latest Preview build. once you hack around with adding and removing and resetting of Location/Voice data... BUT no Uber/XBox Integration... We do have Linked-In and Office 365 ones so far.. What we do need is all the rest of the stuff that Cortana can do in USA. All we can get is weather and news.
Thanks. Is there a write up on how to do it? I'm using the preview build so keen to check it out.
Noting official.. I loaded all English (UK) and set them default.. then restarted, then reset to English (AU)
Thanks.
Xbox live doesn't show up in the Linked Accounts list...
"Cortana countdown to [insert game here]" would be a cool feature.
This is something I support It's so meta
No Xbox Live linking available for Australia as yet... As usual. Damn it.
After playing through Halo 5: Guardians I'm not sure I want cortana anywhere near me any more.

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