New Microsoft Store tab layout now rolling out to all users

By Sean Endicott
published

The Microsoft Store is now split into updated sections, including gaming, entertainment, and productivity.

Microsoft Store layout
Microsoft Store layout (Image credit: Windows Central)

What you need to know

  • The Microsoft Store has a new layout that is rolling out now to all users.
  • The update reorganizes the sections of the store and adds new categories of items.
  • The update has been in A/B testing for months, so many users will already have the updated layout.

The Microsoft Store has a new layout, making it easier to find software, hardware, and deals. The updated layout includes a new set of categories and adds things like gaming PCs into the gaming section of the store. The new layout has been in A/B testing for months, so many users received this update awhile ago, but it's now rolling out to everyone.

The top of the Microsoft Store now has sections for home, gaming, entertainment, productivity, and deals. The gaming section now has PC gaming hardware such as the Razer Blade 15 and the Razer Core X Chroma External GPU.

The Microsoft Store still has apps, but they're under the productivity section of the store. In addition to apps, the productivity section also includes Surface devices, Surface accessories, and other laptops.

The deals section is potentially the most useful change to the Microsoft Store. It now lists all deals that are live throughout the store, including deals on PC games, Surface devices, apps, PCs, and PC accessories. This makes it much easier to find deals compared to the old store, which only showed discounts within any given section. The deals are now listed in both their respective sections and in the dedicated deals section.

The update to the Microsoft Store is done through the Microsoft Store itself. To receive the new layout, check for updates within the Microsoft Store.

Sean Endicott
Sean Endicott
News Writer and apps editor

Sean Endicott brings nearly a decade of experience covering Microsoft and Windows news to Windows Central. He joined our team in 2017 as an app reviewer and now heads up our day-to-day news coverage. If you have a news tip or an app to review, hit him up at sean.endicott@futurenet.com (opens in new tab).

11 Comments
  • Had this about a week ago, kinda simplified and cool.
  • I have a problem simply finding all Xbox Live games that use to be on the store at the top under gaming. I like simply going in there to browse using the filters. I can type in "Xbox Live" in the search, but that doesn't give my results with filters.
  • Collections: xbox live games
  • But you can no longer subsequently sort and filter them like you used to be able to. This change is a mess. It's less intuitive and it resulted in unexpected changes on the Windows 10 Mobile version of the store that make it even less usable. It made far more sense having separate sections for apps, movies and TV, etc.
  • In the downloads page, there's a new tab on the left titled 'xbox game pass' and 'xbox live gold'. I got game pass for pc and the annoying thing is when I click it appears to show all games on 'game pass' for both PC and Xbox, it really should only show pc games being on a Windows machine or at least have a filter. I will say it is a step in the right direction, as usually trying to find the list of 'game pass' games on pc kicks you out of the store and onto the 'game pass' website. Makes you wonder what MS is planning on doing.
  • Can't you then filter by Xbox only or PC only or did they remove that filter? In fact, it used to auto filter for PC when I was searching for console games on my computer's store.
  • You can filter by PC only. Simply go to the Gaming section and select one of the "Show all 99+" blue links next to each section title, depending on what you're looking for. Now click on "More filters" at the top and you'll see "Available on" as the last option, which will let you select PC, Xbox, or Mobile.
  • True, but you can't show there's no section for gamepass games on pc
  • Sure there is. Under the Subscription type filter at the top, select Game Pass. When you have the PC option selected as I described above and the Game Pass subscription type selected, it will show you GamePass games available for PC.
  • 🖕 Microsoft. They changed the sections name with 2 objectives in mind: * To trick and confuse users into purchasing hardware products;
    * To trick and confuse users into purchasing paid software.
  • So it is true, some people do use the store.