By Nelson Schneider - 11/23/25 at 03:26 PM CT
Remember how long I’ve been saying that Xbox should just be a fancy front-end for Windows that makes it easy to navigate on a TV using nothing but a controller? Remember how Microsoft and the Xbox Division have done ANYTHING and EVERYTHING besides that one simple idea to make Xbox less of a laughing stock?
Well, it seems that, as both Shoes, the Sword of Damocles, and various other unfortunate dangling proverbs fall on the Xbox Division’s head simultaneously, the House of Gates has finally – FINALLY – decided to not only create a nice, clean, controller-friendly frontend for Windows, but to make it broadly available to... Xbox Insiders? Well, they had to have a catch in there somewhere.
Yup, as a preview of coming attractions, Microsoft is making the alternate Windows 11 GUI they’re calling “Full Screen Experience” available to all Xbox Insider program members before rolling it out across the entire platform. For those not in the know, Windows 11 Full Screen Experience began life as a Windows 11 skin that was bandaged onto the ASUS ROG Ally X gaming handheld, which runs Windows 11 instead of SteamOS, and desperately needed something to hide the desktop and make the Ally X feel more like a handheld console and less like an extra-small laptop without a keyboard and mouse.
The sad thing is, as someone who has been calling for a console-style UI for Windows for over a decade... I’m pretty much over it. I don’t use Steam in Big Picture Mode. I don’t use any other fancy front-ends. I just use the normal desktop environment in Windows and KDE Plasma in my dabblings with Linux, and in both cases, a simple controller remapper (Controller Companion on Windows and AntiMicroX on Linux) that allows me to scoot the cursor around, scroll, and click on things using the analog sticks and triggers gets the job done without actually hiding the entire desktop and the sometimes-necessary configuration menus and file browers it contains, while a controller chatpad provides full access to a typing apparatus when necessary.
Still, it may be too little too late, but good for Microsoft in finally doing something smart and good as we draw near the bitter end of one of Xbox’s worst years ever (and THAT is truly saying something, considering that the only non-worst years in Xbox history involved the 360 not yet dying of the Red Ring of Death and the PlayStation 3 shooting itself in both feet and the genitals simultaneously). I probably won’t convert to the Full Screen Experience even if I do eventually end up forced to swallow Windows 11 and update my gaming rig once Windows 10 Extended Security Updates come to an end. But I’d be very excited to give it a try, just to see if it’s a locked-down, cumbersome disaster or if it actually does its job and provides full access to the Windows system without the crusty old desktop paradigm we’ve simply gotten used to.
