Xbox Game Pass beta app is now optimized with dual-screen controls catered for the Surface Duo

If you’re still sporting the Microsoft Surface Duo, we have some big news for you. Xbox Game Pass beta now supports spanning across the dual-screens of the Duo, with a new dedicated gamepad area showing on the second screen of the device. Additionally, the Surface Duo is also getting its March firmware and security update, too.

Now that the Xbox Game Pass Beta app is optimized for the Microsoft Surface Duo, playing some of your favorite Xbox games on the dual-screen device should be a lot more fun. Several notable games already have the support for the new dedicated gamepad on the second screen, as pointed out by Daniel Rubino on Twitter. Minecraft Dungeons is one of them and New Super Lucky’s Tale is another. Minecraft Dungeons even has custom controls, catered to the things you can do in the game.

It is up to developers to specifically tweak the controls for the game though, so your mileage might vary depending on the game. And, importantly, this is still a beta, so you’ll need to download the (separate) Beta version of the app via the Google Play Store to try it out.

here’s xCloud running on Microsoft’s Surface Duo across both screens. You can now get touch controls on the other screen with the latest Xbox Game Pass beta app ???? pic.twitter.com/6AA0UHo1or

— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) March 18, 2021

Still, this is indeed nice to see the feature as Microsoft initially teased these types of controls in the Surface Duo trailer back in 2019. This also makes playing games more ergonomic, too, as our own Kareem Anderson argued when he said that the Duo was the perfect showcase for both Google Stadia and XCloud. See it for yourself above, as The Verge’s Tom Warren demonstrates.

Anyway, we’ll end by mentioning the latest Surface Duo firmware update. This update is a bit small and weighs in at 82MB and first rolled out on March 2. It’s currently only rolling out to unlocked versions of the Duo and will bring March’s Android Security Updates, too. The latest version of Android on Surface Duo is now at version 2021.207.70 and the security patch should now be up to March 5th, 2021 after the update.

So, head to the Google Play Store now and download the latest beta of Xbox Game Pass to try out these new touch controls. And, when you’re done, update to the latest firmware, too. Happy downloading!

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Xbox Game Pass (Beta)

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