Xbox has rolled out Amazon Echo and Cortana-powered Xbox One voice commands on its Xbox Insiders testing platform, allowing enrollees to use either smart assistant to control a variety of features on a connected Xbox One system.
Voice commands are nothing new to Xbox, of course. The console previously allowed players to do many of the same things through the Kinect for both the Xbox 360 and Xbox One before Microsoft made moves to leave the motion tracking tech in the dust.
Previously, games like Destiny 2 have turned to Alexa-enabled devices to implement voice commands as a way to control certain in-game features. The Alexa and Cortana integration being tested by Xbox through the Insider Program takes that one step further and allows Xbox owners to turn their system on or off, launch games and apps, control media, grab screen-captures, start and stop Mixer broadcasts, and more.
For example, a player can tell their Amazon Echo or Cortana-enabled device to start a specific game and their Xbox One will power on, log them in, and open the named application.
Xbox has more details on what exactly Alexa and Cortana integration can control on the Xbox One over on its blog.