Microsoft Movies & TV
| Component of Microsoft Windows | |
 | |
 Microsoft Movies & TV in Windows 10 | |
| Introduced in | Windows 8 (as Xbox Video) |
|---|---|
Movies & TV, formerly Xbox Video in Windows 8/8.1, is a digital video app by Microsoft that can playback video content purchased from the Microsoft Store and video content stored locally. It is also available for Xbox consoles.
In Windows 11, the local video playback functionality has been succeeded by the Media Player app.
History[edit | edit source]
Xbox Video was announced during Microsoft's E3 2012 press conference along with Xbox Music to tie in with the pending release of Windows 8. The move was intended to position the Xbox brand as the company's main entertainment brand. Both of these services launched on 16 October 2012, 10 days before Windows 8's release to general availability.
In July 2015, Microsoft announced that the Xbox Music and Xbox Video apps would be rebranded as Groove Music and Microsoft Movies & TV respectively to tie in with the release of Windows 10. This move was intended to disassociate the services from the Xbox brand, making them more inclusive to non-Xbox platforms.
In Windows 11, the Groove Music app was redesigned to support playback of video content and was renamed to Media Player with the file type associations being migrated to the app in July 2022. Starting from Windows 11 build 25987, the Microsoft Movies & TV app is not installed by default after doing a clean installation.