Skype is the video conference application most people have forgotten about. That’s all about to change if Microsoft gets their way. Leveraging their work on delivering Windows 10 to all platforms, including the Xbox One, this image is believed to be the first public sighting of the Skype Universal Windows Platform app (UWP) running on Xbox One.
Those familiar with Xbox will know its had Skype in the past, however the new universal app, means its essentially the same codebase regardless of the platform, desktop, phone and even Xbox.
The image comes from Gurdeep Pall, the Corporate Vice President at Microsoft who looks after Skype & Skype for Business. This raises the question of how long we’ll have to wait before we see Skype for Business showing up in the Xbox store. We’re pretty sure some people would love to work from home, from their couch and take a meeting or 3.
We see in the image, a 6 person video call, which of course, would work a lot better if Australia had universal internet access, importantly on the upload side of the bandwidth meter. Interestingly there’s a Kinect on top of the Xbox One, yet there’s also a dedicated webcam, we assume a Microsoft Lifecam, which we can only assume is for testing. Given new Xbox’s dropped the Kinect in the box, supporting USB webcams will be critical to its success.
In 2016, Skype has some serious competition. What should have been Skype’s market to own as an early player, has let slip to see the emergence of companies building their own video sharing and conferencing services. People now have the choice between Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Google Hangouts/Duo, Line, Viber and so many other alternatives. It’ll be a battle for them to recover marketshare, but putting a UWP app on the Xbox isn’t a bad place to start.
