Microsoft debuts Microsoft Edge Game Assist ‘a full-featured in-game browser’

Late Friday, Microsoft (MSFT) announced it was introducing Microsoft Edge Game Assist Preview. The company said in part: “88% of PC players use a browser while gaming to get help, track their progress, or even listen to music or chat with friends. These actions require you to pull out your phone or Alt-Tab to the desktop on your PC, taking you out of your game. Unless you have multiple monitors, you also can’t see what’s happening in the game while you’re in the browser or reference a guide while you play. We believe there’s a better way. Today, we’re excited to introduce Microsoft Edge Game Assist, Preview , the first in-game browser that delivers a rich gaming-centric browsing experience-including access to your browser data from your PC and mobile devices.Game Assist is a special version of Microsoft Edge that’s optimized for PC gaming and can appear on top of your game in Game Bar. It’s game-aware and will suggest tips and guides for what you’re playing. It also shares the same browser data with Edge on your PC so the information you care about is always accessible while you play-including your favorites, history, cookies, form fills, and more. This means you don’t need to log into sites again, and it’s easy to get to what you care about…” The Fly notes that Microsoft Edge competes with Google’s (GOOG) Chrome and others in the browser category…