Something unusual is happening with Microsoft’s Xbox app on Windows. Over the previous few days, the Xbox PC app has began displaying Xbox console video games contained in the library. While you’ll be able to’t set up video games like the unique Alan Wake for Xbox 360, it reveals up if you happen to personal it as a part of the “My PC Games” checklist contained in the Xbox PC app.
I don’t imagine it is a easy bug, however extra the results of Microsoft’s plans to extra carefully mix its Xbox and Windows shops. I wrote about this effort in March, after I revealed in Notepad that Microsoft is working with Asus on a Project Kennan handheld. “It’s half of a bigger effort from Microsoft to unify Windows and Xbox in the direction of a common library of Xbox and PC video games,” I wrote on the time.
This effort additionally includes enabling Steam and Epic Games Store video games to be seen within the Xbox PC app library. Microsoft by chance revealed mockup photos displaying Steam video games within the Xbox PC library earlier this 12 months, and on the time sources acquainted with the corporate’s plans informed me Microsoft was engaged on an Xbox app replace that can present each recreation you could have put in in your PC.
Microsoft has additionally been engaged on making the Xbox app the house of PC gaming over the previous 12 months, and it has just lately began referring to its Xbox PC app as merely “Xbox PC.” This new branding first confirmed up in Microsoft’s announcement of Gears of War: Reloaded, and a brand new gameplay trailer for MIO: Memories In Orbit additionally reveals off the Xbox PC branding and brand that we’re going to see every time Microsoft needs to let PC gamers know the sport is on the market on its Microsoft Store.
All of those Xbox PC adjustments and the hand held work means we’re most likely near seeing precisely how Microsoft lists extra video games within the Xbox PC app. The massive query might be whether or not Xbox console video games will really be playable on PC, and Microsoft might have to leverage its cloud infrastructure for that until it has an emulation breakthrough able to lastly make the dream of taking part in outdated Xbox video games on PC a actuality.
