Summary
- Microsoft is turning any screen with internet into an Xbox-ready gaming platform.
- More heavy-hitting Xbox first-party games are likely to arrive on Steam and Windows soon.
- The next Xbox may simply be an OEM Windows PC, blurring console and PC lines.
Microsoft has been doing something exciting in the gaming scene. We’re still not sure whether it’s a good or bad thing yet, but it’s definitely exciting. The company, once stalwart with its Xbox consoles and its exclusives, has since ducked out of the console wars to instead focus on turning everything else into a console. Basically, if it has a screen and an internet connection, Microsoft wants to ensure you can run games on it, even if it’s cloud-based gaming.
We’ve also seen Microsoft begin shipping off its previously-exclusive titles to its once-competitors, which led to the amazing time where six of the top ten best-selling games on the PS5 were Microsoft-owned titles. Now, we’re hearing a claim that Microsoft wants to do something similar with Xbox titles, and things just got really exciting.
Related
HP hasn’t made an OMEN gaming handheld because Windows isn’t optimized for small screens
If you’re waiting for an HP gaming handheld, don’t hold your breath.
Microsoft is reportedly bringing more Xbox “heavy-hitting” titles to Steam
But we’re not exactly sure what may arrive, nor when
In an article published by Windows Central, Executive Editor Jez Corden has made some pretty awesome claims. They start off with a report that 80% of game developers will develop titles for PC, 40% for PS5 and Switch 2, and 20% for Xbox. Which sounds bad for Microsoft, until you remember that PCs are the next Xbox:
But this is exactly why Xbox’s next-gen strategy is critical. The next Xbox is a PC, and the publishing platform will become more PC like along with it.
With core gamers migrating to Steam at a steady cadence, Microsoft too wants to bring more of its experiences to Windows and Steam alike. I’ve heard some heavy-hitting Xbox first-party experiences, presently not on Steam, will show up there in the coming months.
We haven’t heard anything official from Steam, Xbox, or game developers about bringing their titles over from Xbox to PC, so hopefully Jez Corden’s sources are good. I mean, we’ve already got the excellent Halo Master Chief Collection on Steam, so anything Microsoft owns is fair game right now. Perhaps Minecraft will finally make a debut on Steam.
Jez also mentions something we’ve heard before. They claim that the next Xbox will “simply be an OEM PC akin to a Razer laptop or the Lenovo Legion Go.” It’ll run Windows with some extra code for Xbox backwards compatibility, and if true, will essentially confirm that Microsoft wants Windows 11 to be a ‘one size fits all’ OS that it can put on any device to make it an Xbox. Let’s see if these claims come true; personally, I think there’s a very good chance that Jez is bang on the money.