Something strange is happening with Microsoft’s Xbox app for Windows. Over the past few days, the Xbox app for PC has started showing Xbox games in the library. While you can’t install games like the original Alan Wake for Xbox 360, it does show up if you have it in your “My PC Games” list in the Xbox PC app.
I don’t think this is a simple bug, but rather a result of Microsoft’s plans to more closely integrate the Xbox and Windows stores. I wrote about this effort in March when I reported in The Notebook that Microsoft was working with Asus to create a Project Kennan laptop computer. “This is part of a larger effort by Microsoft to bring Windows and Xbox together to create a universal library of games for Xbox and PC,” I wrote at the time.
This effort also includes making Steam and Epic Games Store games visible in the Xbox PC app library. Earlier this year, Microsoft accidentally published mock-ups of Steam games in the Xbox PC library, and at the same time, sources familiar with the company’s plans told me that Microsoft is working on an update to the Xbox app that will show all the games installed on your computer.
Over the past year, Microsoft has also been working to make the Xbox app the home of PC gaming, and recently started referring to its Xbox PC app as simply “Xbox PC.” This new brand first appeared in the announcement of Gears of War: Reloaded, and the new gameplay trailer for MIO: Memories In Orbit also showcases the Xbox PC brand and logo, which we’ll be seeing whenever Microsoft wants to let PC players know the game is available on the Microsoft Store.
Microsoft is also bringing “the best of Xbox and Windows together” for portable devices, a change we’ll see later this year. Microsoft desperately needs an answer to SteamOS, especially after PC makers like Lenovo start installing SteamOS on their pocket gaming computers.
All of these changes to the Xbox PC and working on portable devices means that we are probably close to seeing Microsoft add more games to the Xbox PC app. The big question will be whether it will be possible to play games from the Xbox console on the PC, and for this, Microsoft may have to use its cloud infrastructure, unless it makes a breakthrough in emulation to finally make the dream of playing old Xbox games on the PC a reality.
