During Microsoft’s more hardware-centric E3 presentation it was announced that people would be able to play Xbox games on PCs with Windows 10 thanks to Xbox Play Anywhere. This is the assumed next step in Microsoft’s Project Helix.
In case you didn’t catch the press conference, Xbox Play Anywhere allows people to buy the game once digitally and be play it on both the Xbox family and Windows 10 PCs. This includes all DLC, season passes, add-ons, and in-game consumables. “Digitally” is the key word here because this only applies to those who purchased the game digitally, sorry lovers of physical media.
Unfortunately, a release date was never given during the press conference, but Polygon was able to get confirmation from Microsoft that the service will be available on September 13th.
The service will be rolled out in phases, first is the Windows 10 Anniversary Edition update which will be out on August 2. Then comes the Xbox Summer update, although no word on exactly when that update will be out. Once both of those updates have been installed everyone will be able to play games on their Xbox and PC.
Not every game will be Xbox Anywhere compatible, but Microsoft already has an impressive launch list of compatible games which you can see below.
- Gears of War 4
- Forza Horizon 3
- ReCore
- Sea of Thieves
- Halo Wars 2
- Scalebound
- Killer Instinct Season 3
- State of Decay 2
- Ark: Survival Evolved
- Cuphead
- We Happy Few
- Crackdown 3
This is by no means the be-all-end-all list, Microsoft will continue to roll out more Xbox Anywhere titles as time goes on. Any game that is Xbox Anywhere compatible will have this marker (shown below) next to its name.
With Polygon saying that there are talks of the Xbox One getting mouse and keyboard support it looks like Microsoft is trying to turn the Xbox into gaming PC, perhaps this is to compete in the PC marketplace and the growing trend of mid-generation console updates.