It’s been a very strange year forXbox.Xbox hardware sales have plummeted, and Xbox games are gradually making their way onto other platforms, including historic rival PlayStation. In the wake of this, Microsoft is trying a new strategy that makes Windows the central pillar of Xbox as it diversifies into different markets with products like the ROG Xbox Ally.
This move might not go as smoothly as Microsoft hopes, however, and certain sacrifices will have to be made along the way. In some newly revealed information from a hardware leak, a core feature ofXboxcould be going away for good, and it flies in the face of everything the brand has built over the past 25 years.
New Leak Claims Xbox Moving to Windows 11 Comes at the Cost of Backwards Compatibility
Ever since the Xbox Series consoles launched, backwards compatibility has been a cornerstone of the Xbox ecosystem, with around 5,000 games from all eras of Xbox playable on the Series S and X. But in a recent leak by YouTube channel Moore’s Law is Dead, several sources indicated that theROG Xbox Ally’s Windows 11 operating system was causing havoc for backwards compatibility.
There appear to be two major issues at play here, the first of which is software, as Windows 11 does not have the same codebase as Xbox, making it immediately incompatible with a huge raft of unsupported games. The second, and arguably bigger reason, is licensing. Many studios signed agreements with Xbox years ago that permitted their games for use on particular consoles or in certain ecosystems. Windows 11 would allegedly upend a lot of these license agreements, as even if one voice actor’s contract specifies their work can only be available on certain consoles, it could cause legal issues for porting the game to a new system. Comments from some sources in the leak indicated an unwillingness for many studios to joinXbox’s Play Anywhereinitiative, suggesting that some industry figures may feel burned by Microsoft’s recent moves.
As Xbox’s Market Share Dwindles, Backwards Compatibility Matters More Than Ever
As thefuture of Xbox becomes more uncertain, there are real questions to be asked about what could happen to its vast library of exclusive games. Backwards compatibility isn’t just a nice thing to have; it’s essential for ensuring that older games don’t become unplayable on advancing hardware. One of Xbox’s proudest proclamations at the start of the latest console generation was its commitment to game preservation, but with a new strategy, that could now be in danger. Newer Xbox titles might be jumping to other consoles, but there are thousands of older games that cannot be ported anywhere, and if Microsoft doesn’t see value in preserving them, then it might not even try.
All of this sounds very similar to another current situation regarding live services. Now that more games are becoming exclusively digital, online experiences, movements to preserve games are gaining a lot of traction.Stop Killing Gamesis perhaps the most famous one currently, as it seeks legal intervention to force companies to provide offline versions of online experiences. Xbox’s shift to focusing on game publishing and licensed hardware is the first indication that this industry giant could be slowly moving toward a similar end to a lot of these live service games. Without dedicated hardware, there might not be an official, accessible way to play past Xbox games.
