Microsoft is looking at original Xbox emulation and Game Pass for PCs

While the PC was once the king of AAA gaming, with the advent of consoles, PCs have often become an afterthought for game developers and publishers in recent years. Microsoft has been working on changing that in past couple of years with its Cross play and Play Anywhere initiatives and making a larger effort to include PC compatibility for Xbox exclusives.

In that vein, the company may also be looking at other exciting new features to bring greater parity between Xbox and PC. In a recent interview, Xbox head Phil Spencer indicated that he would want PCs to be able to emulate Xbox games, at least those intended for the original Xbox. While he was pessimistic regarding the same being true of the Xbox 360 due to its PowerPC architecture, he emphasised that given the Xbox, Xbox One, One S and One X all share a x86 architecture, it should be technically possible to emulate their experiences on a PC, especially the original Xbox.

The original Xbox, OG Xbox, is a little bit easier, because that was an x86 chip it was running on. Obviously when we think about UWP and the ability for games to run across console and PC, we're getting closer. I want developers to be able to build portable applications, which is why we've been focusing on UWP for games and even apps that want to run on multiple devices.

So I think we've got work to go do there, but I think it's in our future.

Of course, while he did mention the technical feasibility of the same being true of the latest generation of consoles, he seems cautious about extending his designs to incorporate those, possibly due to such a feature cannibalising Xbox sales, if it was ever made available.

He also discussed the possibility of introducing a Netflix-like game subscription for PC, similar to the Xbox Game Pass the company launched earlier this year. Here again, he shied away from promising the feature but did offer a resounding affirmation as to whether the company was looking into making it a reality in the near future:

I've said I want to bring Game Pass to the PC. The team doesn't love it when I pre-announce things, but I definitely want to bring Game Pass to PC

With Microsoft once again placing an emphasis on the importance of PC gaming, it's reassuring to see the company working on bringing greater parity between its two major gaming platforms.

Source: PC Gamer