Windows 10 has a huge variety of games on its platform, from AAAs to indies and everything in between, not to mention the mountains of back catalog games from years gone by. But what if that selection could be expanded to include every game ever released for the Xbox One? That's now a distinct possibility as Microosft is testing support for Xbox Games on Windows with a new Insider build.
In a blog post to Windows Insiders who are testing the new build 18334, Microsoft offered free play of State of Decay to all of them, termporarily, as a way to preview the feature before a wider release.
"We’re excited to bring technology tailor-made for gaming to Windows," it said. "Help us validate these systems work as expected, and play State of Decay for free (limited time only!). Just tell us about any problems you encounter with installing and launching the game."
It's not clear what kind of technology we're looking at here, but it seems likely to be some form of compatibility layer between the Xbox game and the Windows ecosystem. State of Decay is an odd choice for testing this, as it is already available on Steam. However, Microsoft only sells it on the Xbox store, so it could be that it's looking to branch out further into PC sales of its Xbox catalog.
This is all par for the course with Microsoft as of late, however. It has made it clear that it's looking to create a uniformity across consoles, Windows PCs, and laptops and this is just one more way to do that. It's arguably a solid move to help it compete with Sony, which has run away with this generation of consoles and could well do so with the PS5 unless Microsoft does something drastic.
