Xbox’s next-gen tease proves it: Home windows is the way forward for Microsoft gaming

Xbox’s newest video was ostensibly a couple of “strategic, multi-year partnership with AMD to co-engineer silicon” for the subsequent technology of Xbox {hardware}–spanning consoles, handhelds, and extra. However the finish of the video is probably the most attention-grabbing half: This complete hook revolves round Home windows.

“That is all about constructing you a gaming platform that’s all the time with you,” declares Xbox president Sarah Bond. “So you possibly can play the video games you need, throughout gadgets, wherever you’re, delivering you an Xbox expertise not locked to a single retailer or tied to at least one machine.”

“That’s why we’re working intently with the Home windows crew to make sure that Home windows is the primary platform for gaming.”

Document scratch. Wait, what?

It’s a startling admission, however this shouldn’t come as a shock to anybody who has been listening to Xbox’s latest strikes.

After being spanked by PlayStation this technology, constructing out Xbox Cloud Gaming, and spending bajillions, (roughly) to accumulate main publishers like Bethesda and Activision Blizzard, Microsoft has shifted exhausting to a “That is an Xbox” PR marketing campaign. Splashy adverts present photos of telephones, of PCs, of televisions, and sure, of the Xbox console itself, every surrounded by stark THIS IS AN XBOX lettering.

And simply final week, Microsoft and Asus co-announced the Xbox Ally X, a brand new model of the Asus ROG handheld PC with an Xbox button and a revamped, Steam Deck-like interface constructed for cellular gaming. An enormous hook for the machine? In contrast to the Steam Deck, the Xbox Ally X can play all of your video games—as a result of it’s quietly working Home windows below the hood.

“I don’t have to consider Home windows, all I’ve to consider is my sport,” says Anshul Rawat of Microsoft in a promo video for the Xbox Ally X.

That’s mainly the pitch for the complete “That is an Xbox marketing campaign.” And to realize true multi-device, multi-store capabilities, you want the flexibility of Home windows.

It’s nonetheless surprising to listen to the pinnacle of Xbox state the division is “working intently with the Home windows crew to make sure that Home windows is the primary platform for gaming” – doubly so in a video teasing the subsequent technology of Xbox {hardware}, powered by AMD.

Any remaining Xbox fanatics should have felt their coronary heart drop listening to that, nevertheless it sends my PC gamer thoughts racing. I really like seeing Microsoft enhance the atrocious Home windows handheld expertise, and listening to Xbox’s highest executives declare Home windows supremacy. However consider all of the potential knock-on results!

Will the Xbox Ally X’s improved sport expertise come to the Xbox app on Home windows – successfully turning any gaming PC into an Xbox? Heck, will there even be a next-gen Xbox as we all know it? I’m certain Microsoft will proceed releasing {hardware} of some form, however may we be witnessing the inception of a brand new period for Xbox, the place Microsoft permits PC makers to ship console-mimicking gadgets that load proper into the Xbox app? Have we come full circle after the loss of life of Valve’s Steam Machines?

Heck, is it time to convey again the DirectX Field ethos that gave Xbox its identify?

Asus

We most likely gained’t know the solutions for a lot of, many months – perhaps even years. Nevertheless it certain appears that after years of pushing the closed-garden Xbox consoles, Microsoft is intent on shifting Xbox model to be way more huge open. That openness comes from the flexibility of Home windows, even when it’s hidden below a layer of Xbox polish, and Xbox execs are flat-out saying it now.

Buckle up children. I don’t assume Microsoft is de facto even competing with Sony or Nintendo anymore. We’re in for a wild experience – and hopefully, PC avid gamers stand to achieve probably the most from it.