Xbox Determined To Expand 'Play Anywhere', Says It Will Help Reach More Players

There is definitely value there. Buy once and play it across:

Xbox Consoles
Xbox Handhelds
Licensed Handhelds
PC Xbox store
PC Battlenet

Most of the time it’s great and seamless to jump between. However i’m pretty sure I lost my 30hour Powerwash Simulator save because I jumped too much and confused the cloud save 😭.

Just as well that they are pushing Play Anywhere, when you bear in mind that you cannot actually buy an Xbox right now. If you want to play an Xbox game, the need to be able to play it on something other than an Xbox has never been more pressing...

From now on, I only buy Xbox games when they are Play anywhere and available on GFN or Boosteroid. Now Cloud gaming is my main platform, Xbox console second.

It's an excellent feature, but it definitely needs more love. I've quite a few Xbox games on my Series S that aren't transferable to my PC.

I got a ROG Ally X last year, and its very appealing to get a single copy of a game that works on both Xbox console and that handheld. More of this please!

The question I have is whether or not Microsoft or third parties go back to games previously not Play Anywhere and add it. Certainly a few titles Id love to see with it.

Absolutely no interest in this. The only place I wanna play is at home on my nearly $2000 4k TV with the necessary VRR in my $500 chair using my $100 a month internet. Not on a potato in the middle of Shop 'n Save.

Unless it's a Microsoft game, what possible benefit does this offer any other publisher?
I can't see any, so this will only apply to Microsoft games only, and even then, only a subset of them.
I don't blame them for trying to make a case for it, but this is clearly of very limited appeal.
Even a game I own on Xbox would be bought on steam if I want it on PC.

@Fiendish-Beaver for good 4-5 months till now xbox consoles are sold out in major retailers in Toronto, Canada. I feel like after scalper market ended in 2022, there were more opporunity to buy series S/X than today, and thats after MS released 3 new revisions.
thats just not right and seems like they dont want to sell consoles anymore as similar situation is in UK, Brazil and Europe

@Titntin exactly and its another reason why this xbox-pc hybrid not gonna fly.
I have way more faith in Valve and Steam OS because steam is a de-facto PC store for 90% of players.

I love play anywhere. When I want to buy a game on PC I always check if it's play anywhere first, coz playing on Xbox then switching to Rog ally seamlessly is awesome. Keep going MS!

"Kim mentioned that this is all about the idea of playing Xbox games "anytime, anywhere, regardless of platform", "

That simply can't be true. Otherwise I should be able to buy my game on Xbox and play it on PS5 pro, or Switch 2? They need to tighten up their messaging if people are going to believe the promises.

I know I'm pointing out issues, but that's only because I'm never going to play a portable pc, it has no use in my life.
I do appreciate that for those that do - 6 million total sales across all makes, and a decent percentage of them might be Xbox players - this is a welcome focus. I'm very pleased for those that will benefit, but it is a relatively small number of people. I don't think it will convince that many to buy into the eco system.

@Millionski Yes, I don't play that much on PC, but it's the steam ecosystem I have most faith in, so it's where I buy my pc titles.

They have talked and talked about Play Anywhere but I don’t see any action to actually expand it, we know that for third-party publishers is up to them but there’s still dozens of games that are now owned by Microsoft, back catalogue for Bethesda, Activision Blizzard and even some from Xbox Game Studios are not Play Anywhere and they’ve had years to expand the program to their owned games but still haven’t and probably won’t do it.

This overall feels like yet another Microsoft side project that they suddenly remembered to advertise but themselves never fully committed to it.

Microsoft drooling over releasing as many games as possible on Switch 2. I think they have a 10 year deal to release CoD games on Nintendo as well?

I'm all for it. MS get a lot of hate from would-be business specialists across the net - but they're pulling all the right moves lately as far as I'm concerned.

I can only say I am a fan of this initiative & I want as many games as possible on it

One of the best features, buy it once and also play it on other devices at No extra cost is amazing value.
Can't ever see tight Sony doing such a thing.
I notice more of the 3rd party games going to Ultimate Gamepass are also getting Play Anywhere .
'Atomfall' 'Blue Prince' and 'Clair Obscur: Expedition 33' being the latest 3rd party Play Anywhere titles.

I think incentivising publishers using it should have been the plan all only if they were moving to win32 apps for Xbox and PC. This is more 'a little too late' as it is a great idea but just very poor execution.

They have been dragging their feet too long and being able to play Xbox console games natively on PC (when every hardware moves to being a PC Windows and it will) is going to be an extreme pain point for customers. Right now it looks like they have no solid plan.