Microsoft Quietly Backtracks On Xbox Play Anywhere Plan

By :
Ewan Moore

Earlier in the week, Microsoft formally announced the release date and games coming to the Xbox Play Anywhere Program.

If you haven’t heard of it, the new scheme (announced at E3 last month) allows you to simply purchase a Microsoft published game once, and then it’s yours to play across Xbox One or a Windows 10 PC, with save files and achievements carrying back and forth between platforms.

At least, that was the plan. Now it seems that Microsoft has backtracked on which games will be part of Xbox Play Anywhere.

Here’s what Microsoft initially said, straight from their blog:

Every new title published from Microsoft Studios will support Xbox Play Anywhere and will be easily accessible in the Windows Store.

And here’s what the post has been quietly updated to say:

Every new title published from Microsoft Studios that we showed onstage at E3 this year will support Xbox Play Anywhere and will be easily accessible in the Windows Store.

Many were concerned that the Play Anywhere scheme could effectively kill the Xbox One exclusive, which wouldn’t really be great news for the Xbox One (or indeed, anyone who brought the console for exclusives)

Advertising

As such, the updated statement seems to give the company a little wiggle room in terms of announcing actual exclusives for Xbox One down the road.

Credit to Red Dragon, who spotted the edit from Microsoft and detailed it in the video below.

By all accounts, Microsoft seems pretty set on merging Xbox One and Windows 10 together.

So, there’s every chance the company merely updated their statement to make it clear that past Xbox One games won’t be part of the program – it’ll just be the currently confirmed games for the meantime, which you can see below.

Let’s be honest: This is a gamble on Microsoft’s part, but if they truly want to merge PC and console, they’re probably just gonna have to let the exclusive die.