As July slowly comes to a close, culminating a month ofthousands of layoffscarried over by Microsoft across its Xbox studios, the company has shared some very different news, as it is slowly rolling out Xbox backward compatibility on PC.
Announcedarting today, starting with four Xbox games:BliNX: The Time Sweeper,Conker: Live and Reloaded,Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, andFusion Frenzy
The four titles are now available to purchase on PC, and are included with all Xbox Game Pass plans. Already-owned digital console licenses carry over to PC, too. The re-releases allow for up to 4x resolution upscaling, and there are some graphics settings to tweak, including anisotropic filtering, “enhanced” anti-aliasing, and Vsync support.
Jason Ronald, VP of Next Generation, Xbox, says the team plans to add more features to eligible games in the future, including achievements to “select” original Xbox games, which will roll out later in the year.
“This marks the beginning of a broader effort to preserve Xbox games from the past and bring them to PC over time,” Ronald says.
The news comes at a tumultuous time for game preservation. At the start of July, PlayStation announced that it’sending production of physical software in January 2028. The move, as the company claimed, comes as “the general preference for digital media significantly outpaces physical discs.”
Meanwhile, Xbox employees have reportedly been testing a feature that would allow Xbox owners todigitize their existing physical game collections. The reported feature, however, will only work on Xbox One and Xbox Series X discs only, excluding those for the Xbox 360 and the original Xbox console.
Speaking of tumultuous, it’s worth remembering that Microsoft is still in itsfifth round of mass layoffssince merging with Activision Blizzard, with the company recently confirming plans to cut 3,200 roles across its video game division before the end of the current fiscal year.
Multiplebox studios could “fall apart” after years of debilitating cuts
