Will disk Xbox 360 games ever be able to offically run on PC?

GR412 · Mar 25, 2019

With the advent of the Xbox play anywhere feature for digital Xbox One games for Windows 10. I'm wondering if Xbox 360 games will ever be able to take advantage of Xbox play anywhere too? Or possibly by other means?

I understand Xbox play anywhere only works for digital games, but could it be possible that I could download my original disk Xbox 360 games so they become essentially 'digitial'?

Maybe this could be viable in the future as Xbox play anywhere matures?

I'd be interested in your thoughts.

Thanks,

Grant.

:)

Shadowskill08

Theoretically, any digital copies from the Microsoft library would be accessible on PC if made available. It's more unlikely you would ever be able to pop a 360 disc into a PC to play.

IRB

Never say never. I've heard rumours of something similar, but it may well be just that of course.

With xCloud coming though, it may be that you can just stream all the games you own to whatever device you like

yobrizo

It's not possible for now. Also in theory the DVD reader of the PC will not read the contents of the disc, because this is encrypted

zmaster2XXX

As we move even further into a digital age, this seems increasingly unlikely.

Forgot to add that 99% of modern PCs don't even have disc drives.

Obsessive Power

Hi,

The Xbox Play Anywhere games for PC are still PC games, not Xbox One games designed to run on PCs, they are still coded differently, for now at least.

In regards to future Play Anywhere titles, I believe Microsoft is coming up with a way of making what would essentially be a 'duel binary' where a game could be coded for Xbox and PC and included on the same server. This would cut down on development costs,
the end user won't see any difference.

Xbox 360 games are a rather more complex proposition. The Xbox 360 uses IBM PowerPC architecture, PC's, Xbox One and PS4 are X86 architecture. In lamens terms, they speak in a different language to one another. It's not a simple case of just adding these
games to play anywhere.

On PC's - with their varied arrays of processor and graphics hardware - this isn't a simple task, MS would have to make a PC emulator and all my years of playing old games on unofficial emulators, I've never seen an official emulator endorsed or authorised
by a major console manufacturer. Even if they did do this, they wouldn't make disc games work for the simple fact that modern PC's don't have DVD drives.

As proof of concept, Xbox 360 games can be made to run on modern high-end PC's. The Xenia emulator is making great progress. This emulator is not on endorsed or support by Microsoft however.

Will disk Xbox 360 games ever be able to offically run on PC?