Monday, June 13, 2016

Xbox Play Anywhere

Another piece of interesting news that has come out of E3 so far is the new "Xbox Play Anywhere" series of games. These games are what you would call cross buy titles, and nearly every upcoming Xbox One game supports this. But just what does this mean you might ask? It's simple really. If you buy an Xbox One game, you'll get a Windows 10 PC version of the very same game for free, and if you buy the Windows 10 version you'll get the Xbox One version free. The idea is to keep your games with you no matter which console you are on (well, console and PC), and many of these games will even support cross platform play between them. Friends with gaming PCs will be able to play with you on your Xbox, and if you wish to switch over to PC yet continue playing with your Xbox friends, you can do so. Sure there will be limits with some games on what can or cannot be cross played (for example, PC players would have an advantage in general when playing shooters and what not), but it seems co-op experiences will include cross play even if the online competitive modes are blocked.

Really this is an interesting concept, but at the same time it may turn people off from buying an Xbox One in general. Sure, some games such as Halo 5 may never make the jump to PC, but many may look at games like Dead Rising 4 and think "why should I buy an Xbox One for this?" And get it for PC instead. Even so, it's great for gamers who would rather not buy a console, but it could be bad for MS. Oh well, guess we'll just have to wait and see how this turns out.