Last month, as it continued to navigate the PR craters left by its thousands of layoffs and IDF patronage, Microsoft announced that it was bringing four original Xbox games to PC through a new Backward Compatibility for PC program. Now, it seems Microsoft has bigger PC port plans in store, expanding its backwards-facing content strategy.
According to reporting from The Verge, a leaked document sent to developers indicates that Microsoft is planning to enable developers to allow their previously-released Xbox 360 games to be purchased and played on PC. The Xbox 360 backwards compatibility will reportedly be available on "Xbox PCs," Microsoft's upcoming Project Helix, and handheld devices.
Expected to launch via a "gradual" rollout between 2027 and 2028, the service will reportedly let developers opt into allowing PC backwards compatibility for their games in their Xbox 360 release catalogue.
An eventual emergence of Xbox 360 backwards compatibility seemed likely, as users realized last month that the four OG Xbox games newly released for PC were running in an Xbox emulator that was, itself, running inside an Xbox 360 emulator. With "minimal" reverse-engineering, emulator developers were able to get Microsoft's nested emulation solution to run dumped Xbox 360 games.
The leaked document also provided details for the disc-to-digital program that previous Verge reporting said was in testing at Microsoft, which will allow owners of Xbox One and Xbox Series X game discs to obtain a digital license for the game across Xbox devices. Unfortunately, that service doesn't seem to extend to Xbox 360 discs; if I had to speculate, I'd guess it's because 360 discs likely lack the disc-level licensing tech that Xbox had originally planned to utilize with the Xbox One launch.
But users who already own a digital copy of Lost Odyssey might soon be able to play it on PC—something PC Gamer has been hoping for since at least 2017.
