It feels like a relevent topic now more than ever, because something I noticed with the Tony Hawk upcoming release that's been pretty quiet. Pretty casual. Unlike Avowed I didn't see a big post about this even from Xbox. On the Battle Net store page they make it clear that if you buy the game on Xbox or Battle Net, then you'll own the game on both Xbox and Battle Net and the Xbox store page also notes that the game is Xbox Play Anywhere with a console, PC, and Cloud release. It also points to a native PC version on the Xbox app at least based on the store page. This seems to huge to me, but I haven't seen much mention of it anywhere.
It seems very clear to me that this is what every new Activision and Blizzard release will do for the foreseeable future, but what about the rest of Xbox first party? Avowed did it. It was the first to do it? But do they do the same for South of Midnight, Doom Dark Ages, or Towerborne? And you know I'd say that all of those could fall into the same broad buckets of fantasy RPG that was supposedly the reasoning for doing it with Avowed, so why not? Doom would especially seem like a good one if they just want to appeal to the battle net users (it being an FPS like COD or overwatch and a Dark fantasy like Diablo). But there still any announcement of any such thing happening.
In general though we can bench that question. It is clear that Xbox plans to support both Battle Net and Xbox App on PC and extend cross entitlement, and probably try to include it more with Xbox Cloud saves and achievements and social features and etc. The wider question I have is how does Xbox expect to grow on PC or how do they plan to? Steam is dominant. Very dominant. Epic has a better storefront and launcher than Xbox and has barely made a dent in Team's dominance despite literally giving away free games. Epic and Microsoft have also cut the percentages they take from developers by more than half. Still hasn't convinced publishers or devs to off huge widespread support. Still Epic is doing far better in getting support than Xbox.
This far in and I feel the Xbox App on PC is just finally... okay. It feels like where it should have started at. Navigating the store is still virtually impossible though and the entire platform is lacking so many basic features. This is in direct contrast to Steam whose on top and still pushing things. Regardless of how they got it, we now have SteamOS and it's getting widespread support and a lot of praise for bridging the gap between console and PC and offering a far better user experience. Battle Net also just isn't designed to be a robust storefront that competes with Steam, so ultimately they'll need to do the work to bring the gamers and developers to the Xbox App and Microsoft Store. Yet in 2025 both remain undesirable to both groups. The fact that they have both is part of the problem.
We got teasings at CES that there are plans to bring the Xbox experience over to windows and the Xbox App, but honestly at this point that's not nearly enough. Steam is far ahead of them in improving the user interface. Xbox on PC has a lot of ground to cover and it's not just it's UX and UI. Xbox will never manage to be a force to reckon with on PC if they can't figure this out and according to them that's one of their major growth points. Like genuinely, for a game like Yakuza Pirates in Hawaii, what PC gamer in their right mind would even fathom buying it on the Xbox App/Microsoft store instead of Steam. An Xbox gamer who also owns a PC (me) might, but PC only gamers or anyone who is the other way around? Lol. I think about Black Myth Wukong and the biggest miss there has nothing to do with console sales, but not having the game on the Xbox PC App. And they could've even had it on the Xbox PC app, ported it to Xbox consoles later, and retroactively applied Xbox Play Anywhere (they did this with Death Stranding which we know factually had an exclusivity deal). The fact that this didn't happen really just tells me that like who the vast majority of games, they can't convince devs to want to port to that storefront unprompted (as in no game pass deals or really good relationships like they have with Sega).
Xbox Play Anywhere is a separate thing and one that I think will become a competitive advantage for Xbox on PC and Console once PC has that consistent third party support. As of now though, I have some serious questions about how Xbox actually plans to grow on PC. I think Battle Net is just how they plan to maximize first party game sales on first party storefronts they get all the money from. But they he Xbox App has to be their true competitive storefront and launcher on PC and it's not and it really just continues to be lackluster and is missing a lot of necessary third party support.
As someone who unironically loves the Xbox launcher (it and game bar have become really clean and easy to use since compact mode; I can quickly launch my games and that's all I care about), I still have to honestly say that I probably wouldn't use the launcher at all if not for Xbox Play Anywhere and Xbox Game Pass. And I imagine all the PC gamers who didn't go from an Xbox to PC and have this experience. Xbox could have an opportunity to grow console gamers and game pass subs more of they could manage to attract PC gamers on their merit as a launcher and storefront. Some of those PC gamers could pick up an Xbox on sale to enjoy play anywhere and subscribe to ultimate as a result.
As I see it, 2025 has to be the year Xbox answers this (the "how" they'll grow on PC beyond a game pass filler and actually become a proper competing storefront that's attractive to PC gamers). It'll be too late otherwise with Steam massively making their experiences more console like and even Playstation building PS overlays into their PC ports and trying to make everyone sign into PSN. Microsoft is losing their biggest competitive advantage in this space with Xbox.
As always, Xbox will continue to be interesting to watch.
It seems very clear to me that this is what every new Activision and Blizzard release will do for the foreseeable future, but what about the rest of Xbox first party? Avowed did it. It was the first to do it? But do they do the same for South of Midnight, Doom Dark Ages, or Towerborne? And you know I'd say that all of those could fall into the same broad buckets of fantasy RPG that was supposedly the reasoning for doing it with Avowed, so why not? Doom would especially seem like a good one if they just want to appeal to the battle net users (it being an FPS like COD or overwatch and a Dark fantasy like Diablo). But there still any announcement of any such thing happening.
In general though we can bench that question. It is clear that Xbox plans to support both Battle Net and Xbox App on PC and extend cross entitlement, and probably try to include it more with Xbox Cloud saves and achievements and social features and etc. The wider question I have is how does Xbox expect to grow on PC or how do they plan to? Steam is dominant. Very dominant. Epic has a better storefront and launcher than Xbox and has barely made a dent in Team's dominance despite literally giving away free games. Epic and Microsoft have also cut the percentages they take from developers by more than half. Still hasn't convinced publishers or devs to off huge widespread support. Still Epic is doing far better in getting support than Xbox.
This far in and I feel the Xbox App on PC is just finally... okay. It feels like where it should have started at. Navigating the store is still virtually impossible though and the entire platform is lacking so many basic features. This is in direct contrast to Steam whose on top and still pushing things. Regardless of how they got it, we now have SteamOS and it's getting widespread support and a lot of praise for bridging the gap between console and PC and offering a far better user experience. Battle Net also just isn't designed to be a robust storefront that competes with Steam, so ultimately they'll need to do the work to bring the gamers and developers to the Xbox App and Microsoft Store. Yet in 2025 both remain undesirable to both groups. The fact that they have both is part of the problem.
We got teasings at CES that there are plans to bring the Xbox experience over to windows and the Xbox App, but honestly at this point that's not nearly enough. Steam is far ahead of them in improving the user interface. Xbox on PC has a lot of ground to cover and it's not just it's UX and UI. Xbox will never manage to be a force to reckon with on PC if they can't figure this out and according to them that's one of their major growth points. Like genuinely, for a game like Yakuza Pirates in Hawaii, what PC gamer in their right mind would even fathom buying it on the Xbox App/Microsoft store instead of Steam. An Xbox gamer who also owns a PC (me) might, but PC only gamers or anyone who is the other way around? Lol. I think about Black Myth Wukong and the biggest miss there has nothing to do with console sales, but not having the game on the Xbox PC App. And they could've even had it on the Xbox PC app, ported it to Xbox consoles later, and retroactively applied Xbox Play Anywhere (they did this with Death Stranding which we know factually had an exclusivity deal). The fact that this didn't happen really just tells me that like who the vast majority of games, they can't convince devs to want to port to that storefront unprompted (as in no game pass deals or really good relationships like they have with Sega).
Xbox Play Anywhere is a separate thing and one that I think will become a competitive advantage for Xbox on PC and Console once PC has that consistent third party support. As of now though, I have some serious questions about how Xbox actually plans to grow on PC. I think Battle Net is just how they plan to maximize first party game sales on first party storefronts they get all the money from. But they he Xbox App has to be their true competitive storefront and launcher on PC and it's not and it really just continues to be lackluster and is missing a lot of necessary third party support.
As someone who unironically loves the Xbox launcher (it and game bar have become really clean and easy to use since compact mode; I can quickly launch my games and that's all I care about), I still have to honestly say that I probably wouldn't use the launcher at all if not for Xbox Play Anywhere and Xbox Game Pass. And I imagine all the PC gamers who didn't go from an Xbox to PC and have this experience. Xbox could have an opportunity to grow console gamers and game pass subs more of they could manage to attract PC gamers on their merit as a launcher and storefront. Some of those PC gamers could pick up an Xbox on sale to enjoy play anywhere and subscribe to ultimate as a result.
As I see it, 2025 has to be the year Xbox answers this (the "how" they'll grow on PC beyond a game pass filler and actually become a proper competing storefront that's attractive to PC gamers). It'll be too late otherwise with Steam massively making their experiences more console like and even Playstation building PS overlays into their PC ports and trying to make everyone sign into PSN. Microsoft is losing their biggest competitive advantage in this space with Xbox.
As always, Xbox will continue to be interesting to watch.
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