In a video recently published to YouTube, Xbox President Sarah Bond made a big deal of announcing Xbox’s partnership with AMD on whatever its next-gen console ends up being. But it’s one small detail nestled into the back half of the video that grabbed my attention. Forget “immersive gameplay and player experiences enhanced with the power of AI.” Did she just say the next Xbox will be able to run Steam?
“This is all about building you a gaming platform that’s always with you, so you can play the games you want across devices, anywhere you want,” Bond says right as the video is about to close. “Delivering you an Xbox experience, not locked to a single store or tied to one device.”
That’s an exciting premise, but it’s not exactly clear what it means. As of late, Microsoft has made a big deal about expanding the Xbox branding to apps built for streaming devices and third-party handheld gaming PCs. So while, on the surface, this does sound like an admission that the next Xbox console will be able to run third-party game stores, it could also just be a reference to PCs having an Xbox app that can launch games from their other stores.
Personally, though, I hope it’s the former. Ever since I started playing games on PC around high school, I’ve been looking for a way to permanently leave consoles behind, but since I sometimes like to play games in the living room, there hasn’t been a good option for me yet. This could be that.
Xbox could be the king of living room PCs
Others might not be so sure about wanting their living room PC to be an Xbox. But I’d like to counter that current living room PC solutions suck. I’ve tried just placing a PC in my living room. But that means losing out on its power while I’m in my office. I’ve tried running a long HDMI cable from my PC to my TV. Aside from being a tripping hazard, doing that had me frequently running back and forth between rooms to troubleshoot technical issues. And I’ve tried streaming games from my PC to a Steam Link, a Raspberry Pi, and later, a docked Steam Deck. Aside from introducing lag to the equation, eventually, something always goes wrong while doing this too, and I end up having to repeat those back-and-forth treks to my office.
Plus, it’s just not intuitive to use mouse and keyboard input on the big screen, at least for menus. I hate having to keep a wireless keyboard and touchpad combo near the couch—it just takes up too much space on my coffee table. But I also hate the idea of not being able to game in my living room, so I put up with it. Sometimes, I just don’t want to be in my office after wrapping up the work day.
An Xbox that can just use a controller to open Steam like any other app, though, would be a dream. All the convenience of a console, but with the versatility of PC.
Why would you want to play Steam games on an Xbox?
So, why would you want to play PC games in the living room instead of just buying them for console, especially if you’re just going to use a controller anyway? Really, I think there are three reasons—flexibility, game availability, and cost.
It makes sense to buy Xbox games on the Xbox store, yes, but in doing so, you’re locking yourself down to Microsoft’s own devices, at least when it comes to consoles. The Play Anywhere program does give you access to the PC versions of some games when you buy the Xbox version, but it’s not compatible with every game, and it still locks you to one store. Buying a game on a PC store like Steam, meanwhile, lets you easily carry your library with you as you upgrade to new devices, whatever they are. This ensures a type of “backwards compatibility,” something that’s not guaranteed with new console launches (although Bond did confirm in yesterday’s video that the next Xbox will be able to play your current library of Xbox games). It also allows you to play games on a handheld or laptop while you’re away from your main device, then utilize cloud saves to put them on the big screen once you get back home. If I’m able to buy games to play in the living room from Steam rather than on a proprietary store, I can rest easy knowing they’ll fit into my library well into the future, rather than be isolated on some forgotten system in the back of my closet just a few years down the line. I’ll also know that my library’s platform won’t obligate me to stick with a specific brand in the future. Xbox has been better about this than, say, Nintendo, but there’s no guarantee that’ll last.
Plus, some games just aren’t available on console, or they come to them late. This isn’t such a big deal for larger releases—like Call of Duty or Madden—but for early access or indie games, where developers might still be going through the process to get permission to publish their games for a console’s own store, they often release first on PC. Being able to play your Steam games on your Xbox will let you jump into these experiences right away (shoutout to Freedom Planet 2, one of my indie favorites that came to PC a whole year-and-a-half before console).
Finally, there’s cost. While the Xbox, PlayStation, and Nintendo stores are no stranger to sales, PC game stores thrive on these. That’s thanks to competition. Until now, consoles have locked you to their own digital game stores, so there’s less incentive to offer discounts. But PC games have many places you can buy them from. That means quarterly Steam sales events, regular midweek and weekend sales, and on other PC game stores like Epic, weekly free games that are yours to keep so long as you claim them during the right window. Honestly, while PC gaming, if you play things right, you could focus most of your purchasing power on hardware and still have a decently sized library stuffed with free or cheap games. If Xbox allows Steam, or better yet, Steam in addition to Epic or other game stores, building a library for it could become much cheaper.
How realistic is an Xbox that runs Steam?
Again, though, none of this is confirmed. But there is one note toward the end of Bond’s video that gives me hope. After talking about the “Xbox experience” not being locked to a single store, Bond mentions that the Xbox team is “working closely with the Windows team to ensure that Windows is the number one platform for gaming.”
That’s not “Windows and Xbox.” That’s just Windows. Translation: the next Xbox could run Windows.
I mean, technically, that’s what the current Xbox does, but it’s so locked down that it barely feels like the same thing. However, if Xbox’s next console is anything like the recently announced ROG Xbox Ally Handheld, it could be that Xbox’s next home console will essentially just be a PC with a special Xbox interface laid over it, and the ability to launch proper PC apps—something the current Xbox can’t do.
On one hand, that could be a little sad. There would definitely be a sense that “Microsoft is giving up” if it essentially makes the next Xbox a gaming PC rather than a more handcrafted device. On the other hand, I like gaming PCs, and one that comes with fewer hurdles for casual play sounds like a dream come true.
There are still plenty of reasons to be skeptical—we don’t yet know if this will happen yet, or how customizable the next Xbox’s hardware will be (another big plus for gaming PCs), or how much it will cost. Part of what generally makes consoles more affordable than PCs, for instance, is that companies can sell them at a loss and expect to make up the cost in game sales. If you can buy games for your Xbox on stores not owned by Microsoft, will that make the console itself more expensive?
But to me, this still seems like an experiment worth trying. If Microsoft makes an intuitive, powerful-enough living room PC that can run my Steam library (or even my Epic library), it’ll finally deliver on an experience I’ve been chasing, to little avail, for decades.
