- Four original Xbox titles just arrived on PC
- All games are available for purchase or through any Xbox Game Pass plan.
- They are part of a new Xbox backward compatibility program on PC
Microsoft has just launched a new Xbox backwards compatibility program on PC that allows you to officially play a selection of original Xbox games on Windows for the first time.
As detailed in a new Xbox Wire post, the program is aimed at both traditional laptops and desktops, in addition to portable PCs like ROG Xbox Ally and Xbox Ally X, and currently includes four games: Blinx: The Time Sweeper, Conker: alive and recharged, Crimson Skies: High Road to revengeand Fusion Frenzy. They can be purchased individually or accessed with any Xbox Game Pass plan (yes, even the budget-oriented Essential tier).
All of these titles have never been officially released for PC before. However, they were already available on Xbox consoles through backwards compatibility, and if you previously purchased a license on Xbox One or Xbox Series X and Series S, it will now carry over to PC.
They aren’t just basic ports either. There are new graphics features such as up to 4x resolution enhancement, vsync, anisotropic filtering and improved anti-aliasing. A new achievement system is also in the works and will be added to these four titles in the coming months.
Presumably the release of these games is just the beginning, and I hope we see more and more original Xbox exclusives come to PC. Not only does it provide consumers with a convenient way to experience classic games on a new platform, but it also forms an important part of digital preservation by keeping these releases easily accessible on modern hardware.
It’s also a big win for PC gamers, who would previously have had to shell out for dedicated Xbox console hardware to be able to play these releases.
If you’re interested in checking out any of them, you can check out the minimum and recommended system requirements below to make sure your machine is up to par.
Minimum system requirements:
- GPU: Nvidia GTX 950 or AMD Radeon RX 550 or Intel UHD 770 or Intel Arc A310
- UPC: Minimum 4-core Intel Core i3-8100 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200 or AMD Ryzen Z2 A processor
- RAM: 8GB
- SW: windows 11
Recommended system requirements:
- GPU: Radeon RX 68005 or Nvidia GTX 1070 Ti or Intel Arc A770
- UPC: 6 cores and 12 threads Intel Core i5-10400 or AMD Ryzen 5 3600 or AMD Ryzen AI Z2 Extreme
- DirectX version: DirectX12 API, hardware feature level 11
- GPU VRAM: 8GB
- SW: windows 11
Also make sure your operating system and drivers are up to date.
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