Microsoft has been making some moves regarding the Xbox platform. We’ve seen the company stick to the more traditional means of pushing their platforms out, including new first-party games that would only be available on their consoles. Since then, we’ve seen a move to bring games to both PC and consoles at launch, then the Xbox Game Pass service, along with eventually making their first-party games more widely available to other competitor console platforms.
Microsoft has also been pushing cloud gaming, so that just about anything connected to the web could turn into an Xbox device. However, some are wondering what the future of the console could look like since it seems that Microsoft isn’t interested in getting out of providing hardware. One of the rumors that has proved popular online is that the next console would be more of a gaming PC.
If that’s the case, it left fans hopeful that this would be a viable way of playing their digital PC libraries or even open the ability to enjoy PlayStation’s PC releases. Today, we’re finding out a report from Windows Central claims that Microsoft is in talks with PC storefront owners about this move.
For my part, I can say that Xbox has been in talks with PC storefront owners, including Steam’s Valve, about what exactly that might look like. There have been other rumors that full integration is even in testing, although I’d take that with a pinch of salt for now. – Jez Corden
Outside of directly mentioning Valve, which owns Steam, we’re not sure just what other storefronts might be in active talks. Still, the report goes on to say that there were rumors going as far as full integration is in testing. That doesn’t mean we are close to seeing something like Steam added to our Xbox Series X/S consoles. However, it could be that there are moves in place to make PC storefronts a viable option for purchasing games in the next console release from Microsoft.
Right now, this is all speculation and rumors. Microsoft and other PC storefront partnerships have not been officially unveiled yet. Of course, we’re certainly interested in seeing how the partnership would benefit Microsoft and if there will be any issues that might arise for players who cannot purchase and play PlayStation games on the platform. But we’ll just have to sit tight and see if anything officially comes out.
