Xbox has started making games from the original Xbox console playable on PC, starting with a small lineup of four titles: Blinx: The Time Sweeper, Conker: Live And Reloaded, Crimson Skies: High Road To Revenge, and Fuzion Frenzy. These games are already playable on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.
The Xbox Wire announcement confirms that if you own the digital licence for any of these games on Xbox, you can play them on PC at no extra cost. This initiative also makes them playable on PC handhelds such as the ROG Xbox Ally. Xbox is promising new features like customisable graphics settings and retroactively adding Achievements.
Backwards compatibility commitment
'Your library is more than just a collection of games. It is your personal history of epic stories and treasured memories from the past,' reads the announcement from Jason Ronald, vice president of next generation. 'And as players, we don’t want to leave our gaming legacy behind even as technology continues to evolve and advance. We expect our library of games to move forward with us and to be able to play them in entirely new ways.'
This move is another piece of evidence pointing to Project Helix supporting all Xbox games you own, no matter how old they are, as it's widely assumed to be more of a PC in a console shell, especially since it's already confirmed to be capable of running PC games.
Impact on Project Helix
While it's good to see Xbox taking further steps to preserve its older catalogue, the starting lineup highlights how the original Xbox had barely any quality exclusives. The lineup will presumably be bolstered with third party games, but ironically this gives people another reason not to invest in Project Helix. If both new and old Xbox games can be accessed on your PC, why put money down for a brand new console that's expected to be obscenely expensive?
These plans have obviously been brewing for some time, but the announcement comes not even a month after a devastating wave of layoffs across Xbox, with several studios gutted and over 1,000 people still yet to be impacted. Xbox's reputation is worse than ever, with recent announcements of new Fallout remasters and a new Fallout game from Obsidian Entertainment clear attempts at damage control.
