Steam Integration coming to XBox ???

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Lakados

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https://www.thegamer.com/xbox-next-gen-steam-support-microsoft-begun-testing-rumor/

TL;DR
The next generation of Xbox will share more in common with a traditional PC than a console, part of that comes with access to Steam.
This would pair very well with rumors that Microsoft has been working on developing a high performance VM for older Xbox consoles for backwards compatibility which would allow them to bring those titles to the store.
Much like how EA has specialized preconfigured DOSBox containers for their older titles in the Origin store.
 
Why not? If an Xbox is essentially just a windows PC that achieves competitive pricing through large large volume identical hardware configurations, why not treat it as such? That winds up being much easier for Microsoft. heck, I wouldn't mind it either.

If an Xbox winds up essentially just being a PC you can plug a mouse and keyboard into, and enjoy your games, and you wind up getting better performance than you can by spending the same amount of money building a PC, I think lots of folks would buy them.

This - more than most things Microsoft have been doing lately - really makes sense and can win back lots of market share.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Why not? If an Xbox is essentially just a windows PC that achieves competitive pricing through large large volume identical hardware configurations, why not treat it as such? That winds up being much easier for Microsoft. heck, I wouldn't mind it either.

If an Xbox winds up essentially just being a PC you can plug a mouse and keyboard into, and enjoy your games, and you wind up getting better performance than you can by spending the same amount of money building a PC, I think lots of folks would buy them.

This - more than most things Microsoft have been doing lately - really makes sense and can win back lots of market share.
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My hope is that it leads to an extremely stripped down Windows OS designed for gaming that gamers could purchase as a license for their PC. Yeah I would expect Xbox Game Bar to be there as some sort of necessity and blah blah blah I mean it's Microsoft they aren't going to remove all their stuff from it... That's what 3'rd parties are for, but it would be a small price to pay for an official extremely decluttered OS.
 
Lakados said:
My hope is that it leads to an extremely stripped down Windows OS designed for gaming that gamers could purchase as a license for their PC. Yeah I would expect Xbox Game Bar to be there as some sort of necessity and blah blah blah I mean it's Microsoft they aren't going to remove all their stuff from it... That's what 3'rd parties are for, but it would be a small price to pay for an official extremely decluttered OS.
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Valve just needs to around to releasing SteamOS 2 to the public.
 
Your consoles will become a PC and you'll like it.
oh shit it's pc.png
 
Armenius said:
Valve just needs to around to releasing SteamOS 2 to the public.
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Yeah... They do, and when they do I can honestly see a large number of people jumping ship.
If Microsoft ever wanted to head that off, this would be the time.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Yo fam, I gotta get that upgraded Wi-Fi for my custom X-Box gaming grind, but it's lowkey too pricey!

View attachment 730972
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Ran into a problem this weekend running the cables that will allow me to get WiFi 7 running across the house... Turns out the old section of my attic is just a solid 6" of blown in asbestos with a layer of the newer pink fiberglass insulation laid overtop... I wasn't prepared to deal with that discovery :'(
 
Honestly, I'd be happy if Microsoft makes Xbox just a free, stripped down Windows install that is controller friendly and removes all the legacy BS.

The biggest issue with PC gaming is and has always been Windows. Making a gaming-first OS with the industry support and standard Windows backend would be a godsend.
 
Microsoft knows the Switch, the Sony platforms and Xbox all run X86. Sony has the biggest installed number of Next Gen Units.......but if Xbox's are all just X86 PC's and developers make small code-branches in their X86 PC based code to run Windows and whatever "The Xbox Spec" happens to be.....um, every PC becomes an Xbox.

Sony can release more bespoke hardware, but devs will now be inclined to do the PC/Xbox ports first and Sony's bespoke options second. And since Microsoft owns a lot of the big studios....weeeeellllll.....there's no further need for Microsoft to manufacture a console, they can just let Asus do it.

It's one way to win a console war.
Make Consoles Irrelevant.
 
That's what I was hoping MS would do with their Series console (integrate Steam).

I have a feeling the upcoming Xbox branded Ally will be their "bridging" console.
 
SeymourGore said:
That's what I was hoping MS would do with their Series console (integrate Steam).

I have a feeling the upcoming Xbox branded Ally will be their "bridging" console.
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I'm hoping that this brings PC games to Xbox, and not a select few games that run in a limited environment that users have no control over. Xbox should be running a version of Windows that still acts like Windows but stripped down just to play games, and probably keeps PC games in a VM. I don't expect Microsoft to do what Valve has done with their Steam Deck and allow users full control. This also suggests that Microsoft will still continue to use an x86 CPU, and not ARM as everyone was expecting.
 
DukenukemX said:
I'm hoping that this brings PC games to Xbox, and not a select few games that run in a limited environment that users have no control over. Xbox should be running a version of Windows that still acts like Windows but stripped down just to play games, and probably keeps PC games in a VM. I don't expect Microsoft to do what Valve has done with their Steam Deck and allow users full control. This also suggests that Microsoft will still continue to use an x86 CPU, and not ARM as everyone was expecting.
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Given that Microsoft is supposedly working on an official Xbox emulator for PC and Asus is supposedly building a mobile Xbox which is basically a branded ROG Ally it rumours that the next Xbox may just be a compact prebuilt PC have some ring to them.

So chances are PC games coming to Xbox and Xbox games coming to PC.
 
KazeoHin said:
Honestly, I'd be happy if Microsoft makes Xbox just a free, stripped down Windows install that is controller friendly and removes all the legacy BS.
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I would be surprised if this runs Windows at all. From what we know, I'm putting my money on a skinned version of Steam OS.
 
Axman said:
I would be surprised if this runs Windows at all. From what we know, I'm putting my money on a skinned version of Steam OS.
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That would require Microsoft to hand over DX12 to Linux, and Valve would want source code access to go along with it.
So while I am not saying that won't happen, I am thinking we would need to study the migratory pattern of airbound swine before it does.
 
Lakados said:
That would require Microsoft to hand over DX12 to Linux, and Valve would want source code access to go along with it.
So while I am not saying that won't happen, I am thinking we would need to study the migratory pattern of airbound swine before it does.
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There's nothing stopping them from making their own closed proprietary driver. Have it ping a piece of hardware to verify that it's running on an official Xbox handheld and they'd be G2G.
 
Axman said:
There's nothing stopping them from making their own closed proprietary driver. Have it ping a piece of hardware to verify that it's running on an official Xbox handheld and they'd be G2G.
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They could, but that seems like a lot of extra work to do Microsoft a favour.
But Microsoft could always surprise us, I mean, they have the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), which installs Linux inside Windows... I think that is not well named
So maybe they release the Linux Subsystem for Windows, which would install a Windows Kernel inside Linux, and then this all goes away as a problem and they just make a build of it that works with Arch...

What any of them do at this stage is a complete guess, companies made billion-dollar purchases and huge mergers only for the market to jump off a cliff, so desperate times call for desperate measures and all that...
 
Microsoft brings steam to xbox app on PC

Marees said:
Its here

This is how Microsoft is combining Windows and Xbox for handheld PCs​

Two new Xbox Ally devices introduce Microsoft’s much-needed improvements to handheld gaming PCs.
by Tom Warren
Jun 8, 2025, 10:40 PM GMT+5:30

Microsoft and Asus have just announced two ROG Xbox Ally devices that include a new full-screen Xbox experience for handhelds. After promising to combine “the best of Xbox and Windows together” for handhelds earlier this year, Microsoft is now revealing exactly how it is overhauling the Xbox app, Game Bar, and Windows itself to better compete with SteamOS.

https://www.theverge.com/news/68201...pc-combination-features-rog-xbox-ally-devices


The Xbox full-screen experience is very much the compact mode of the Xbox app taking full control of the ROG Xbox Ally devices, instead of the familiar Windows desktop and taskbar. “When the player boots into the full-screen experience there is a whole bunch of Windows stuff that doesn’t get loaded,” says Beaumont. “We’re not loading the desktop wallpaper, the taskbar, or a bunch of processes that are really designed around productivity scenarios for Windows.”


“Some of our early testing with the components we’ve turned off in Windows, we get about 2GB of memory going back to the games while running in the full-screen experience.”

“If you’re booting your device into the full-screen experience and you’re putting it down and it’s going to sleep, it draws one third of the idle power draw than if it was booting the same device into the [Windows] desktop experience,”


Sones says Microsoft is “working closely with leading storefronts to have them optimize their full screen experience,” to make it easy for everyone to play a full library of PC games from Steam, Epic Games Store, and elsewhere.
“The aggregated gaming library within Xbox on PC will be available for all Windows 11 devices,” says Sones, so you’ll soon be able to see all of your Steam games within the Xbox app on any PC.


“The Xbox full-screen experience will first come to the ROG Xbox Ally and the ROG Xbox Ally X, and our next focus will be updating the in-market ROG Ally and the ROG Ally X,” says Sones. “Similar full-screen Xbox experiences will be rolling out to other Windows handhelds, starting next year.”
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I'd love to see more integration between PC and Console in general. It's really stupid that for many games you have to buy the same game twice if you want to play it on both PC and Console.
 
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GotNoRice said:
I'd love to see more integration between PC and Console in general. It's really stupid that for many games you have to buy the same game twice if you want to play it on both PC and Console.
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Hear me out…
Xbox becomes game pass
Their consoles become glorified steam boxes
Game pass gets an Xbox emulator, essentially Microsoft Virtual Console.
 
Lakados said:
Hear me out…
Xbox becomes game pass
Their consoles become glorified steam boxes
Game pass gets an Xbox emulator, essentially Microsoft Virtual Console.
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Maybe there are some xbox games that are niether on game pass / xcloud / play anywhere

For those games Microsoft might need a workaround to play them on pc using xbox license. Maybe emulation ?
 
Marees said:
Maybe there are some xbox games that are niether on game pass / xcloud / play anywhere

For those games Microsoft might need a workaround to play them on pc using xbox license. Maybe emulation ?
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They are working on or already have an emulator for most of the old consoles.
 
Marees said:
Maybe there are some xbox games that are niether on game pass / xcloud / play anywhere

For those games Microsoft might need a workaround to play them on pc using xbox license. Maybe emulation ?
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I think Microsoft will make a special environment to run these games. Don't think emulator or VM, but more like Wine on Linux. Xbox runs a custom version of Windows after all.
Lakados said:
Hear me out…
Xbox becomes game pass
Their consoles become glorified steam boxes
Game pass gets an Xbox emulator, essentially Microsoft Virtual Console.
Click to expand...
I don't think Microsoft wants to become the Netflix of gaming. I think Microsoft realizes their situation and needs to work around it better. Steam boxes are already glorified consoles, so what would be the point for Microsoft to mimic this? They are embracing PC gaming. This doesn't mean they're embracing Steam or GoG. Someone at Microsoft just woke up and realized that 99% of PC gaming is occurring on Windows. They'll embrace it, extend it, and eventually extinguish it. Try to extinguish it.
9woi99.jpg
 
DukenukemX said:
t, and eventually extinguish it. Try to extinguish it.
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Why ? gaming-pc and its link with Windows seem a nice asset for them, kids grow with windows purely because of this and once on the school/workforce they are used to it, which help the cycle. (not sure what extinguish mean or why they would try to do such thing), why do you think they made all those DirectX effort to lock game into windows, that was a choice, that was work...

This is not really merging the pc gaming with Xbox, depending with where they go with this, maybe just no more Xbox at all... and I am not sure why they would embrace steam or GOG they are clear competitor, they are just too hyperdominant/quasi monopole that they must.
 
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DukenukemX said:
don't think Microsoft wants to become the Netflix of gaming. I think Microsoft realizes their situation and needs to work around it better. Steam boxes are already glorified consoles, so what would be the point for Microsoft to mimic this?
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I think they do want to become the Netflix of Gaming though.
Netflix’s problem is they don’t own the majority of their content.
Microsoft doesn’t have that problem.

Emulate the hell out of their old content, lock it behind a monthly paywall for the nostalgia factor. Nintendo proved it works, they make bank off their annual subscription for the virtual console.
And every game they play on gamepass and not on Steam or elsewhere is a sale they’ve taken from them.
Then eventually you have enough people on Gamepass where they start getting annoyed that the content they want isn’t there and developers or regulators take notice of the noise. Developers are then forced to talk to Microsoft on getting their content on gamepass, and regulators are forced to ease up on Microsoft because it’s clearly what the public wants….

Honestly I’m certain it’s their 15 year plan.
 
I'm generally positive on the Xbox handhelds, with some concerns:

This addresses the biggest problem with Windows handhelds: Windows. The regular ROG Ally and other models are fine... until you have to leave theur custom launchers and are suddenly faced with a Windows UI that is absolutely not designed for a small touchscreen and gamepad. We'll see how this works in practice, but it sounds like you can stay in a friendly UI for much longer.

The tiered hardware will work better here than with Xbox TV consoles. Microsoft lost this console generation in part because it forced devs to target two different specs and effectively dilute the quality of games. But the Xbox handhelds are running PC games, where targeting multiple specs is a given.

The hardware design looks mostly good. The grips and the Xbox-style controls help a lot. If you use an Xbox or an Xbox controller, you'll be right at home here. And the I/O is robust, although you'll need the top-spec model to use an external GPU. I do find it ironic that Nintendo has a bigger screen, and of course it has both a dock and detachable controllers.

Is the base ROG Xbox Ally too weak? My concern is that the Z2 A and the system's overall capabilities will, like with other 'entry' PC handhelds, make it unappealing for people who play more than old or 2D titles.

Nintendo won't be too worried. ASUS hasn't announced pricing, but given the specs these are definitely going to be priced above the Switch 2's $450 (a regular Ally X is $900). These are for devoted PC gamers who want to go handheld, not mainstream buyers who just want a portable system (especially not parents buying for their kids).
 
Aurelius said:
Is the base ROG Xbox Ally too weak? My concern is that the Z2 A and the system's overall capabilities will, like with other 'entry' PC handhelds, make it unappealing for people who play more than old or 2D titles.
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This is basically the steam deck hardware but with windows & costing around $500

The z2 extreme is the latest APU but price could be closer to $1000
 
Marees said:
This is basically the steam deck hardware but with windows & costing around $500

The z2 extreme is the latest APU but price could be closer to $1000
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Exactly. It sounds good in some ways, but you're either dealing with pokey base hardware or something closer to a lower-mid-range gaming laptop.

Then again, I don't think Microsoft or ASUS either expects to contest Nintendo or otherwise sell in console-level numbers. This is more about competing with the Steam Deck and otherwise expanding the definition of what an Xbox is, since the core Series X/S models aren't doing all that well.
 
LukeTbk said:
Why ? gaming-pc and its link with Windows seem a nice asset for them, kids grow with windows purely because of this and once on the school/workforce they are used to it, which help the cycle. (not sure what extinguish mean or why they would try to do such thing), why do you think they made all those DirectX effort to lock game into windows, that was a choice, that was work...
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The Xbox actually makes Microsoft money, as each game sold gives them a 30% cut. If users can install Steam or get games off other competing stores then Microsoft doesn't benefit. This is why Apple enforces buying apps on their store and why Nintendo is still avoiding to port their games to other platforms. Extinguish means that Microsoft will remove Steam and other competing stores, once Xbox is the dominate method of buying games on Windows. This is the reason why Valve went Linux crazy, because this is the thing that Valve fears.
This is not really merging the pc gaming with Xbox, depending with where they go with this, maybe just no more Xbox at all... and I am not sure why they would embrace steam or GOG they are clear competitor, they are just too hyperdominant/quasi monopole that they must.
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Microsoft introduced new features into the handheld device that specifically mention Xbox, so it's not going anywhere. The reason Microsoft is embracing competitors is because Xbox sales is that low. This is what you do when you're no longer at the top.
Lakados said:
I think they do want to become the Netflix of Gaming though.
Netflix’s problem is they don’t own the majority of their content.
Microsoft doesn’t have that problem.

Emulate the hell out of their old content, lock it behind a monthly paywall for the nostalgia factor. Nintendo proved it works, they make bank off their annual subscription for the virtual console.
And every game they play on gamepass and not on Steam or elsewhere is a sale they’ve taken from them.
Then eventually you have enough people on Gamepass where they start getting annoyed that the content they want isn’t there and developers or regulators take notice of the noise. Developers are then forced to talk to Microsoft on getting their content on gamepass, and regulators are forced to ease up on Microsoft because it’s clearly what the public wants….

Honestly I’m certain it’s their 15 year plan.
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Gaming is far more profitable than movies, and this makes it hard for Game Pass and other similar services to be profitable. Game Pass is littered with old games, with maybe the exception of that one new game that Microsoft is using to promote the service. Old games aren't worth much money after some time has passed. Microsoft would still prefer for you to buy new games for the now $80 price tag.
bigdogchris said:
Gaming on PC has been the red headed stepchild of Microsoft since the 90's. It's taken Steam to make a dent in the market to finally wake up MSFT from their 2 decade slumber.
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It took Xbox having a fraction of the sales of the PlayStation to do that. Microsoft is just leaning on PC to bring Xbox back up.
Aurelius said:
Nintendo won't be too worried. ASUS hasn't announced pricing, but given the specs these are definitely going to be priced above the Switch 2's $450 (a regular Ally X is $900). These are for devoted PC gamers who want to go handheld, not mainstream buyers who just want a portable system (especially not parents buying for their kids).
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Nintendo's biggest worry is themselves. After 3 months has passed, we'll see how well the Switch 2 is doing.
 
Integrating Steam into Xbox could indeed redefine console gaming. Offering PC-like flexibility at a console price point might attract a broader audience. It's an exciting prospect for the next generation of gamers.
 
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