If there’s one thing you can say about Xbox over the last decade, it’s that it’s wholeheartedly embraced backward compatibility. Now, it’s expanding that effort across platforms by launching backward compatibility for original Xbox console games on PC. While it’s starting slow with only four games, Microsoft says more will come over time.
Starting today, Blinx: The Time Sweeper, Conker: Live and Reloaded, Crimson Skies, and Fusion Frenzy are available to purchase and play on PC and are included in Xbox Game Pass. If you already own them digitally on Xbox, then the license carries over to PC as well so you can just download them and start playing.
Beyond just bringing the games to PC for the first time, Microsoft has included a slew of new graphics settings and options that weren’t available on console. They include “up to 4x resolution upscaling, VSync support, Fullscreen and Windowed display modes, anisotropic filtering, enhanced anti-aliasing, and more,” Microsoft says.
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While this is only an “early release,” according to the Xbox team, it “marks the beginning of a broader effort to preserve XBOX games from the past and bring them to PC over time,” the Xbox team says. The team is also working to add achievements to classic Xbox games, with these first four games set to get them “in the coming months.”
This is an interesting move in the current context of the gaming market. Sony recently announced that it’s ending physical disc production for PlayStation games in 2028, so game preservation is an area of concern right now. It’s unclear whether Microsoft plans to follow suit, but its continued focus on backward compatibility is a potentially good sign for those who want to carry their game collections forward to future Xbox consoles. The next Xbox console, codenamed Project Helix, will also be able to play both Xbox and PC games, so there’s quite a bit of cross-pollination happening.