What’s holding Microsoft back? The big question about running native Xbox games directly on Windows

The big question for Microsoft: why does it not allow running native Xbox games on Windows?

More stories in the category Slider

• Xbox Game Pass Ultimate: players want DLCs to be included too
• Xbox 360 turns 20 years old: these were the best-selling games of a mythical console
• Lords of the Fallen 2 wants to level up: its parallel worlds change completely

Over the past few years, Microsoft has been pushing the idea of unifying console and PC under a single brand, but there’s a limit that still puzzles the community: if Xbox 360 games like Gears of War can already run on Xbox Series via retrocompatibility and virtualization, why can’t they be executed directly on Windows? Why can’t a device like the Xbox Ally X behave like a “mini Xbox” with access to the native catalog?

This issue has come up several times in forums, especially now that the company is openly discussing a future where Xbox Play Anywhere will be the central axis of its multi-platform strategy. However, native execution of console games on Windows is still not an option.

Xbox FSE, Licenses, and Hardware: The Three Obstacles

Although it may seem simple from the outside, the reality is much more complex. To start, Xbox games (including Xbox 360 retrocompatible games) run on Xbox FSE (Full System Emulator), a highly controlled, closed, and optimized environment for the console’s hardware. Windows does not include these security layers, and not having them would open the door to exploits, achievement manipulation, or unauthorized modifications.

This is added to the fact that some games, even from past catalogs, have licenses associated with Xbox hardware, not Windows. Although Microsoft owns brands like Gears of War, other retrocompatible titles could not be executed legally outside the Xbox environment without renegotiating agreements.

Finally, there’s the hardware issue. Several voices in the community point to an important aspect: consoles have specific instructions in the APU that are not present in generic PC GPUs. This makes it impossible for some games to be replicated with exactness without deep changes or without an official emulator that does not exist today on Windows.

A More Unified Future… But Not Yet

However, many players believe that this scenario could change. Microsoft is working on “bridging the gap” with next-generation hardware, allowing their future machines to run both native Xbox games and Windows-developed titles without artificial barriers. There’s also talk of a system similar to Steam Deck Verified, which would classify which titles are suitable for portable devices like the Xbox Ally.

If one day Windows can directly run the classic Xbox catalog, it will be a huge step towards the single platform that many fans have been imagining for years.

For now, native execution of Xbox games on Windows remains a dream for the most enthusiastic. But Microsoft’s direction (more PC, more Play Anywhere, more cross-compatibility) suggests that it’s not a discarded idea. It just needs time, agreements, and a solid technical framework for everything to work as players expect.