Microsoft working on breaking barriers between Xbox and PC

It looks like Microsoft is in the midst of changing the way games are being offered – and possibly made – across their Xbox gaming consoles and Windows PCs. Thurrott’s research into how the back-end of Microsoft’s gaming services work, are hinting at a very interesting future for PC & Xbox gamers.

Thurrott, a blog reporting on all thing Microsoft from hardware to software, shared their findings in a fascinating post today. The article goes into technical detail but the gist of the story is, Microsoft is working on merging the technical back-ends of both their console and PC.

So, what does that actually mean? Simply, compared to the current status quo, where the same video game on PC and Xbox is offered and served each in their unique form, Microsoft might be working on a truly unified system. Meaning, PC gamers could download the Xbox version of a game and play it natively on their PC. This is a major shift to the way things are working currently, where developers have to create distinct PC and Xbox versions of their games. In many cases, the extra work and investment leads publishers to create their game for only one of the systems.

If Thurrott’s assumptions are correct, we could be looking at the next step of Microsoft’s ambitious plan to break borders between gaming systems. In this case, it could mean that performance-light older games for the original Xbox and Xbox 360 could be offered on the PC without the need of lengthy and arduous porting efforts. Maybe in the future, current-gen Xbox games might appear on the PC and vice versa.

It’s still only speculation based on evidence but with how Microsoft has been acting recently, things are looking not that out of reach.