Xbox One games appear to be running on PC in the latest Windows beta

Microsoft has increasingly tried to bridge the gap between gaming on Xbox and PC over the past handful of years, and while some of those efforts have seen mixed results - Phil Spencer knows the Windows Store needs fixing - the latest Windows 10 Insider build suggests something very exciting is on the way. Namely Xbox games running natively on PC. The official blog post on build 18334 says “We’re excited to bring technology tailor-made for gaming to Windows,” though it stops short of explaining exactly what that technology is. Basically, it lets members of the Insider programme install and run the original State of Decay - a game which is available on PC, but which Microsoft itself only sells on Xbox platforms. There are plenty of reasons to believe that this is an Xbox One game being run directly on PC. As Brad Sams reports on Thurrott.com, the State of Decay download comes from ‘assets1.xboxlive.com’, instead of the generic Microsoft address where all other Windows Store content downloads from. The game’s files are structured in the ‘.xvc’ format, which Microsoft uses specifically for Xbox One games. That format can be installed through PowerShell since a recent update.