The Xbox Play Anywhere program, announced during Microsoft’s E3 2016 presser, will debut on Sept. 13, the company announced this week. But are you sure your personal gaming ecosystem is ready to take full advantage of Microsoft’s take on Cross-Buy?
Let’s backtrack a bit for those who aren’t 100 percent sure what we’re talking about.
Back in June, Microsoft announced plans to create a cross-buy program, that the company is calling Xbox Play Anywhere, letting users who buy a game from Xbox Live or the Windows 10 Store play the game on PC or Xbox. 12 titles will be part of the Xbox Play Anywhere program when it begins in September, including highly-anticipated 2016 releases like Cuphead, Forza Horizon 3 and Gears Of War 4. Unfortunately, some won’t actually be available for purchase until later in the year.
Here’s the currently confirmed list of Xbox Play Anywhere launch titles:
Ark: Survival Evolved
Crackdown 3
Cuphead
Forza Horizon 3
Gears of War 4
Halo Wars 2
Killer Instinct Season 3
ReCore
Scalebound
Sea of Thieves
State of Decay 2
We Happy Few
Best of all, games with Xbox Play Anywhere support won’t cost any more than their non-XPA counterparts. The service will also include support for cloud saves, making it possible to start a game on one platform and continue your progress on another, and any DLC released for an Xbox Play Anywhere game will also be supported by the service. From what we can tell, the only real downside to Xbox Play Anywhere is that the program only supports digital downloads.
According to Polygon, Windows 10 Anniversary Edition (out Aug. 2) must be installed before you’ll be able to access the Xbox Play Anywhere program on your PC. The upcoming summer update will also need to be installed on your Xbox One. But don’t worry. You should have plenty of time to install both before Xbox Play Anywhere debuts on September 13.
Be sure to check back with iDigitalTimes.com for more Xbox coverage throughout 2016 and for however long Microsoft supports the Xbox ecosystem in the years to come.
