Microsoft has announced that Xbox Play Anywhere will launch on September 13th., and will launch alongside ReCore.
After being announced at E3 last month, Microsoft’s new cross-platform service Xbox Play Anywhere was at the centre of Microsoft’s conference. It allows the purchase of a PC game to trigger a freely available purchase for the same game on Xbox One – or vice versa.
The first game to take advantage of the service – and to launch simultaneously with it – will be ReCore, Comcept and Armature studio’s homage to the Rey segments of The Force Awakens and classic third-person action platformers. With Keiji Inafune of Mega Man fame producing, the game looks fun and footage shown so far indicates a fresh experience and a neat concept. Other upcoming games that Xbox Play Anywhere will support include Forza Horizon 3 (by far the stand out game of Microsoft’s conference, in this writer’s opinion), Halo Wars 2, and Gears of War 4.
The service is an interesting idea, with game saves and achievements both synchronised between PC and Xbox One, but it’s one that PlayStation president Andrew House is not yet keen to emulate: “I always hesitate to be drawn into discussions of someone else’s strategy,” PlayStation president Andrew House recently said. “I’m more than happy to talk about our own strategy. Yes, there was a big emphasis from the folks at Microsoft on Xbox and PC cross-play. It remains to be seen whether there is latent large consumer demand for that.”
In a way, Sony already has hit upon the same basic idea: its cross-buy service allows users to purchase compatible games for PS4, Vita, and PS3, which is similar – albeit excluding PC. Xbox users will be expecting far more games than cross-buy users however, as Play Anywhere is set to support the majority of games from this point forward.
The Windows 10 ‘Anniversary’ update will be required for the service, and this will launch on August 2nd.
