In a social media environment which encourages being as antagonistic as possible, we suppose it was only a matter of time before a video of a first-party PlayStation game launching directly from Xbox’s new PC app went viral.
For those of you who haven’t been following the news, Microsoft has been worked on an aggregated library feature for the Xbox PC app on Windows.
This effectively allows you to pull in software purchased on other storefronts, such as Steam and the Epic Games Store.
As first-party PlayStation games like God of War Ragnarok and Days Gone are available on these digital marketplaces, it means it’s now technically possible to launch those games from within the Xbox PC app.
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While the functionality is restricted to beta testers who are part of the Xbox Insider initiative for now, this will eventually roll out to everyone. It’s a big feature of the upcoming ROG Xbox Ally X, which is effectively a Windows computer in handheld format.
But it’s important to underline what’s actually occurring here: you can’t purchase or install any of Sony’s games from within the Xbox PC app. What you’re seeing in videos like the one above is a shortcut to Marvel Spider-Man 2’s executable, but it’s still booting through Steam.
Of course, as the lines blur between PC and console, some are pondering exactly what this could all mean for Sony moving forwards. After all, we know that the next Xbox console will support multiple storefronts as well.
“I’ve got to say it is pretty surreal that an Xbox app launches a competitor’s game,” one user wrote on X (or Twitter). “It’s unprecedented.”
But others responded: “This is literally just a shortcut that opens the game from Steam, this has been a thing on GOG for years.”