Microsoft announced a major milestone in its Xbox PC push, with Microsoft’s Prism translation layer bringing a heap of new functionality to Arm PCs.
Microsoft and Windows have been competing with Apple in bringing its operating system and services to Arm devices. Put simply, Arm PC devices are potentially more battery-efficient than traditional Intel-based and AMD-based options, making them ideal for laptops, tablets, and of course, phones. Almost every modern phone is Arm-based, and Apple has been building its own Arm-based systems for its MacOS laptop portfolio, supplanting Windows laptops in the power to performance ratio.
Last August, Microsoft announced the Xbox PC app was hitting Windows Arm devices via the Insider Program, and today, announced that it’s coming out of testing and going public.
“Today, the Xbox app is now available on all Arm-based Windows 11 devices, enabling players to now download and enjoy a wide range of titles from the Xbox PC app game catalog on Arm-based Windows 11 devices,” the blog post reads.
Microsoft says that “more than 85%” of Xbox Game Pass titles are now compatible with these types of devices, which includes the latest Surface models, and options from the likes of ASUS and Dell. Microsoft says it is working to “broaden” the amount of compatibility Windows on Arm has with PC games, leveraging the Prism emulation layer the firm has been developing for this express purpose.
Prism runs x86 and x64 software on Windows Arm devices, and has been picking up steam for general viability. Microsoft says that it now supports AVX and AVX2, alongside Epic Games’ Anti-Cheat software, enabling the likes of Fortnite to run on these types of devices.
The blog post reads as if Microsoft aims to expand the library of available games every time they ship an update via Windows to these devices.
Prism means that developers don’t have to do a ton of work to bring their games to Windows on Arm devices, which while niche today, could expand rapidly in the coming years. Arm has been tipped as a potential option for making cheaper, more efficient gaming handhelds for example, and could eventually one day lead us back to the era of Windows-based tablets, and dare I say it, phones.
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