Microsoft’s next-gen console, the Xbox series X, will break with tradition by not launching with exclusive games only available on the new hardware. Instead, Microsoft is leaning into its Xbox play anywhere strategy and fully supporting backwards compatibility moving forward.

‘all of our games, sort of like PC, will play up and down that family of devices,’ said Matt booty. This does seem to imply that there will be a point at which new first-party Xbox games wo n’t run on the standard Xbox One.

The company has said it plans to make all first-party games on Xbox one on Windows 10 as part of its Xbox play anywhere initiative. Sony confirmed earlier this year that its new console would be backwards compatible with PS4 games.

The biggest first-party Xbox series X exclusive, Halo infinite, was already confirmed to run on both the next-gen Xbox and Xbox One, as well as Windows 10. This is the first time Microsoft has said explicitly that its new console wo n’t be launching with a dedicated slate of first-party exclusives.

The company has built out the Xbox platform to support backwards compatibility between the series X and the Xbox one. Both are built off the same architecture.

Consumers who worry about abandoning their entire libraries when they upgrade to the latest hardware. The new console has been one of the primary pitfalls of buying a new console in past generations.

Microsoft does n’t have a very strong argument for why you should upgrade to the Xbox series X if it does not have exclusive games. You can get similar or even better performance for the same titles on a gaming PC PC PC.

Microsoft’s current approach to exclusives and cross-platform play might make the series X an especially tough sell if you already own the Xbox One X.