Classic Xbox 360 exclusives may be coming to PC in the future

Xbox 360 classics that were exclusive to that platform could be officially coming to PC in the near future, according to a new datamine.

Tech experts who have datamined Xbox's new backwards compatibilty update have determined that it's not just original Xbox games coming to PC, but there's also support for Xbox 360 titles incoming.

"Today, we’re introducing XBOX Backward Compatibility on PC, making it easier to play classic XBOX games from the past across PC and handhelds, including the ROG XBOX Ally and XBOX Ally X," Xbox's Jason Ronald announced earlier this week.

At the moment, only four games are playable: BLiNX: The Time Sweeper, Conker: Live and Reloaded, Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge, and Fuzion Frenzy. Not a bad selection by any means, but many more people might be waiting for further updates before diving in properly.

In addition to this, support for achievements and other modern gaming features are coming in the future as well.

Dataminers have determined that support for Xbox 360 games could be coming to PC in the future

However, dataminers have also discovered that support for Xbox 360 titles may also be on the cards as part of this new backwards compatibility program, allowing PC gamers to run Xbox 360 exclusives natively on their rigs.

"Fun fact: The new OG Xbox Backwards Compatibility layer released by Microsoft for the PC is actually an Xbox 360 emulator running Xefu (the OG Xbox emu for the 360), confirmed by the XEX2/STFS magic and strings in the kernel such as “XENON KERNEL EXITING”. Crazy," reads a post on X (formerly Twitter) by software developer by the name of Nathan.

Nathan adds that "This probably does confirm that yes Xbox 360 games will also be backwards compatible in the future."

What this basically means is that these classic Xbox games are running on an emulator within an emulator, which probably explains why the system requirements are so much higher than you'd expect them to be.

As for why Microsoft would have done it this way, we imagine it has to do with efficiency. If you're planning on releasing Xbox 360 games on PC via this method in the future anyway, why spend time creating an emulator for the original Xbox when doing one that covers both Xbox and Xbox 360 will do the trick?

Meanwhile, the team behind Xbox One translation layer software XWine1 has managed to get some Xbox 360 games to run natively on PC using a combination of Microsoft's emulator as well as their own work.

XWine1 was able to get Xbox 360 versions of Plants vs Zombies and Steins;Gate: My Darling's Embrace running on PC with "varying degrees of success", as well as the original Xbox titles SSX 3 and Midnight Club Los Angeles.

Microsoft has not confirmed Xbox 360 games for PC just yet, but we figure this first wave of games from the original Xbox is simply a testing ground for bigger things to come.

With enough time, it could mean games like Gears of War 3, Fable 2, and Crackdown eventually make their way over to PC.