Microsoft Fakes It At E3: Shows Xbox One Games Running on Windows 7 PCs
At last week's E3, Microsoft COO Peter Moore claimed that Xbox One games being shown-off at the show were running on real development kits - however, thanks to a Windows PC crash, that was later found to be untrue. Yes, "Windows PC".
When handed an Xbox One gamepad to play some game, the last thing you're likely to wonder is if you're playing on the real console - why would you think otherwise? Well, below, you can see undeniable proof that there were no consoles at all. The games that people were playing were running on HP Windows PC equipped with one of NVIDIA's latest GeForce 700 series graphics cards.
There are a couple take-away points here. While it's not totally uncommon for early development phases to take place on the PC, the fact that Microsoft was showing off actual Xbox One content on a PC this late in the game is strange. And does that mean that Microsoft could run Xbox One games on a Windows PC if it wanted to, negating the need for a console entirely? It's unfortunate that the photographer who took the above picture wasn't able to see what icons were on the desktop - that could prove pretty interesting. Even if the games people were allowed to play were PC versions, there's something to be said about Microsoft using far more powerful hardware than what its console will have to show the games off.
What this incident gives hope to is the fact that the Xbox One gamepad will likely support Windows. As a devout Xbox controller user, I'm glad to see this.
With this going down, and all of the other flak-worthy moves by Microsoft lately, Sony has got to be having itself a good laugh.