During a panel at the Game Developers Conference, Microsoft made a variety of announcements, including the fact that cross-buy support is officially coming for games and apps on Xbox One and Windows 10 devices.

Cross-buy will work similarly to what we've seen elsewhere, including PlayStation systems: Buying certain Xbox One or PC games will provide you with copies that can be played on both your console and any Windows 10 devices. Pinball FX 2 is the first game to support cross-buy; if you own content for it on Xbox One, you already own the in-development Windows 10 version.

Cross-buy support comes as part of Microsoft's Windows Universal App Platform, which we first heard about in January. Developers will be able to create a single version of a game that can run across all Windows devices (including Xbox One). To show how easy it is, Microsoft said Shovel Knight Yacht Club Games was able to port the game to Xbox One in a single day.

It's currently unclear how commonplace cross-buy will be. The decision will be in the hands of developers, as Spencer says it's "nothing something that we'll mandate." But he made it clear that Microsoft's overarching vision is to make games on the Windows 10 platform available in some way no matter what device you're accessing it from.

Issues with input--a controller-oriented game may not be suited to a Windows 10 phone's touchscreen--will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Cross-buy, to be clear, is separate from the ability to stream Xbox One games to your PC.

Microsoft also demonstrated the previously announced cross-play feature, which allows multiplayer to be played with different players on different platforms. This was shown using IDARB, with one player on Windows 10 and another on Xbox One.

This is huge for PC owners. Obviously not all developers will support you owning "two copies" (so to speak) with one purchase but I think to supporting this is a big move on Microsoft's part. If developers buy into this, then PC gamers would have a console to play their PC games on and vice-versa. To give you an idea of how this could be taken advantage of, if you typically game on your PC but have game parties, you could play your games on PC when you want and then when the party starts you load up the console versions of the games on the XBOne and have at it (not streaming).

The other HUGE part is the cross platform multiplayer. If you primarily game on PC and your buddy has an XBOne, but you want to utilize your PC, then you can still game together!

Man, I really hope this takes off. If it does, and I'm not holding my breath, I will gladly add an XBOne to my collection. GLADLY

Fully agreed. I've wanting cross buy to happen for at least 12 years now. When PlayStation finally did it, I thought it was awesome, though I didn't much care for the Vita/PS3 combination. PC/Xbox One sounds great to me. I prefer to play on a console, but almost always switch over to PC at some point in the future when I want to replay the game after a long break.

I will add the Xbox One to my collection at some point for sure, but if this takes off, it would certainly speed up that process.

They'll need a lot more games to support this before I care.

@corevi: it was just announced, so I'm not exacty sure what you're expecting. The fact that MS is announcing their support (literally and figuritively) is quite an impact in itself because this is PC/Console cross-buy, not just console/handheld.

The prospect that I'm excited about is the cross-play and how it will be executed; whether it will be essentially automatic or if developers have to consent to it (so to speak).

What I can say is that I sure as hell care that this, and the potential for it could be, is even being made possible. Rome wasn't built in one day, brotha.

This is great news. I'm probably going to buy a new laptop once Windows 10 rolls around, so it'd be great to play some of my "Xbox games" on the go if I wanted to.

The news I'm most exited for however, is that Microsoft will be releasing a dongle to enable wireless use of the Xbox One controller on PC later this year.

Woooooooo!!

@hypnotoadbrwowrowrow: I expect a little something more than just Pinball FX2. Ryse and Dead Rising 3 support at the least.

@corevi: I guess it's just a waiting game to see how it pans out! We can only hope for the best!

@dan_citi: That's too perfect!

I don't usually use header formatting as I know it's frowned upon... but...

FUCKING FINALLY!!!

I honestly thought MS would never realize the most obvious advantage they've always had. In a world where the 3 main systems for playing cross-platform games are PS, XBox, and PC, MS is TWO OF THOSE ALREADY.

It really shouldn't have taken them this long to figure it out, and I can't say I'm too hopeful for their implementation considering disasters like GFWL, but at least they're trying. Maybe?

I'm still a bit sceptical on how it'll all work out.

Obviously it's not going to go through Steam which means the games will need to be released through whatever the windows app store is called. It's that bit which might make things more annoying as it might mean another client like Steam, UPlay and stuff would have to be run. I just hope that client ends up being better than GFWL.

This is totally awesome news and will rock. And then Microsoft will kill the initiative in 2-3 years and everything bought will be useless.

@caska: Could it work if they made their games DRM free and not use a launcher/client, a la GoG?

@hypnotoadbrwowrowrow: That would be amazing! But there's probably too many people in suits around that wouldn't like the sound of that.

@hypnotoadbrwowrowrow: @caska: I'm pretty sure they've said that the games will come out on the Windows 10 store. In fact I'm pretty sure that the "Xbox marketplace" will die once Windows 10 is launched, and they'll just merge everything into a single W10 store. There will be at least some interaction with Steam however, so you'll probably be able to add the games to your Steam list or even vice versa.

Huge for PC owners? Nah, we'd rather buy on Steam than use any of Microsoft's gimmicks. Thanks but no thanks.

@caska: Well think about it, they don't need people on any launcher for money... they're already on their OS, which is what they're trying to sell. You just make Windows10 a requirement for crossplay/crossbuy and there are your sales. People are already on your OS, what would be the purpose of the client, really? Promotion?

@trafalgarlaw: If I can cross-play with friends on their XBOnes, I'll gladly buy from MS on my PC. Great feature for me.

I'm going to wait in see if this applies to the new Tomb Raider game. If so, then I'll celebrate.

This is nice but one too many times Microsoft has gone "This time we are serious about supporting PC gamers!" and it came to nothing. I'll believe it when it gets released and there are better games than Minesweeper.

It's all windows 10 products.... Does anyone know when a windows 10 phone is coming out. I already got an xbone and a decent PC. If I can also use the purchases I make on those with a goddamed mobile device (decent tablet controls permitting) I'll happily grab a windows phone again.

This is a really good idea. Hopefully it will be well implemented and supported, although I really don't want another client and have a feeling that's what they want. Between GFWL and EA Downloader I am pretty soured on losing support or even losing the license for games.

Ive been preaching this forever. However, it may be too little, too late and until i see halo(including the new one) and gears all released on PC its just more filler.

If they got the Master Chief Collection or Halo 5 supported immediately into this, they would have such a huge initial support

After dwelling on this some more, I think the huge missing piece from this announcement is any disclosure about their awareness of their fucked up cert requirements, especially when it comes to patches. Last gen, there were an important handful of games (Fez and The Pinball Arcade being the most glaring examples) that remained broken on the 360 due to the cost and time of cert for applying the fixes, while the steam (and other versions) were patched immediately without problem.

Limiting PC releases to a "Windows 10 Marketplace" would only serve to extend those limitations to a platform that has historically been free from them.

MS could easily alleviate those concerns by simply addressing them, and I'm sure they're not unaware of those much voiced problems, but not hearing anything directly from them about it is definitely a bit troubling.

Some Xbox One owners on Twitter are flipping out about this.

@mb: really? Did they just find out that PC owners have never had to pay to play online? Lol

Eh, I dunno. Now that some games are going to be the same and feature free multiplayer on PC, I think some people are starting to question what exactly they're paying for. And rightfully so.

They have to compete with that new steam box somehow