win10

Yes, you read that headline correctly. Your Xbox One games will soon be stream-able to any Windows 10 PC or tablet. If you weren’t able to watch the Windows 10 Consumer Preview on Wednesday the 21st, then you missed out. It was a great show, and a lot of cool stuff was revealed for the Windows 10 platform.

The entire time I was watching, I had this feeling that streaming Xbox One games would finally be announced. Just before Phil Spencer — head of Xbox — said the magic words, I tweeted this:

before

Then, right after he announced it I tweeted this:

after

Even though I tweeted that, I definitely did believe it. Hearing it with my own ears was almost too good to be true. I was barely able to contain my excitement, and if you follow me on Twitter you probably had a pretty good idea of just how stoked I was.

We Xbox users will finally have something to rival, and possibly even beat, Sony’s Remote Play for the PlayStation 4. Remote Play specifically utilizes PlayStation consoles and Xperia phones and tablets. Though it makes it really easy for PSN fans to play on something other than their TVs, it really limits the users’ choice of devices they can play their games on. Xbox One to PC streaming, however, will be open to just about any Windows 10 computer or tablet. Even with certain specifications having to be met, that is a much larger list of possible devices you can use on the Microsoft network. You may even already have a compatible device in your home that you’ll be able to use once this exciting new feature is implemented.

With Windows 10 coming to Xbox One later this year, it should be a flawless transition to stream games from Xbox One to PC and tablet devices. Windows 10 will have an Xbox app built into the new but very familiar system. Even game DVR will be available on PC to edit and share your gaming clips with friends. Thus far, Microsoft said that we will be able to play our games when connected on the same home internet connection. I’m hopeful that they will eventually add the ability to play your Xbox One games while away from home as well.

This will open up more gaming possibilities if you keep your Xbox One in your living room, and your PC in a home office like I currently do. I imagine that someone in the living room could play a game on the designated home Xbox console while I play a different, or maybe the same, game while signed in on my PC. If it indeed works out that way, my husband and I could play Halo games or Destiny together without having to purchase a second copy or share a screen. (Editor’s note: As some of our readers have pointed out, players may have to be playing the same game in order to stream.) There will be many great new ways to play our game collections. I can’t wait to try it out!

Perhaps best of all, this is probably just the beginning of Windows 10 and Xbox One playing nice together. Hopefully Microsoft will have more cross-platform news for us at the Game Developers Conference in March.