The Xbox team has landed in Cologne, Germany to attend the European gaming show Gamescom 2016 this week. While Microsoft won’t hold a media briefing this year, GM of Games Marketing at Xbox
Aaron Greenberg kicked off the Xbox team’s presence at the event earlier today ahead of the opening of the Xbox Fanfest tomorrow.
The Xbox exec shared a recap of his speech to the press and Xbox enthusiasts on Xbox Wire, and one of the most interesting bits is the expansion of the Xbox Game Preview program to Windows 10. Not to be confused with the Xbox One Preview program which lets select Xbox One owners download preview builds of the Xbox One system software, the Xbox Game preview program has been announced by the company back at E3 2015: it’s a beta testing program that allows select Xbox One gamers to test unreleased games and give feedback to developers before release.
For each preview game, there is free trial period that lets player decide if they want to purchase it and unlock full access to the game’s preview version.Back in 2015, Microsoft kicked off the program with four games (The Long Dark, Sheltered, Elite Dangerous and DayZ) before adding more titles in the following weeks.
According to Greenberg, the Xbox Game Preview program on Windows 10 “gives gamers the chance to preview and purchase work-in-progress digital titles, participate in the development process and help developers make Windows 10 games the best they can be.” The first game to be available in the program later this year will be Everspace, a space shooter developed by Rockfish Games which will also be released on Steam and the Xbox One.
Expanding the Xbox Game Preview Program to Windows 10 is an interesting way to bring closer Microsoft’s gaming platforms, and it also allows the company to better compete with Steam which has enabled early access to beta versions of PC games since a long time. The Xbox team has yet to reveal when it will be possible to test this first game on Windows 10, but Greenberg shared “that there will be many more to come.”
Further reading: Everspace, Games, Windows 10, Xbox Game preview Program, Xbox One
