- The Xbox app has been ported to Windows 11 PCs with Arm CPUs
- This is another step forward to make gaming better on Arm laptops, following recent moves to strengthen game compatibility
- Microsoft notes that: “Today, more than 85% of the Game Pass catalog is compatible with these PCs.”
Microsoft has announced that the Xbox app is now out on Windows 11 PCs with Arm processors, meaning similar Copilot+ laptops built around Snapdragon X silicon.
In a blog post, Microsoft noted that: “Gamers can now download and enjoy a wide variety of titles from the Xbox PC app game catalog on Windows 11 arm-based PCs. Today, more than 85% of the Game Pass catalog is compatible with these PCs.”
The company also said that it’s working with developers to get more games supported on the Arm, and that for those titles that can’t run on those Windows 11 devices, there’s always another option – streaming via Xbox Cloud Gaming.
The Xbox app offers a central hub for all your games, acting as a game launcher and tying in social aspects, as well as facilitating cloud gaming, as mentioned, along with other neat tricks (like cross-platform saves for your Xbox and PC).
Analysis: big things could happen for Windows on Arm in 2026
This is certainly a useful step forward for Windows gamers who have an Arm PC, and it’s one of the few steps Microsoft has taken in making Snapdragon X laptops better on the gaming front.
That includes compatibility with quite a few more PC games, with the notable addition of titles that use AVX or AVX2 extensions, which Prism – Microsoft’s emulation layer for running x86 (AMD and Intel) games on Arm processors – gained the ability to handle in the October 2025 update for Windows 11.
On top of that, we saw Epic tune up Fortnite to run on Arm PCs, making the game’s anti-cheat tool (EAC) compatible. It has long been a stumbling block for games with an Arm processor. Hopefully, other game developers who use EAC to keep cheaters at bay will follow suit. (This includes titles such as Fire Ring).
The porting of the Xbox app to Arm PCs comes with interesting timing as we are about to see new Snapdragon X2 laptops introduced in the near future. In addition, rumor has it that laptops with Nvidia’s N1X processor could debut in the next few months. It’s another Arm chip, and one that packs some seriously powerful integrated graphics. Considering that, 2026 could be a very promising year for Windows on Arm devices.
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