Earlier this month, Microsoft's Jason Ronald said that the company was planning to allow apps designed for Windows 10 to run on its Xbox One console this summer. Yesterday, at its Build 2016 developer conference, Microsoft firmed up those plans, announcing that the Windows 10 'Anniversary Update' will be coming to the Xbox One this summer, bringing support for those apps on the console, and also confirming that the standalone Xbox Store will be merged into the Windows Store.
Today, Microsoft said that several major partners will be bringing their Windows 10 apps to the Xbox One "later this year":
- Dailymotion
- Hulu LLC
- NASCAR
- Nickelodeon
It's worth noting that some of the UWP apps that will launch on Xbox One won't be new to the device, but the advantage of bringing their Universal apps to the console is that companies will no longer have to main separate apps for Xbox, PCs and phones.
The fact that the company is naming key partners that will be bringing their Universal Windows Platform apps to the Xbox One is in line with Ronald's statement a couple of weeks ago that Microsoft will 'gradually open up' availability of new apps on the console over time.
It appears that only a limited, curated set of UWP apps will be available at first, with further apps eventually being added to the list. However, it's not yet clear what criteria Microsoft will apply when selecting which apps will be next to make their way onto the Xbox One, but it seems that the app selection won't be growing significantly for some time.
This article was updated shortly after publishing to better clarify the relationship between existing Xbox One apps and their Windows 10 counterparts.
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