Xbox PC and Game Pass titles are coming to Linux through 'Xodus' — Heroic Launcher devs embark on new open-source reverse-engineering project

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Allowing Xbox PC titles to run on Linux.

Microsoft Game Pass
(Image credit: Microsoft)

Xbox PC games, distributed through the Xbox app, fail to run on Linux because of Microsoft's proprietary GDK runtime environment. This also breaks Game Pass even though the company supports cloud streaming Game Pass titles. A new open-source project from the developers of Heroic Launcher, called "Xodus," is aiming to fix this by reverse engineering and emulating the necessary components required for Xbox PC games on Linux.

The Xodus GitHub page.

(Image credit: Tom's Hardware)
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Hassam Nasir
Hassam Nasir
Contributing Writer

Hassam Nasir is a die-hard hardware enthusiast with years of experience as a tech editor and writer, focusing on detailed CPU comparisons and general hardware news. When he’s not working, you’ll find him bending tubes for his ever-evolving custom water-loop gaming rig or benchmarking the latest CPUs and GPUs just for fun.

17 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Eximo
    Neat. Now if I could just be bothered to have a subscription.
    Reply
  • ezst036
    Gabe's 10 year plan starting back from Steam Machine 1.0 through Proton to today is what made this possible.

    Thanks Valve!

    And Xodus is a wonderfully pithy name for it too. Made me chuckle. :ROFLMAO:
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    ezst036 said:
    Gabe's 10 year plan starting back from Steam Machine 1.0 through Proton to today is what made this possible.

    Thanks Valve!

    And Xodus is a wonderfully pithy name for it too. Made me chuckle. :ROFLMAO:
    Why are you praising valve for MS being able to make money from more sources without them having to do anything for it?!?!
    Doesn't make any sense!

    Ms doesn't make any money from windows from normal users anyway so they don't really negatively care that they get to provide support for fewer people.
    All the (software) things MS makes money from all work on linux as well.
    Reply
  • Eximo
    MS sells data collected from Windows, so it is not true that they don't make any money from typical consumers. Though Windows is a drop in the bucket compared to Azure. Windows is also a marketing and sales platform for them. A lot of dark patterns to get people to unwittingly sign up for paid services.

    Regardless, the open source community starting to embrace gaming as a major endeavor is mostly from the efforts of Valve making it more mainstream.
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    Eximo said:
    MS sells data collected from Windows,
    There has never been any proof of that.
    If there were any, people would have sued them already.

    The worst is targeted adds, but no data needs to be sold or even collected for that one.
    Reply
  • Eximo
    A targeted ad needs information to be targeted, and they explicitly say they do this. Even if they aren't selling it, they are selling their services to those who want you to see the ads.
    Reply
  • LordVile
    Eximo said:
    MS sells data collected from Windows, so it is not true that they don't make any money from typical consumers. Though Windows is a drop in the bucket compared to Azure. Windows is also a marketing and sales platform for them. A lot of dark patterns to get people to unwittingly sign up for paid services.

    Regardless, the open source community starting to embrace gaming as a major endeavor is mostly from the efforts of Valve making it more mainstream.
    I mean they don’t and the money they get from home users on windows is pitiful compared to enterprise and Azure
    Reply
  • Eximo
    LordVile said:
    I mean they don’t and the money they get from home users on windows is pitiful compared to enterprise and Azure
    Yes, I mentioned Azure already. But as I said, Windows is still their gateway to selling cloud services to many consumers.

    Keep in mind I am not referring to advanced users of Windows, but those that buy off the shelf systems and use them as is. They also get the bloatware from the OEM, on top of all the MS defaults, like Bing search.
    Reply
  • LordVile
    Eximo said:
    Yes, I mentioned Azure already. But as I said, Windows is still their gateway to selling cloud services to many consumers.

    Keep in mind I am not referring to advanced users of Windows, but those that buy off the shelf systems and use them as is. They also get the bloatware from the OEM, on top of all the MS defaults, like Bing search.
    Typically bloatware isn’t Microsoft it’s OEMs and their contractors. Again, Microsoft make barely anything in comparison on consumer versions of windows and the subscriptions vs the enterprise and azure.

    Azure has over 100 billion in revenue, consumer windows is at most 8 and most of that is the preinstall costs to OEMs
    Reply
  • ezst036
    TerryLaze said:
    Ms doesn't make any money from windows from normal users anyway
    Advertisements. Adware/spyware.

    Yes they do.
    Reply