•Xbox has announced Xbox Labs, a new initiative aimed at getting games to more people in more places, with a particular emphasis on web browsers.
The move comes as Microsoft seeks to expand its reach under new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma’s goal of reaching 1 billion players per day. The company has been experimenting with running Xbox and Xbox 360 games in browsers, and Xbox Labs formalizes those efforts into a dedicated team of engineers exploring emerging technologies to find new ways to distribute and even create games.
According to IGN, this will not be solely an R&D effort; Xbox Labs is tasked with shipping products. Sharma said the team “will build in the open” and get gamers to engage with what it produces.
The initiative can be viewed as a next phase of backward compatibility efforts that began at Xbox over a decade ago, building on the recent disc-to-digital program. How Xbox will monetize its Xbox Labs offerings—whether through an upfront cost, in-game microtransactions, or ad-based revenue—remains to be seen.
The announcement continues a busy stretch for Xbox, which revealed its entertainment-industry-focused Xbox XP arm last week.
Here’s Sharma’s memo to the team (also posted to Xbox Wire) in full:
We’re excited to announce Xbox Labs. This is a new initiative aimed at getting games to more people in more places, with a particular emphasis on web browsers.
We’ve been tinkering with running Xbox and Xbox 360 games in browsers for a while now, and we want to formalize those efforts into a dedicated team that plays with emerging technologies to find new ways for games—new and old—to be distributed and even created.
This won’t just be an R&D effort. We’ll build in the open, ship products, and get gamers to engage with them.
94fps browser version
1 billion players per day
backward compatibility efforts
disc-to-digital program
a much more consumer-friendly path
what Sony is doing
in-game-ad-based revenue
Xbox XP
Xbox Wire
Podcast Unlocked
Next-Gen Console Watch
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