Report: Xbox 360 and older games could come to PC with upgrades thanks to ‘Xbox Classics’ program

Microsoft seems to be doubling down on its “players first” approach and if the latest leaks are to be believed, something great is in the pipeline for those who love older Xbox games. The company could be working with an emulation team to bring old games, including Xbox 360 and original Xbox titles, to PC, current Xbox consoles, and cloud gaming. These games will reportedly be enhanced for new hardware.

The information comes from known leaker eXtas1s who, in his latest YouTube video (linked below), talks about Xbox working with the Xenia Canary team. Xenia Canary is an experimental fork of the open-source Xenia emulator dedicated to emulating Xbox 360 games. The leaker claims that according to his source who works at Xbox, the project is internally, tentatively called “Xbox Classics” and aims to bring games from the Xbox 360, as well as original Xbox games, to current gen consoles and PC through Game Pass and xCloud. This is another move in Xbox’s dedication to backward compatibility.

These games will not just be re-releases, but come with better stability, graphical improvements, integration with Game Pass, and support for portable consoles. While there are no exact dates for when this will be announced, the leaker states that it coincides with the 25th anniversary of Xbox, which will be in November 2026. The announcement is said to come in two waves in 2026.

Some of the games that will be optimized as part of the program are said to be Fable 2, Skate 3, and Batman: Arkham Asylum, among others. This emulation platform will allow other games to be added as well with better stability and improvements.

Of course, licensing could be an issue and Microsoft will have to figure out that component to be able to bring a larger library of emulated games. It should be noted that Microsoft has not shared any information on the rumored Xbox Classics program so these details should be taken with a grain of salt.