Microsoft appears to be working on expanding its Xbox Game Pass subscription to China. References to \u201cProject Saluki\u201d have been discovered in a recent update to the Xbox PC app this week, with Microsoft describing the codename as \u201cChina market expansion for Game Pass, Rewards, and subscription tiers.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Microsoft offers a variety of games in China through Activision Blizzard, it does not currently make Xbox Game Pass available in the country. Microsoft does sell Xbox consoles in China, and first launched<\/a> the Xbox One in China in 2014, becoming the first video game console to do so after a 14-year government ban<\/a> on game consoles.<\/p>\n The Chinese Xbox store has a much smaller catalog of games in the country, as titles have to be approved by Chinese regulators. This has complicated any plans to bring Xbox Game Pass to China in the past, but Project Saluki may well offer a smaller selection of games tailored for this unique market. We asked Microsoft to comment on Project Saluki, and we\u2019ll update you accordingly.<\/p>\n Microsoft\u2019s Xbox PC app also mentions the Positron codename, which is said to \u201cenable Disc2Digital.\u201d It\u2019s not clear exactly what Positron is, but it could be the return of Microsoft\u2019s original plan to convert disc games into digital licenses. Microsoft was planning to do this with the Xbox One, but a backlash from publishers and game resellers forced the company to abandon the plans.<\/p>\n Windows Central<\/a> speculates that Positron could be in preparation for Project Helix, Microsoft\u2019s next-gen Xbox console. Microsoft has increasingly been pushing towards discless consoles, after launching an entirely all-digital Xbox Series S console in 2020 and a discless Xbox Series X console<\/a> in white in 2024.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Microsoft appears to be working on expanding its Xbox Game Pass subscription to China. References to \u201cProject Saluki\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[213,61,60,1071,43,216,80,23130],"class_list":["post-446689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-gaming","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-microsoft","tag-news","tag-tech","tag-technology","tag-xbox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}