Xbox One will be able to run Windows 10 Universal Windows Platform apps later this summer, as the Xbox Store and the Windows Store get merged into one
Microsoft is mashing Windows and the Xbox together to win over its most critical market — When Microsoft launched Windows 10 in the summer of 2015 …
Context & Ripple Effects
This lands mid-arc for Microsoft's universal-app push: after shipping SDKs that port Android and iOS apps into Windows 10 universal apps and putting Windows 10 on the console via Xbox One's November update, the company is now extending the same app model onto the TV screen itself.
The timing is deliberate — sources had already flagged that Microsoft would open the Xbox platform to developers at Build on March 30, and merging the Xbox Store with the Windows Store is the distribution half of that promise.
First-order effects
- Developers gain a single UWP target that ships to both PC and Xbox One through one merged store, turning every Windows 10 app catalog entry into potential console inventory overnight.
- Xbox One owners get non-game apps built on the same codebase as their PC counterparts, ending the separate console-app pipeline.
Second-order effects
- Sony's PlayStation now competes against a console positioned as a general-purpose Windows endpoint rather than a closed game box, pressuring its own app-store exclusivity model.
- The merged store concentrates Microsoft's gatekeeping power: whoever controls the unified storefront controls discovery and revenue terms across both PC and console audiences.
Third-order effects
- The strict UWP requirement proved short-lived — by 2019 Microsoft admitted Win32 games into the Microsoft Store, relaxing the technical mandate while keeping the unified storefront — yet the convergence held, with Microsoft Store games reusing Xbox One's installation tools to blur the PC-console line further.
- If the pattern holds, console platforms trend toward shared cross-device storefronts where the app framework matters less than the distribution channel — a structural win for whoever owns the store.
The trend: Microsoft has spent years collapsing the Windows-Xbox boundary into one store and one app model, loosening the technology requirements over time while tightening its grip on distribution.