Several strings referencing Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console have been spotted inside the Windows 8 kernel.
According to Win8Italia, both “XBOX_360_SYSTEM_CRASH” and “XBOX_360_SYSTEM_CRASH_RESERVED” are present in ntoskrnl.exe.
As Tom Warren of WinRumors notes, while the strings don’t necessarily prove Microsoft is planning support for Xbox 360 games on the PC, they certainly seem to indicate a “much tighter” integration between the popular console and Windows 8-based systems.
To be sure, Redmond recently announced plans to code Xbox Live support into Windows 8, which sparked the inevitable slew of rumors about Xbox 360 games being playable on future Windows 8 PCs.
But as Terrence O’Brien of Engadget points out, there are likely more “mundane possibilities” for the presence of the above-mentioned strings, such as the ability to remotely control your console to trigger update and game downloads, or to receive notifications from the machine on your desktop.
I must admit, the possibility of playing Xbox games on a PC does sound quite tempting, say for those with laptops sitting in coffee shops, or on the bus/train.
Still, it is worth remembering why consoles exist in the first place – because they are dedicated gaming machines designed for a single purpose.
Remember, they aren’t weighed down by the bloat or other nefarious maladies that typically plague more complex operating systems. And that is what I love most about my Xbox: I turn it on and it simply works.
I don’t think I’ll be giving up that experience anytime soon – not even to play 360 or 720 games on a PC.
