Windows can now play (some) Xbox games

**Daniel Rubino** (0:11)
Welcome to The Windows Central Podcast, episode 399 for July 24th, 2026 Everyone, Daniel Rubino here, joined with Jez Corden this week. No, Zac Bowden, although technically he's here in spirit. He's literally behind the scenes, but he's been feeling ill this week, and has lost his voice, which is usually my job around here. But he'll be back next week. As we are doing episode 399 today, next week is episode 400 It actually isn't 400 We're probably up to like 1200, but we've restarted the podcast a few times over the last 15, 20 years. I will say for next week, we're going to have a very special guest.
This week is going to be focused a little bit more on Xbox. Next week's episode is almost exclusively going to be Windows content. We have a special guest from Microsoft to discuss Windows 11 Make sure you guys tune in for that, as it's going to be a very special show. It'll be our 400th episode as far as this iteration. As far as this episode though, we will briefly talk about the LG controversy, which has been happening with their TVs, but now their monitors have been dragged into it, as well as Windows 11 in some nefarious ways. LG is pulling a Sony here. It seems like they can't do anything right. But then we're going to focus a lot on Xbox news, partly because we have Jez here who did a lot of reporting on it this week, but also because frankly, there's a lot of news going on with Xbox. A lot of it is actually good news. We've talked previously about how we think we bottomed out with Xbox.
That means we can only go up from here. There's been a bunch of policy announcements and things changing as well as an exclusive interview we did with Todd Howard. We'll be going through.
Jez, how are you doing on this fine Friday?
Oh, you're muted.

**Jez Corden** (2:22)
Yeah, I'm doing all right, mate. Better than Zac, apparently, who's lost his voice, as you said. But yeah, rocking and rolling. Harley just woke up, actually.
It's really weird living in Europe, but working with Microsoft on the West Coast. So I had a meeting with a Microsoft person, three in the morning the other day, and it's just completely thrown me now. So it'll be like this for the next week or so.

**Daniel Rubino** (2:54)
But that's a rough hour to do anything. That's a devil's hour.

**Jez Corden** (2:59)
True that. You got to do it, right? Because all of Microsoft's in Seattle.

**Daniel Rubino** (3:05)
When's convenient for you? And the person you spoke to wasn't some PR person or a low-level intern. It was a pretty high up person who I've seen interviews with this person. I won't name them just for reasons here, but I've seen interviews with this person. And it's a person I would love to sit down just to chat with because they have an immense knowledge of the industry.
And I would say very good communicators too.

**Jez Corden** (3:32)
Yeah, this person is incredibly smart. Maybe we can get him on the podcast someday. But yeah, there's obviously a lot of moving parts at Xbox right now. And they're also taking a lot of feedback from all corners. I mean, we just saw, for example, we'll probably talk about more in a minute, but this past week, Xbox had a huge issue with customer support. And then, you know, that's one of the one of the stated goals Asher mentioned in, in a letter when she first come on board was like, we've got to sort some of these things out, like customer support and for the rest of it. And that all blew up last week. And lots of people were sharing their feedback on Xbox's customer support. Well, it's Microsoft's customer support really. But yeah, there's tons of moving parts right now. And but things will probably get a bit quieter now as we get into the summer proper, kids are off school, people go on a vacation.
And and yeah, it should be a bit quieter for a few weeks maybe. But since June, it's been nonstop, hasn't it, in the Xbox? Well, Microsoft comes to like Windows has had a lot of updates as well. It's it's been wild, man. It's been a wild ride.

**Daniel Rubino** (4:37)
Yeah. And, you know, part of this is no doubt what Ash had talked about in one of her memos with the next 100 days, right?
Which is always an interesting concept to put around a company because there's obviously going to be a lot of big news coming out during that 100 days and something that was negative, of course, like the layoffs. But as we'll get into the new shortly, some of it's been really positive, too. And I think signs of worry, they're kind of heading. And we can talk about that in a sec.