Gaming Remains a Core Weakness of Windows on Arm
Despite the big promises Qualcomm has made to game developers, gaming remains a core weakness of Windows on Arm, as compatibility with the huge library of Windows PC games remains patchy at best. So far, just over 1,300 PC games have been independently tested for compatibility on Windows on Arm by the PC gaming community, which includes players and developers. Omdia analysis of this subset of tested games shows that barely half (55%) of games run smoothly without bugs or glitches. That still leaves a large number of games that either fail to work or exhibit serious problems.
To make matters worse, popular multiplayer games such as League of Legends, Destiny 2, Fortnite, Apex Legends, and PUBG: Battlegrounds are currently unplayable via Windows on Arm due to incompatibility with anti-cheat software.
Another critical issue holding back robust support for gaming is Qualcomm’s nascent hardware. It is still early days for Qualcomm’s Adreno GPUs in the PC space. Its drivers are in an immature state and don’t allow its graphics hardware to fully interface with the graphical demands of PC games, posing a further challenge to compatibility and performance.
PC Gaming Does Not Have an Immediate Future on Arm
With a large swathe of publishers’ PC games catalogs left in various states of incompatibility, what can be done? The PC gaming landscape isn’t just defined by the publishers and developers releasing games for the Windows operating system, but the hardware those games run on, and the numerous distribution platforms from which games are sold.
First, the hardware: Following the relaunch of Windows on Arm in June 2024, Arm-based Windows devices accounted for just 0.05% of Steam users according to Valve’s Steam hardware survey. Until mass adoption occurs, games publishers are not incentivized to produce native versions of their software.
This is unlikely to change in the short term. Omdia’s Mobile PC Market Tracker estimates that Arm-based laptops will only account for just 1% of shipments of consumer laptops shipped with the Windows operating system in 2024. However, in the longer-term, this share is expected to grow to 30% by 2029.
Secondly, PC games distribution: even if publishers were producing Arm-native versions of their games today, the vast majority release games via third-party distribution platforms. This creates its own set of issues.
Moreover, Microsoft doesn’t support local playback of Xbox PC games on Arm devices via the preinstalled Xbox app on Windows 11. Even more importantly, Steam, the world’s largest PC games distribution platform, is firmly focused on serving the existing x86 audience, including its own handheld gaming device, Steam Deck.
Publishers cannot distribute Arm versions of their software on Steam, and there is no indication that this will change. This in turn reduces publishers’ incentive to better support the currently small audience on Windows on Arm, reducing Steam’s incentive to support Arm devices.
The situation ultimately leaves game developers and publishers dependent on two key aspects to the Windows on Arm ecosystem that they do not control: Microsoft’s Prism translation layer and improvements made to Qualcomm’s graphics drivers.
Neither are quick fixes. In early 2024, Sarah Bond, President of Xbox, announced the formation of a team dedicated to forwards-compatibility of its games catalog that spans PC and console. Yet this is unlikely to be a task accomplished before 2026 at the earliest.
