Xbox Has Begun Licensing Old Games For Physical Cartridges, And More Are Coming In 2026

Microsoft: "Evercade: This is a Xbox"

Very minor point, but aren't Activision technically owned by Microsoft Gaming and not 'Xbox'? Although apparently everything is an Xbox, so maybe Microsoft Gaming is an Xbox...

@FraserG I dunno, I know there's also an Xbox Game Studios, and obviously Xbox Game Pass, but for me Xbox is still more about the console line and Microsoft is the parent company that owns/makes the stuff. Looking at the boxes for those two Evercade collections, the Activision one only mentions Activision and the Rare one says Microsoft. Neither makes any mention of Xbox.

@BionicDodo Xbox is an ecosystem, not just a console. The big advantage of Xbox is its open ecosystem: Game Pass with these first‑party and day‑one third‑party games, Xbox Play Anywhere, the fact that you can buy a game once and play it on your Xbox console, on PC, in the cloud, on your TV, on your handheld console, etc. And even some exclusive games, even if sometimes only temporarily (Avowed, Starfield, South of Midnight, Forza, etc.).

It’s also about its openness to other stores, and the ability to centralize all your game libraries (Xbox Store, Steam, Epic, GOG, …) within a single interface. That’s exactly what the Xbox App and the full Xbox experience already offer on devices like the ROG Ally or other Windows handhelds, and soon on the next Xbox console as well.

Backward compatibility is also at the core of Xbox’s strategy, with a strong focus on game preservation, and this initiative with Evercade is part of it as well

All these things together, this openness and player‑first approach to their ecosystem is a key differentiator that only Xbox provides today.

Xbox players have the highest engagement levels alongside PC players, ahead of Nintendo and PlayStation. It’s no coincidence that there are more Xbox console players on games like Helldivers 2 or Arc Raiders, despite Xbox having a smaller console base.

To measure attachment to a brand, you shouldn’t look only at hardware sales — or at least, that’s not enough. You need to look at engaged players, and on that front Xbox is at the top. Publishers know this very well, which is why they develop for Xbox (except for a few small studios that occasionally delay their Xbox ports).

MAU is the metric used by industry professionals. Console sales are just something fanboys use to reassure themselves, even though their brand struggles to sell games — and sometimes even to make them.

PS: Okay, you can say I’m a fanboy too But I don’t think I’m making anything up by saying all this.

Well, at least if another company does them, you can be relatively sure the whole game will be on the disc/cart…

Evercade has offered me so much fun in 2025. The Gameboy-sized Super Pockets are very affordable and there is already a large offering of games/cartridges on Evercade. Getting into Evercade last year felt as exciting as getting a new console/handheld 20 years ago with a ton of new/fresh games to discover.

It would be cool to see more Microsoft owned games to release on Evercade. The "Collection 1" in the Rare and Activision cartridge titles imply that there might be more. But also the Blizzard Arcade Collection (Lost Vikings, Rock n' Roll Racing, Blackthorne) would be great.

Also @FraserG, thanks for highlighting Crazy Burger in the article. He is creating some really good, informative videos about Evercade and retro gaming.

@fatpunkslim My point wasn't really about what Xbox is, just that Activision are literally not owned by an entity called Xbox and are not part of Xbox Game Studios either. So technically, 'Xbox' haven't licensed old Atari 2600 games made by Activision to Blaze. I guess the error bothered me more as this article somewhat sells the idea of some kind of Xbox nostalgia based on you being able to buy a pack of games on cartridge that were made long before Xbox existed, made by a developer that was only quite recently bought by Microsoft.

Someone should tell them this is possible with a brand new media format: the disc. Most games will fit entirely on one of these shiny circles, and since they cost pennies to produce it isn’t a big deal to mint two if necessary.

@TrollOfWar collection 1 is down on everything just in case there is a second.

Great work getting a super pocket. I'm knee deep in the Alpha home arcade machine ATM, and have just bought nother 3 carts off funstock. I will be upto 54 carts!

Looking forward to Taito 3 and Turrican next.

@themcnoisy I only got into Evercade last April because I wanted to play Tomb Raider on a pocket sized handheld. Now I have 2 Super Pockets (Capcom and Neo Geo Edition), the original Evercade Handheld (got it used fairly cheap) and 24 cartridges. I'd probably have a VS-R by now if my family or friends were more interested in retro gaming.

I'm also very much interested in the Turrican collection.

@TrollOfWar yeah it's a tough sell, games have come a long way and going back to the 80s and early 90s is jarring. That said there's enough good stuff on the system now, to upsell the household on a vsr, especially after this year with the neo geo and Taito collections.