An unofficial, open-source Android app now has a way to get at your Xbox and PC Game Pass library. DroidDeck 0.6.0, released on 22nd October, adds an experimental Xbox and PC Game Pass store. Sign in with a Microsoft account, see the games you own and the Game Pass titles on offer, download them to your device and launch them. It is not an Xbox product, it is explicitly experimental, and compatibility is not guaranteed.
What DroidDeck 0.6.0 adds
DroidDeck is a free, GPL-3.0 licensed app that runs Valve’s Steam client in Big Picture mode on Android devices with Qualcomm Adreno graphics. Windows games run locally on the device through Proton and FEX, a translation layer for x86 code on Arm chips. Version 0.6.0 adds Xbox and PC Game Pass as another store alongside the others the app already supports.
According to the release notes, once you sign in with your Microsoft account you can:
- See your owned games and Game Pass games in one place.
- Download games with pause and resume, then update, verify and manage add-on content.
- Launch games through Proton or FEX from the Games tab, or straight from Steam.
- Open search results with artwork and details, and install Game Pass titles you haven’t installed yet from their page.
The same release adds an itch.io store, touchscreen gestures, faster performance on Adreno GPUs and a redesigned store layout. The Xbox and Game Pass support is labelled experimental in the developers’ own notes.
This isn’t cloud gaming
Xbox Cloud Gaming streams video of a game running on a Microsoft server. DroidDeck does the opposite: it downloads PC games and tries to run them on the Android hardware itself. VideoCardz points out that not every Game Pass title is supported, and that results depend on the game, the hardware and the translation software. Android Authority also describes the support as experimental, and the news was flagged by Retro Game Corps on X on the day of the release.
That matters because the requirements are steep. DroidDeck needs Android 9 or newer and a supported Adreno GPU, which means an Adreno 730 or newer, or any Adreno 8xx. Adreno 6xx chips are experimental, and Mali, Xclipse, PowerVR and Adreno 710 graphics are listed as unsupported in the project’s README. The Linux runtime alone takes about 3 GB of storage, before you’ve downloaded a single game. There’s also no official list of games that work.
Unofficial, and not endorsed by Microsoft
DroidDeck is a community project with no connection to Xbox. We’ve found no statement from Microsoft about it, and nothing to suggest Microsoft backs it. If you want to try it, proceed with caution: it is an unofficial, experimental feature, and your results may vary or break.
The developers also warn that DroidDeck has no stand-alone website, and that you should only trust the official GitHub repository.
Why it matters
An Android phone or handheld running PC Game Pass downloads natively is a long way from an official Xbox experience, and a lot has to go right: your chip, your drivers, the game itself. For now it’s a fascinating experiment from the enthusiast scene rather than a way to play Game Pass on Android that you can rely on. We’ll update this if Microsoft says anything.
