Microsoft’s AI PCs fail with hundreds of games—and there’s no solution in sight

Microsoft has launched its new series of PCs, Copilot+, which promise exceptionally fast performance for artificial intelligence tasks and all-day battery life, among other advantages. However, a recent report from The Wall Street Journal reveals that these devices have a major weakness: the ability to run popular games.

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A translation layer that doesn’t work as it should

The Copilot+ is equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon chips based on ARM architecture, which integrate CPU, GPU, and a neural processing unit. This hardware choice puts Microsoft PCs in a similar situation to Macs with Apple silicon, which also uses ARM chips. The main consequence of this design is the incompatibility of applications initially designed for the x86 architecture used by Intel and AMD processors.

According to the same WSJ, approximately 15% of Windows users use it for gaming, a significant segment that seeks compatibility and performance in their devices. Microsoft users are not accustomed to encountering these incompatibilities. That is precisely why Microsoft developed Prism, a tool that allows x86 applications to run on ARM-based Windows machines.

Apple followed the same strategy with its Rosetta 2, a real-time translation layer that, in many cases, made apps work better without any optimization on computers with Apple silicon than on their counterparts with x86 chips. For Microsoft, however, the results have not been the same.

Only half of the tests conducted with 1,300 PC games worked without errors, crashes, or startup issues. The WSJ reports, for example, how anti-cheat software in games like Fortnite and League of Legends presents difficulties that cannot be transferred to ARM, preventing their execution. Other examples include Shadows of the Tomb Raider, which repeatedly crashed, and other popular titles such as Destiny 2, Starfield, Halo Infinite, and Fall Guys, which couldn’t even start.

The WSJ reports on Microsoft’s response to the situation. They have acknowledged that games with certain graphic requirements may not work on PCs with Copilot+ and mentioned that, although their goal is to offer a “quality gaming experience” on the new devices, players seeking a high-performance experience should consider an alternative PC.

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The difference between Apple and Microsoft in implementation and adaptation to ARM technology is remarkable. While Apple has achieved a transition practically without problems with its Rosetta 2, Microsoft has encountered difficulties in making Prism work at a similar level. We have already talked about Apple’s impressive milestone in this smooth transition of this magnitude. Although not in the short term, Microsoft is expected to achieve something similar.