If you’re looking to pick up the Killer Instinct: Definitive Edition for Windows 10, you may want to hold off on doing that right now. Unbeknownst to me when I ordered the title on the Windows 10 store, no less, I found out that the game actually isn’t available for play on Windows 10.
As you can see, it’s clearly advertised for Windows 10, and you can purchase it from the Windows 10 store. Yet, once you’ve paid your money, things start to change for the worse. I was able to get to the point where Windows 10 claimed I could play the game on my PC.
Upon purchasing the game and trying to run it, you’ll be greeted by a message “This app will not work on your device.”
This left me fairly confused. Here we have Microsoft advertising the game, yet I wasn’t able to play it on my Windows 10. I thought that perhaps I needed to play it on my Xbox One first and then it would sync to my account and then I could play it on my Windows 10 PC. That must be it, right? Well, turns out that this was not the case. This, of course, left me even more perplex. Searching for answers, I went over to both the Killer Instinct Sub-reddit and the official Killer Instinct forums. My search was sadly successful, as I found several threads where others had encountered the very same issue. They all boil down to the single most glaring oversight by Microsoft for the title – that while Killer Instinct: Definitive Edition is available for both Xbox One and Windows 10, it’s only playable for Xbox One as of now. There’s an unknown date set for the holiday of 2016 for those that want to play it on a Windows 10 PC.
“We’re also pleased to announce that KI: DE will be available for Windows 10 later this holiday! Those who purchase the Xbox One version digitally will automatically receive the Windows 10 version for free as part of the Xbox Play Anywhere program.”
This info was only available via a press release. Not the Windows 10 store, not anywhere on the Killer Instinct: Definitive Edition purchase page where it needed to be or on Killer Instinct digital code cards. You can see clear as day up to that it says that the game “Is available now for both platforms”. Well, after my research and much to the displeasure of myself and others, this isn’t true at all (here, here & here). After finding out all of this, I went to open up a dialogue via a Microsoft representative via chat. After providing the rep with all the information, they came back and stated that there was nothing they can do. This doesn’t sit well with me, nor should anyone have to deal with this sort of misrepresentation. As such I’ve forwarded this directly to Microsoft’s attention.
More than anything, I get that they did mention it’s a holiday 2016 release. They did not post that info anywhere other than the press release and that information is not readily available anywhere else. Thankfully the purchase was just $39.99 and I can still play it on my Xbox One if I wanted to. This doesn’t apply to those who are strictly Windows 10 PC gamers, who could potentially purchase the game and be out of luck until the game is available on Windows 10 – whenever that is.
Buyers beware, lest you want to lose your money if you’re getting this for play on Windows 10 right now. At very least, Microsoft should have added the disclaimer that this won’t be available until some unknown date or just remove the option to purchase it now.
