[Help] Possible to get PC Xbox games on Steam Deck?

Klanky@sopuli.xyz to Steam Deck@sopuli.xyz – 19 points –

So during one of the Xbox Game Pass promotions I signed up for a few months and ended up buying Forza Horizon 4 on sale. I am trying to find a way to play it on Steam Deck, but so far all I have found is guides on how to use the streaming on the Game Pass to play on Steam Deck, which only works with an active Game Pass sub (in my understanding). Has anyone found a way to get games that you have bought through the Windows Xbox store on Steam Deck? I would love to play FH4 on my Deck!

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Probably only if you install Windows on the deck.

That's what I am afraid of. I'm kicking myself for buying it on the Xbox sale (instead of the Steam sale at the same time) solely because the Steam version wouldn't have my progress! Of course, at the time I didn't have any plans to get a Steam Deck...

solely because the Steam version wouldn't have my progress!

Is that true? It's not for the Halo games. The saves sync with your Microsoft account, which you log into through the Steam version of the game. I still have my 1th nameplate on the steam version of TMCC because it's tied to my Microsoft account.

In general though, I avoid the Microsoft store at all costs. I have had too many issues. And it is completely incompatible with Linux. I have on many occasions payed full price for a game that is on gamepass just because dealing with all the issues with the Microsoft store isn't worth my time.

It is for FH4. I actually bought the Steam version to check and then refunded it.

You can just copy your save files over to the steam version

Your comment led me to run a search and found this for anyone else interested:

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Hi everyone! I was really dissapointed when i found out that you won't be able to transfer your saves between MS Store and Steam versions, even though you have to use your XBOX account for both of them anyway. So i found a way to do it myself! Updated to add a way to find the save file after you get a lot of cars.

I presume you already have some progress made on the MS Store version.

Launch the steam version at least once, up to main menu, then exit.

Locate the folder where steam save files reside, it should be \userdata\\1551360\remote\\, make a backup of those 3 files and remove them from the save folder.

Locate the folder where MS Store saves are, it should be %LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Microsoft.624F8B84B80_8wekyb3d8bbwe\SystemAppData\wgs\\\

Turns out Microsoft has decided to store every car you own in a separate folder. This makes finding the actual save folder a bit more difficult. The way you can recognise it is either look for a file that is around 900kb in size, or has a container.208 file.

There will be 4 files in the MS Store version folder, we only care about 3 of them - those with long file names and no extension.

Copy them over to the Steam version folder.

Now we look to the filesize. The biggest of the copied-over files is our User_XXXXXXXXXX.ProfileData, change its name to the name of the file you copied.

Next ones are a bit tricky. You have to open them, and User_XXXXXXXXXX.TransactionLogFile and User_XXXXXXXXXX.VersionFlags you copied earlier, in a text editor like Notepad++, then compare their content. Change the names accordingly to User_XXXXXXXXXX.TransactionLogFile and User_XXXXXXXXXX.VersionFlags, it should be obivous which one is which after you open them.

Launch the game, you'll be able to continue playing using the Steam verison from now on!

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Wish I had found this earlier! 🤦‍♂️

Oh, that's too bad. Seems like a big miss to leave that feature out.

It’s a very, very intentional move: you must link a Microsoft account to play, but it’s a “different account” so no transfer of saves. So different that it will remember all your records, will show races as already done (lots of fun figuring out what you still need to do), you can edit tunes previously shared (can’t edit them unless they’re yours) and if you want to try and launch both versions of the game it will complain about being already logged in on a different machine.

Only real way is to install windows. Even then though it's not great. You have to use some third party apps to get windows store to recognize the steam deck controls as a controller. It's a pain in the ass to get working at all and in my experience it's super flakey and prone to crashes. (if you've ever tried to get the steam controller working with game pass games you probably already have a good idea of the problems you might run into).

A slightly more reliable method though is creating a kb+m desktop config for each game you plan on playing through gamepass and manually switching to it before launching your game directly through the windows store. Unfortunately this isn't going to work super great with games that require analog inputs like racing games but it works great for things like fps games or traditional kb+m games.

Steam input is so flexible though that you might be able to figure out a way to get this working right with forza. I'm just not sure how you could. Maybe set throttle in game to some sort of mouse movement and in turn set right trigger to that same mouse movement in your desktop config. That's pure speculation on my part though. I've never personally tried doing that myself. No idea if its actually even possible.

In my experience Steam Deck on windows works fine. Just use Steam Deck Tools, it will handle the controller inputs for you. I also personally use Playnite to open the gamepass games instead of using Steam since it’s just easier that way.

I somehow missed steam deck tools as a thing. Last time I tried figuring things out rewasd is what I kept finding.

Anyway just grabbed steam deck tools last night because of your comment and it's great so far. Currently playing Lies of P and it's perfect. Good looking out, man.