Do you want to play Xbox games on a Mac? There are two main ways you can play Xbox on a MacBook Air, whether you want to play on the Mac online or connect an Xbox to your Mac.
Although Macs don’t have native support for Xbox, you can play Xbox games on a Mac with the right setup. In this guide, I will be showing you how!
Required Hardware and Software
There are two ways you can play Xbox on a MacBook Air.
The first is with Xbox cloud gaming. For that, you will need an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate membership and a steady internet connection.
The second is via remote play. Remote play is not natively supported on Macs, but you can use a software called Greenlight. You will need an external console, as well as Greenlight downloaded on your Mac, to use remote play.
Steps to Connect Xbox to a MacBook Air
The easiest way to play Xbox games on a Mac is to use Xbox Cloud Play. It loads hundreds of games in your browser from a server owned by Xbox that is based in the cloud, so you can play them directly on your Mac or any other device with a web browser. As mentioned, it is available to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers.
The second method involves downloading an app from GitHub called Greenlight. Once downloaded, you will be able to log into your Xbox account, select your consoles, and connect to them remotely over Bluetooth. It should automatically recognize your consoles once you are signed in.
Recording or Streaming Xbox Gameplay
If you would like to record Xbox gameplay on a Mac, you will need a screen recording software to complete your Xbox game recording setup. OBS is my go-to software for screen recording. It is also great if you want to stream Xbox on Twitch, as it is one of the software solutions recommended by Twitch itself for streaming on Twitch.
Can the MacBook Air Handle Gaming?
Is gaming on a MacBook Air a good idea? Is the MacBook Air’s performance for gaming any good?
There are undoubtedly Mac gaming limitations when playing games on a MacBook Air. After all, the MacBook Air wasn’t really designed for gaming. It doesn’t have that many GPU cores compared to standard gaming PCs, and it doesn’t have a fan. It’s meant to be a lightweight laptop for work, school, and leisure, but not really for gaming. Nevertheless, with Dynamic Caching and the new M3 chip, newer MacBooks Air can actually handle games pretty well, especially if they are being played from a server in the cloud as with Xbox Cloud Play.
Alternative Methods to Play Xbox Games on Mac
Unfortunately, Xbox Remote Play is not available on Mac, only on PC; you also can’t currently use an HDMI cable. That’s because MacBooks currently do not have video input ports, only video output ports; in other words, you can’t use MacBooks as external displays for other devices. Therefore, cloud gaming on your Mac or using Greenlight are your only options.
However, you can buy an external TV monitor and connect it to your Xbox via HDMI as an alternative to using your laptop as an external display.
Conclusion
We hope you enjoyed our Xbox on MacBook Air Guide. To summarize, you can play Xbox on a Mac using Xbox Cloud Play, or you can connect an Xbox to a MacBook Air remotely using Greenlight. Happy gaming!
