Jez: Microsoft may be working on Xbox (360 etc.) emulation technology for Xbox Ally and other Windows devices.

memoryman3

memoryman3

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Coming from the XboxEra Discord. The Xbox Ally and other Windows devices may soon be able to run a select number of Xbox 360 and other Xbox console games soon. In addition to this, Jez claims that more big Xbox console titles like Hogwarts Legacy will retroactively be made available through Play Anywhere.

Backing up this rumour is a recent job listing from Microsoft that was shared by Xbox next generation VP Jason Ronald.

Search Jobs | Microsoft Careers

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  • You will partner with the Xbox Platform Core and Windows Core team to design a security solution to protect game assets from theft, tampering, and cheating.
  • You will design and build solutions that enable system level emulation across the catalog of Xbox content.
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As a bonus, he also claimed that there would be a future "Xbox PC" OEM device that runs Windows without full backwards compatibility, alongside a "wide variety of Xbox hardware" coming into retail over the next few years. New generation AMD chips apparently will natively play your Xbox console library however.

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A great strategy for MS here will be flooding the market with a ton of hardware that all do different things and cost $1,000. This would be deeply retarded so it's probably exactly what they will do.
 
"might eat crow"
"run at least some"
"would need to partner with some publishers/devs"
"more like PC"
"not supporting your entire back catalogue"

Regardless of who we are talking about and who is saying it, that is a whole lot of doubt.
 
Mister Wolf said:
Licensing nightmare.
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Not really if it's on a per-game basis.

Though to be fair, I'm looking at this from the viewpoint of a PC gamer who only mostly cares about MS published OG/360 games being playable on PC, rather than an Xbox gamer who's looking for their entire library to be BC.

If it happens, I'm happy as long as MS targets the main popular games.
 
bender said:
They aren't trying to save the reputation of a failing console so instead you'll get first party titles emulated on a failing handheld venture instead.
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I don't even know how you measure success for something like Ally X. It's not MS hardware.

It's like the high end laptop market. They don't sell millions but they must make a profit on them or else they wouldn't keep making them year after year.
 
BennyBlanco said:
I don't even know how you measure success for something like Ally X. It's not MS hardware.

It's like the high end laptop market. They don't sell millions but they must make a profit on them or else they wouldn't keep making them year after year.
Click to expand...

I'm actually curious what the best non-Deck selling PC handheld has sold. We know Deck is 5-6M units.
 
memoryman3 said:
K8RImNI.png


Coming from the XboxEra Discord. The Xbox Ally and other Windows devices may soon be able to run a select number of Xbox 360 and other Xbox console games soon. In addition to this, Jez claims that more big Xbox console titles like Hogwarts Legacy will retroactively be made available through Play Anywhere.

Backing up this rumour is a recent job listing from Microsoft that was shared by Xbox next generation VP Jason Ronald.

Search Jobs | Microsoft Careers

jobs.careers.microsoft.com jobs.careers.microsoft.com



As a bonus, he also claimed that there would be a future "Xbox PC" OEM device that runs Windows without full backwards compatibility, alongside a "wide variety of Xbox hardware" coming into retail over the next few years. New generation AMD chips apparently will natively play your Xbox console library however.

K8RAYn1.png
Click to expand...

PC's big APUs have found a business segment (e.g. local LLMs), hence the entire purpose for Xbox's small CPU with medium-scale GPU bundle is nearly redundant.

Xbox is just Microsoft's solo drive for medium-scale GPU with a small CPU configuration (as a DirectX box) instead of a weak GPU from Intel's business PCs with a strong CPU and weak Intel IGP.

Intel BattleMage GPUs and Xe2 iGPUs are reasonable, not crap like Intel's yesteryear's HD graphics.
 
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BennyBlanco said:
A great strategy for MS here will be flooding the market with a ton of hardware that all do different things and cost $1,000. This would be deeply retarded so it's probably exactly what they will do.
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I think it's genuinely been a while since I've seen a decision from them that felt like a good idea. Idk how much you know about wrestling, but they really are the TNA of gaming businesses.

I think their future is heading into a collision course with Valve again. Like consider what the most immediate way to monetize such a disparate set of experiences that are diverging from the core Xbox experience, and the answer will invariably be their PC store(s).

BennyBlanco said:
I don't even know how you measure success for something like Ally X. It's not MS hardware.

It's like the high end laptop market. They don't sell millions but they must make a profit on them or else they wouldn't keep making them year after year.
Click to expand...
Asus will measure it in HW sold because for them it's no different from selling an overpriced laptop or pre-built.

Microsoft will see it as a test bed for whatever they want to do to Windows so it stays competitive with SteamOS and the other Linux-based gaming OSes. Plus they probably get a decent chunk of cash for pimping their brand out.
 
Astray said:
That's exactly why it's gonna be a nightmare, they have to do this for every single game they want to add to this program, basically an entire negotiation with each publisher and dev.
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I think it's only really a nightmare if there's outside licenses involved.

In the end, they can start with some games and expand it over time as much as possible. They've done it before for their own BC program.. they could do it again for a PC BC emulator. If I'm an Xbox player and MS is transitioning the console to what is essentially a PC with an Xbox front end, then it goes one of two ways... They hard cutoff the platform and there's no BC.... or they make BC what they can. In the end, I'd appreciate and accept whatever amount of older titles they could add to the program. Some is better than none.
 
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memoryman3 said:
These kinds of projects can take years to develop. Obviously it wouldn't ship this year if hiring was done a few months prior.
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No I agree, I meant I seem to remember some leakers were teasing it to be shown at summer games fest or something earlier this year, and then some people said it was literally not a real thing after SGF came and went without it being shown. Some leaker was saying Xenia devs were involved which they denied too. I can't remember the specifics, think it was that extra1s guy or something.

So it was this the whole time, it was real?
 
It is a licensing nightmare for sure. Obviously great for users and Microsoft first party/published titles from that era. Once again it's more confusing messaging, because if you expect for example FF13 just to work, it's not that simple.
 
Ozzie666 said:
It is a licensing nightmare for sure. Obviously great for users and Microsoft first party/published titles from that era. Once again it's more confusing messaging, because if you expect for example FF13 just to work, it's not that simple.
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It helps that Square Enix has already made several mainline Final Fantasy titles cross compatible with Xbox Series X/S and Xbox Ally, including Remake and 16. I expect the same for Rebirth and Part 3.
 
Edgelord79 said:
That's not our problem. That's theirs. Play the games that come of it.
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If I have a big library on Xbox that could go away at a moment's notice I would absolutely see this as my problem too.

(I have a small-ish one that's mostly comprised of backcompat titles).
 
I'm assuming this will be locked to first party games only? I'd imagine third parties would have to renegotiate their terms for this.

Whatever lets me play Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon again after selling my Xbox is fine by me.
 
Like Sega continuing to try to re-live the Genesis glory days, so shall Xbox forever chase the 360.

"Remember that one time where we DIDN'T suck??"
 
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they have ro if they truly want to merge Xbox and Windows.
but hopefully they will actually do it properly this time, now that they aren't limited to the Xbox One CPU aynmore
 
If they really want to move Xbox to just Windows, then part of making that work is creating an easy way to leverage their back catalog as part of their platform.

They do have an advantage of their own tools being better on multiple games than Xbox & 360 emulation on PC, so I'm all for it.

The licensing seems like the bigger pain point, but go for the exclusives first.
 
CentralScrutinizer said:
I'm assuming this will be locked to first party games only? I'd imagine third parties would have to renegotiate their terms for this.

Whatever lets me play Lost Odyssey and Blue Dragon again after selling my Xbox is fine by me.
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if they did it right they wouldn't have to negotiate anything.
all they have to do is create a full emulator that reads discs... and instantly every 360 game would be compatible.

if they don't do that, they don't even have to bother, as Xenia already exists and will probably at some point support the majority of 360 games anyway. it already plays 300+ games with either no issues or only minor glitches. with 140 or so that have bad issues but are playable.
and XEMU can play 82% of all og Xbox games with minor issues. 7% perfectly. so XEMU already massively outranks Microsoft's own backwards compatibility... so again, without full disc compatibility they don't even need to bother.
 
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That should've been ready for the launch of this device, not serving as a promise of things maybe to come in the future (and definitely not for all games due to licensing reasons). Plus it still won't solve the problem if someone's got a large physical collection of 360 games - you'd have to buy those games again and the 360 marketplace for non-BC games is already dead.
 
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