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[Holammer]

As the tweet says, we have a new Xbox One translation layer starting and running some simpler games.

It's not ready for public consumption just yet (in code or binary form). Yes, we know how strange "6 playable games" makes that statement sound. We will likely end up open sourcing the project alongside the first binary release, but it's too early to confirm anything yet.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Makes me wonder... Since the Xbox One is retrocompatible, will this emulator be able to play Xbox 360 games?

I know there's Xenia already, but the more options the better.

 

[BennyBlanco]

Interesting. If MS is really gonna put out a windows device as their next console they are probably already doing this to get all the BC running.

We may finally get proper PC versions of Lost Odyssey, JSRF, and Ninja Gaiden Black.

 

[jshackles]

Makes me wonder... Since the Xbox One is retrocompatible, will this emulator be able to play Xbox 360 games?

I know there's Xenia already, but the more options the better.

Microsoft's backwards compatibility program relies on basically remastering these old games to run on the Xbox One hardware. It's the reason why when you put a disc into your Xbox, it has to download the entire game to run (because it can't actually read the data on the disc, it just uses the disc as verification that you own the game). It's also the reason why some of these games, such as Final Fantasy XIII, have upressed assets that aren't available on the Xbox 360.

So, in theory, this could run Xbox 360 games that were made to be backwards compatible for the Xbox One, but only by downloading those versions and ripping them - just like any other Xbox One game.

 

[Wildebeest]

Wine stands for Wine is not emulation.

 

[MarkMe2525]

Microsoft's backwards compatibility program relies on basically remastering these old games to run on the Xbox One hardware. It's the reason why when you put a disc into your Xbox, it has to download the entire game to run (because it can't actually read the data on the disc, it just uses the disc as verification that you own the game). It's also the reason why some of these games, such as Final Fantasy XIII, have upressed assets that aren't available on the Xbox 360.

So, in theory, this could run Xbox 360 games that were made to be backwards compatible for the Xbox One, but only by downloading those versions and ripping them - just like any other Xbox One game.

I'm no expert by any stretch, but I don't believe the term "remaster" accurately describes the process. From how I understood the process (which could be wrong), was that much of the upressed assets, increased output resolution, and increased frame rates where achieved through tailored emulation and not by changing the games code base. In other words, depending on how the game was developed, MS's emulator is sometimes able to intercept certain calls, and performs these enhancements in realtime. When you download the BC version of the game, it's a copy of the game in this tailored emulation wrapper. Please feel free to push back if I missunderand how this works.

 

[Mr Moose]

Are these games not available on PC or something?

 

[mrcroket]

If this compatibility layer works with x86 xbox executables (and I imagine with a DX11 wrapper), it could be extrapolated to the series games, right?

Just imagine being able to play GTA VI day1 on PC.

 

[Holammer]

Are these games not available on PC or something?

Because some men aren't looking for anything logical, like money. They can't be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch see the Xbox One running on PC.

 

[kevboard]

Microsoft's backwards compatibility program relies on basically remastering these old games to run on the Xbox One hardware. It's the reason why when you put a disc into your Xbox, it has to download the entire game to run (because it can't actually read the data on the disc, it just uses the disc as verification that you own the game). It's also the reason why some of these games, such as Final Fantasy XIII, have upressed assets that aren't available on the Xbox 360.

which is why they absolutely should get their back compat team working on actual real emulators that can just read Xbox and Xbox 360 discs.

the only reason their current backwards compatibility even works like this is because it was impossible to emulate Xbox 360 games on Xbox One's awful CPU.
this is now not an issue anymore

 

[jshackles]

I'm no expert by any stretch, but I don't believe the term "remaster" accurately describes the process. From how I understood the process (which could be wrong), was that much of the upressed assets, increased output resolution, and increased frame rates where achieved through tailored emulation and not by changing the games code base. In other words, depending on how the game was developed, MS's emulator is sometimes able to intercept certain calls, and performs these enhancements in realtime. When you download the BC version of the game, it's a copy of the game in this tailored emulation wrapper. Please feel free to push back if I missunderand how this works.

It's true that "remaster" might be a bit of a stretch, and it is like you say - the original game's code is typically wrapped in an emulation layer and packaged with a custom version of the emulator that's been tweaked to run that game as accurately as possible. In the case of Final Fantasy XIII that I mentioned above, Square actually worked directly with Microsoft to include higher quality renders of the cut scenes in the game.



BUT - we see this kind of "emulation as remaster" all the time in other remastered games, such as the recent Tales of Symphonia release. Or, more recently, the Castlevania Dominus collection.

 

[ManaByte]

Microsoft's backwards compatibility program relies on basically remastering these old games to run on the Xbox One hardware.

No it's not.

I'm no expert by any stretch, but I don't believe the term "remaster" accurately describes the process.

It's not a remaster,

Microsoft had teams developing an emulator for the 360 GPU and one for the CPU. They combined them and created an emulator wrapper for the games. They did the same for the original Xbox. It requires the game to have had a digital release, and things that didn't had to have one produced (Mass Effect 2).

The Untold Story of Xbox One Backwards Compatibility - IGN

From Project Trioxide to cracking Castle Crashers to improving the original Xbox games. It's quite a story!

www.ign.com

It was 2007. One of those teams was working on PowerPC CPU emulation – getting 32-bit code, which the 360 uses, to run on the 64-bit architecture that the third-generation Xbox would be using. The other team, out of Beijing, started writing a virtual GPU emulator based on the Xbox 360 GPU architecture. “These were like peanut butter and chocolate,” Choudhry recalled. “[So we thought,] ‘Why don’t we put them both together?’”

 

[nowhat]

So can you run this under Wine on Linux? It would be like a Wineception.

 

[jshackles]

No it's not.

I should have said "from a business perspective, it's very similar to remastering the game" - because it was. You had to have a team that made sure the old code ran okay in the emulator, and to work with Microsoft to tweak the emulator if it didn't. Lots of developers were following Square's lead I mentioned above, and adding things like 60fps patchs, higher resolution assets, etc. to their games - features typically found in remastered games. In addition to having a QA team running through looking for bugs, you also had to pass Microsoft's certification processes that are almost identical to releasing an entirely new game. The only benefit this had over an actual remaster was that Microsoft would help with any bugs in the emulation layer. So...

One of the big reasons this program was shut down was due to lack of interest from third party developers. They finally woke up and realized that, in a lot of cases, it was only a little extra work to fully remaster their old game themselves and get additional sales from people who also already owned the originals. Kingdoms of Amalur, Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance 1 and 2, and the GTA Trilogy are probably the worst / laziest examples of this.

Anyway, all that is to say that only these digital re-releases are likely to be playable in this not-emulator in the future, and probably not their "bare-metal" 360 counterparts.

 

[ManaByte]

One of the big reasons this program was shut down was due to lack of interest from third party developers.

Again, not true. They reached the end of what they could do in terms of licensing the games to run on current hardware.

 

[ReyBrujo]

Are these games not available on PC or something?

Even if so the challenge of opening a platform, outsmarting hundreds of engineers and developers who worked at making the platform private is enough motivation for the programmers working on the emulator even if there's no actual benefit for the community.

 

[jshackles]

Again, not true. They reached the end of what they could do in terms of licensing the games to run on current hardware.

That's just what they told people, it was their PR response to shutting the program down. It was like a half-true statement. Yes, Microsoft themselves reached the end of what they could do in terms of licensing the games to run on current hardware - because like I said above, nobody wanted to license their game on Microsoft's terms (giving away free copies to everyone that owned the Xbox 360 disc or digital version), when they could do a little extra work and get a lot of additional sales.

If what you said it true, and you take their statement at face value, why didn't they make games like Singularity (an Activision-turned Microsoft game with an original IP) to the BC program? Or the 2009 Wolfenstein? Or the two 360 Crash Bandicoot games? Or Blood Drive? I get that there are tons of Activision games in the 360 era that were licensed (Marvel, TMNT, Legend of Korra, Cabelas, NASCAR, Transformers, Men in Black, etc.) that they might not be able to come to an agreement to re-release, but games with original IPs shouldn't have been a problem. And these are just the ones that are Activision / Bethesda that are now currently owned by Microsoft themselves - tons of other games fit these criteria, and they absolutely could have been backwards compatible back then, but weren't.

 

[ManaByte]

If what you said it true, and you take their statement at face value, why didn't they make games like Singularity (an Activision-turned Microsoft game with an original IP) to the BC program? Or the 2009 Wolfenstein? Or the two 360 Crash Bandicoot games? Or Blood Drive? I get that there are tons of Activision games in the 360 era that were licensed (Marvel, TMNT, Legend of Korra, Cabelas, NASCAR, Transformers, Men in Black, etc.) that they might not be able to come to an agreement to re-release, but games with original IPs shouldn't have been a problem. And these are just the ones that are Activision / Bethesda that are now currently owned by Microsoft themselves - tons of other games fit these criteria, and they absolutely could have been backwards compatible back then, but weren't.

Because they didn't own Activision when the program ended. Now that they do they will probably add a lot.

When they bought Activision they went back and fixed the MP servers so all of the old Call of Duty games can now be played online again in BC. So they've already started working on the older stuff.

 

[cyberheater]

Still waiting for a solution to play the Xbox 360 version of Quake 4 via emulation at decent frame rates.

 

[El Muerto]

Another one to keep an eye on.

GitHub - WinDurango-project/WinDurango: The worlds first Xbox One compatibility layer for Windows.

The worlds first Xbox One compatibility layer for Windows. - WinDurango-project/WinDurango

github.com

 

[rodrigolfp]

Finally I will play Halo 5 on PC.

Spoiler

No, thanks.

 

[TxKnight7]

Are these games not available on PC or something?

Halo 5 and forza 5 are not available on pc so if there is emulator i will definitely play them

 

[Holammer]

Forza 3 also reaches the menu.

 

[cyberheater]

Forza 3 also reaches the menu.

They are making fast progress.