Xbox exec: Xbox 360 emulation planned for the Xbox One

[TopWargamer]

http://www.totalxbox.com/74592/report-xbox-360-emulation-planned-for-xbox-one-claims-microsoft-executive/

(Got this source from the OXM's (Official Xbox Magazine) official Facebook page.)

http://bgr.com/2014/04/08/how-to-play-xbox-360-games-on-xbox-one/

 

The information came as part of a talk given by Frank Savage, Partner Development Lead at Microsoft on the Xbox One's use of Windows technology as part of the annual Microsoft Build Developer conference this week attended by Kotaku Australia. They report that during a Q&A session, an audience member asked if Microsoft had any plans to introduce Xbox 360 emulation to the new console.

 

Savage responded in the affirmative, although it still may be quite a while to go before we see it, saying "There are, but we're not done thinking them through yet, unfortunately. It turns out to be hard to emulate the PowerPC stuff on the X86 stuff. So there's nothing to announce, but I would love to see it myself."

 

So, they're definitely working on it, but it won't be for a while until it comes to the market, because it's hard to emulate the PowerPC architecture (which we knew already). This should have been a thing to begin with, but either way, I'm glad that Microsoft is finally working on it. With this news, I'm sure that Sony will start working on native PS3 emulation for the PS4 in order to compete with the Xbox One. If Microsoft comes out with Xbox 360 emulation before Sony can come out with PS3 emulation, those console sales numbers may very well get flip-flopped in no time. Who knows, I could be wrong, but this is very exciting news.

[Flight1sim]

Cant wait to see Sony's take on this

[Misanthrope]

It will probably depend on "the cloud" nonsense.

[TopWargamer]

It will probably depend on "the cloud" nonsense.

I dunno. Sounds like they're working on native Xbox 360 emulation for the Xbox One. If they wanted to do it through "the cloud", it would have already been a thing by now. 

[Misanthrope]

I dunno. Sounds like they're working on native Xbox 360 emulation for the Xbox One. If they wanted to do it through "the cloud", it would have already been a thing by now. 

 

1) I honestly don't think the hardware is capable of emulating the 360. It would take massive optimization to get even crappy results so I don't think they'd be able to have anything to show for it for years if that's the case

 

2) Not necessarily as easy as you make it since this would need to be over the internet and latency would kill it very much like the onlive thing was. 

[Giddyguy]

It will probably depend on "the cloud" nonsense.

we can always count on you to hate on microsoft

 

I don't know how they are going to do it, if it has been so difficult to do until know (unless they have some kind of inside information).

[TopWargamer]

1) I honestly don't think the hardware is capable of emulating the 360. It would take massive optimization to get even crappy results so I don't think they'd be able to have anything to show for it for years if that's the case

True true, but again, this is Microsoft we're talking about here. They created both consoles and have access to everything related to both consoles. If anybody can make an Xbox 360 emulator work on that kind of hardware, it's them.

 

 

2) Not necessarily as easy as you make it since this would need to be over the internet and latency would kill it very much like the onlive thing was. 

If Microsoft used good enough servers, then latency wouldn't really be much of an issue. And just saying, but Onlive is a great service. I've used it a few times and I've never had a problem with it. 

[Whiskers]

1) I honestly don't think the hardware is capable of emulating the 360. It would take massive optimization to get even crappy results so I don't think they'd be able to have anything to show for it for years if that's the case

 

2) Not necessarily as easy as you make it since this would need to be over the internet and latency would kill it very much like the onlive thing was.

Keep in mind that the largest reason emulators are so terrible on PC is because those who develop them don't have much to work on. The Xbox team don't have that problem.

Developing an emulator is almost exclusively a matter of trial and error. Try this approach to memory management, if it doesn't work try another etc. With Xbox's team they already have complete knowledge on the precise way an Xbox 360 functions in every regard so their job is a lot easier than it would be for some random team of guys making an emulator for PC. People said that the Xbox 360 would be nowhere near powerful enough to emulate original Xbox games but it did. Maybe not a complete catalogue and with a few bugs here and there, but for the most part it worked. And the original Xbox is more comparable to the Xbox One than the 360 - it too had an x86 based CPU.

[Kyuubixchidori]

so wait, if a emulator came to a x86 platform, IE, the xbone, how long until that gets ported to PC, so we can play 360 games?

[TopWargamer]

(Disregard this post. LTT bugged up on me.)

[TopWargamer]

so wait, if a emulator came to a x86 platform, IE, the xbone, how long until that gets ported to PC, so we can play 360 games?

Well, Microsoft definitely won't be publicly publishing all of their code and whatnot for their Xbox 360 emulator, so expect progress to go along as it always has: slow.

[Misanthrope]

Keep in mind that the largest reason emulators are so terrible on PC is because those who develop them don't have much to work on. The Xbox team don't have that problem.

Developing an emulator is almost exclusively a matter of trial and error. Try this approach to memory management, if it doesn't work try another etc. With Xbox's team they already have complete knowledge on the precise way an Xbox 360 functions in every regard so their job is a lot easier than it would be for some random team of guys making an emulator for PC. People said that the Xbox 360 would be nowhere near powerful enough to emulate original Xbox games but it did. Maybe not a complete catalogue and with a few bugs here and there, but for the most part it worked. And the original Xbox is more comparable to the Xbox One than the 360 - it too had an x86 based CPU.

 

Fair enough, but what you need to keep in mind is how bad original xbox game support was on the 360. So in all fairness, while what you mention might be true we're talking Microsoft here which has a pretty terrible track record at this precise stuff.

[TopWargamer]

Fair enough, but what you need to keep in mind is how bad original xbox game support was on the 360. So in all fairness, while what you mention might be true we're talking Microsoft here which has a pretty terrible track record at this precise stuff.

Even if some games will work, that's a win. Some games is better than no games. 

[Misanthrope]

Even if some games will work, that's a win. Some games is better than no games. 

 

That is true, consoles are pathetically sad and limited like that.

[LAwLz]

One thing that will be really difficult for them is the CPU for sure. The Xbone has a really crappy CPU. They will have to somehow emulate 3 powerful cores using 8 low power cores. I have no idea how they will manage that (if they do at all).

I don't see an Xbox 360 emulator being possible on the Xbone, sadly. Hell, might even be easier to emulate a PS3 on a PS4.

Would be cool if they managed to pull it off though.

 

Actually, one of the first thing I said when the Xbone and PS4 was announced was "how come they don't just emulate the old consoles? The PS4 could easily emulate a PS1 and PS2. The Xbone should be able to emulate an Xbox Original as well" or something along those lines.

[Charle692]

But to be able to emulate the ps3's cell processor is going to take a lot of power/optimization. Sony won't be making an emulator any time soon. 

[Rassilon]

1) I honestly don't think the hardware is capable of emulating the 360. It would take massive optimization to get even crappy results so I don't think they'd be able to have anything to show for it for years if that's the case

2) Not necessarily as easy as you make it since this would need to be over the internet and latency would kill it very much like the onlive thing was.

To be fair, consumers have only seen ammateurs and hobbyists try to emulate the 360. Microsoft is on another league.

[Whiskers]

Fair enough, but what you need to keep in mind is how bad original xbox game support was on the 360. So in all fairness, while what you mention might be true we're talking Microsoft here which has a pretty terrible track record at this precise stuff.

Well, to be fair, the emulation wasn't too bad. I'll admit it had issues - it generally only had support for the most successful games, there were some performance and graphical issues such as Halo 2's burn-in oddity amongst other things. But overall it was good. Also, emulation is never 'perfect' and probably never will be. But it can be good enough, and the Xbox emulation on the 360 was generally that. I was able to play through Halo Combat Evolved, Halo 2 and a few other titles with a really smooth experience - constant framerate, smooth rendering and not an excessive amount of bugs.

I think criticising Microsoft for having a bad record with this specific kind of thing is unnecessarily harsh and bordering on untrue. Their backwards compatibility on Windows is generally good (#vistaneverhappened) and they did provide a relatively satisfactory emulation function on the Xbox 360 for older Xbox titles. At the end of the day I'm sure most Xbox players would prefer to have a for the most part functional and decent emulation experience rather than have none at all.

[Victorious Secret]

MS's Azure system isn't bad. 

 

Its pretty damn good. 

 

But not everyone has blazing fast internets. Otherwise I'd rather stream my 360 games off 'the cloud'. 

 

As it stands, we will see 360 emulation a hell of a lot sooner than we will ever see Cell emulation. Hell, Cell emulation just hurts to think about much less implement. 

[Misanthrope]

To be fair, consumers have only seen ammateurs and hobbyists try to emulate the 360. Microsoft is on another league.

 

That's crap: those "amateurs and hobbyists" usually accomplish a hell of a lot more than Microsoft considering they have to reverse engineer everything. That entire thing about Microsoft being "on another league" it's bullshit to me: They're not legendary coders, or even particularly great ones. 

[Misanthrope]

Well, to be fair, the emulation wasn't too bad. I'll admit it had issues - it generally only had support for the most successful games, there were some performance and graphical issues such as Halo 2's burn-in oddity amongst other things. But overall it was good. Also, emulation is never 'perfect' and probably never will be. But it can be good enough, and the Xbox emulation on the 360 was generally that. I was able to play through Halo Combat Evolved, Halo 2 and a few other titles with a really smooth experience - constant framerate, smooth rendering and not an excessive amount of bugs.

I think criticising Microsoft for having a bad record with this specific kind of thing is unnecessarily harsh and bordering on untrue. Their backwards compatibility on Windows is generally good (#vistaneverhappened) and they did provide a relatively satisfactory emulation function on the Xbox 360 for older Xbox titles. At the end of the day I'm sure most Xbox players would prefer to have a for the most part functional and decent emulation experience rather than have none at all.

 

1) It didn't just have some "issues" it was fairly poor and with laughable game compatibility. Scroll up to see people making excuses for them with "oh it's better than nothing"

 

2)The 360's processor, even if it wasn't the same architecture, was several orders of magnitude better than the one on the original xbox. The xbox one however is not only more susceptible to diminishing returns of technology but the xbox one is particularly underpowered AND again has to deal with different architecture because microsoft insists of switching fucking processors every damn generation.

 

3) Again with the "oh it's better than nothing" argument. It's crap I can play games from 2001 all the way to 2014 on the same machine I have right now (meaning games from all 3 xbox generations) that's because PC gaming doesn't has to deal with stupid fucking decisions like switching back and forth between different processor architectures. The same goes for sony and their stupid fucking cell processor. It's unreasonable to hold consoles to a different standard since this is a problem of their own fucking creation.

[MasterJV]

Thats pretty cool, but still not enough for me to buy a Xbox one. Though I imagine how hard it will be to emulate the thing. We haven't been able to emulate the original XBox let alone the 360. Good thing they didn't use those PowerPC CPUs for this generation.

[Whiskers]

1) It didn't just have some "issues" it was fairly poor and with laughable game compatibility. Scroll up to see people making excuses for them with "oh it's better than nothing"

 

2)The 360's processor, even if it wasn't the same architecture, was several orders of magnitude better than the one on the original xbox. The xbox one however is not only more susceptible to diminishing returns of technology but the xbox one is particularly underpowered AND again has to deal with different architecture because microsoft insists of switching fucking processors every damn generation.

 

3) Again with the "oh it's better than nothing" argument. It's crap I can play games from 2001 all the way to 2014 on the same machine I have right now (meaning games from all 3 xbox generations) that's because PC gaming doesn't has to deal with stupid fucking decisions like switching back and forth between different processor architectures. The same goes for sony and their stupid fucking cell processor. It's unreasonable to hold consoles to a different standard since this is a problem of their own fucking creation.

I always found that the Xbox 360's emulation provided a smoother and more enjoyable experience than playing on the Xbox itself did. It did have an insufficient catalogue of compatible titles, but I would maintain that it was still better than having absolutely no backwards compatibility at all.

The expectations of a console are becoming ever higher than before. They're expected to be as powerful as $5000 PCs in a form factor that's less than a tenth of the size whilst remaining whisper quiet and producing absolutely no heat for a retail price of less than $500 whilst remaining significantly easier to use for a typical consumer and being reliable enough to do all of this with a lifespan much longer than what is expected of a normal gaming PC.

It's surprising that they come as close to accomplishing this as they do. I'm sure most rational people would agree that some drawbacks have to be expected, no? Their only two options for providing instantaneous backwards compatibility to the standard you want would have been to either incorporate the Xbox 360's hardware into the Xbox One alongside its own which significantly increases the cost, size, heat output, noise output and power requirements of the device - or to incorporate significantly stronger base components which would also have considerably affected the aforementioned aspects of the device.

In short, I think it's good of Microsoft to be working on backwards compatibility. If they bring it to the Xbox One then it will keep a lot of people happy, even if it doesn't support every Xbox 360 title in history. If they don't then at least they made an effort to try and make it happen. There's little point in criticising them for working on a feature that they neither promised or even suggested they would provide.

[Eroda]

Cant wait to see Sony's take on this

 

ps4 hasn't got enough grunt to run emulate ps3 games,the cell arch is so complex their only hope is to stick an actual ps3 inside a ps4 as well

[fade]

Their take is PS Now.