The new Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X may not have the exclusive catalog in which Sony bases its commitment to its new PS5, but in addition to Game Pass or backward compatibility, they have now uncovered another surprise: they are perfect for back emulation.
A developer has managed to create a way to install RetroArch on the Xbox Series S and X, and thanks to this application it is possible to turn Microsoft consoles into machines that allow to emulate the behavior of other platforms of the past. Ironically, one of the emulated is the PS2, whose games cannot be enjoyed on the PS5 but can be enjoyed on its competitors..
Emulating what is gerund
As explained in Ars Technica, Microsoft has not let emulators be part of the offer of applications available for their consoles, but a developer called tunip3 managed to “exploit” a vulnerability in the application distribution system of the new Xbox and manage to download a “commercial” version of RetroArch using the Developer Mode of these consoles.
The trick is to publish a slight modification of the UWP version (Universal Windows Platform) from RetroArch that turns it into a kind of private application that Microsoft does not review and that thanks to that it can be downloaded directly. That, as another developer indicates, has a clear risk: “Microsoft”, explains “warns that it could ban developer accounts that violate the rules consistently.”
The firm does not seem to have wanted to move tab at the moment in that regard, but the possibility of enjoying RetroArch has had a striking consequence: PS2 games can be played on new Xbox, but not on PS5.
The situation is peculiar since it was long ago confirmed that the backward compatibility of the PS5 is limited to games of the PS4: the previous platforms orphaned except for the use of the PS Now service, but if you have PS2 games (including exclusive ones), they can continue to be enjoyed on the new Xbox thanks to RetroArch and the PCSX2 emulator built into this retro-emulation platform.
The process to access this option is somewhat cumbersome. The interested they have to pay $ 19 to be part of the Microsoft developer program and then download the “Dev mode activation” app from the Xbox store. Once that is done, it is possible to connect the Xbox from a browser on your local area network and use the RetroArch UWP files, although that carries a limitation: no games that exceed 2 GB.
It will be interesting to see what Microsoft does in this regard and if it ends up tackling this option. Sony for its part could perhaps resort to a solution like this to offer its users that support (at least partial) to emulate games from their previous versions of the PlayStation, but in both cases the focus may continue to continue access the titles they want to offer and only through cloud play.
