After a short-lived return, it appears as though Microsoft has put an end to running emulators on Xbox Series X|S consoles via retail mode for good. The developers behind UWeaPons, the workaround to loading emulators on Xbox's Retail Mode, had their consoles permanently banned by Microsoft. Additionally, users caught using UWeaPons on their system are receiving 15-day suspensions. It's now recommended that if you installed any retail mode emulators, you remove them from your console.

Source

 

[Pickle_Rick]

Guys... It takes literally like 15 seconds to reboot to/from dev mode on the Series S|X. Are you really all that lazy that you're going to get them to eventually abandon the ability to run 3rd party software on the Xbox because you can't be bothered to reboot real fast? This is why we can't have nice things.

Microsoft, a bunch of corporate greedy bastards.

Exhibit A. Lmao.

 

[DragonMals]

Well that was short lived.

 

[M7L7NK7]

Microsoft, a bunch of corporate greedy bastards.

You realise that they're a business, not a homebrew team? It's lucky they even let dev mode happen

 

[Xzi]

I don’t exactly know what the big deal about running them in Retail mode even is. Just use Dev mode - Microsoft was already nice enough to provide a developer environment for end users. This is just about the best outcome short of completely unlocking the console for amateur devs.

Well they could take the Valve route and allow you to "launch non-Microsoft apps" via Xbox's interface, but to avoid liability for that they'd have to include a desktop mode on their consoles, which they don't want to do for obvious reasons.

 

[x65943]

I'm sure they were losing a significant amount of money, because of these emulators.

I was going to buy grand theft auto V for the 10th time, but because of emulators I played ice climbers instead

 

[DragonMals]

I'm sure they were losing a significant amount of money, because of these emulators.

I don't know if it's me, but I don't really believe that emulation is the reason why they would be losing money and stuff.

I would like to know why people think that, actually. Why do people say that "Company will use money cause of emulation" as an excuse or a saying to try to convince others to play it?

 

[stanleyopar2000]

Definitely due to the AntStream deal.

 

[hyprskllz]

Guys... It takes literally like 15 seconds to reboot to/from dev mode on the Series S|X. Are you really all that lazy that you're going to get them to eventually abandon the ability to run 3rd party software on the Xbox because you can't be bothered to reboot real fast? This is why we can't have nice things.

Exhibit A. Lmao.

not counting a full minute to fully boot the xbox. but still, after i got my dev mode access, i never looked at retail mode anymore.

 

[stanleyopar2000]

not counting a full minute to fully boot the xbox. but still, after i got my dev mode access. i never looked at retail mode anymore.

Unless you want to play online, use gamepass or play your own purchased games

 

[AlexMCS]

PC just keeps steamrolling consoles.

 

[hyprskllz]

Unless you want to play online, use gamepass or play your own purchased games

of course i still got my gamepass, bought my games too. is the live gold stacking trick still working?

 

[stanleyopar2000]

of course i still got my gamepass, bought my games too. is the live gold stacking trick still working?

Wait you can do all that in dev mode? What restrictions are there?

 

[StrayGuitarist]

The whole time these have existed, I've been like "Really? Are we sure Microsoft isn't just gonna start banning people?" and for the longest time, I was wrong. I did not want to be right in this circumstance.

 

[x65943]

The whole time these have existed, I've been like "Really? Are we sure Microsoft isn't just gonna start banning people?" and for the longest time, I was wrong. I did not want to be right in this circumstance.

15 day suspension for end users is a slap on the wrist (2 weeks? No sweat)

the dev forever ban sucks, but that was more to be expected

of course they will keep the bans on end users light because they still want us to buy their games

 

[StrayGuitarist]

15 day suspension for end users is a slap on the wrist (2 weeks? No sweat)

the dev forever ban sucks, but that was more to be expected

of course they will keep the bans on end users light because they still want us to buy their games

Yeah.. It could be much worse, but it's still pretty shitty.

 

[hyprskllz]

Wait you can do all that in dev mode? What restrictions are there?

no, that was for retail stuff. dev mode won't let you do that.

 

[rcpd]

Instead of playing these stupid cat and mouse games with their users, MS should just give users the option of keeping their Xbox as a game console, or wiping it and making a de facto windows 11 PC.

I’ve often wondered why Microsoft doesn’t allow this. It would be pretty decent and give me a reason to purchase an Xbox One, because as of now I’ve been struggling to find a reason. For the price of the Series X, I can slap together a fairly comparable PC that will play everything the Series X will and still be upgradable later if I wanted. And since so much of the Xbox platform is already in Windows 11 (or obtainable through the Microsoft Store) I see very little reason to actually buy an Xbox.

Having Windows 11 on it would turn it into the ultimate media center and also allow me to still play my games.

My guess is that in order to do this they’d have to open UEFI to allow us to boot from USB or the disc drive and that is a potential exploit. Also what’s to stop people from doing the obvious and get Linux running on it, something Microsoft probably doesn’t want?

 

[A-Hacked-Soul]

I don’t exactly know what the big deal about running them in Retail mode even is. Just use Dev mode - Microsoft was already nice enough to provide a developer environment for end users. This is just about the best outcome short of completely unlocking the console for amateur devs.

Its a legal nightmare, they let us run them in dev mode. Why cant we just be happy with that?

 

[The Catboy]

Tragic
*boots Retroarch on my PC*
So very tragic

 

[spectral]

Well they could take the Valve route and allow you to "launch non-Microsoft apps" via Xbox's interface, but to avoid liability for that they'd have to include a desktop mode on their consoles, which they don't want to do for obvious reasons.

You can do that in Dev mode already. The downside is you have to switch back to retail mode to play official software.