At E3 2015, Phil Spencer, the chief of Xbox, took to the stage to announce that the Xbox One would be getting a brand new feature: backwards compatibility with original Xbox games through emulation. Xbox then spent the years since then adding more and more to their backwards compatibility lineup, culminating with this month's recent, and final, addition of original Xbox and 360 titles, emulated and enhanced on the Xbox Series X|S. There are currently no plans for further releases, as Xbox has been unable to acquire further rights to older games beyond what they already have.

In an interview with Axios, Phil Spencer said due to some older games being harder to track down and play, as opposed to how it is with more accessible content like music or movies, that he hopes, "as an industry we'd work on legal emulation that allowed modern hardware to run any (within reason) older executable allowing someone to play any game", advocating for other companies to make use of "legal" video game emulation.

"I think in the end, if we said, ‘Hey, anybody should be able to buy any game, or own any game and continue to play,' that seems like a great North Star for us as an industry"

Source

 

[swabbo]

He deserves a medal, shame it won't happen from Nintendoom

 

[ChibiMofo]

LOL! Emulation is already "legal."

 

[Deleted member 194275]

Now let's stand up and protest for the web browser legalization! That's what he is saying, but for emulation. Sure, emulation can be used out of law, but so do web browsers.

Edit: also emulation is doing great without industry involved, so keep working on your gameless consoles Phil.

 

[SANIC]

LOL! Emulation is already "legal."

By legal emulation he's basically saying people shouldn't need to resort to piracy in order to access old games which is illegal emulation, not that emulators are illegal.

 

[k7ra]

We still waiting for console that would run every old console game.
Homebrew and retroarch for now give us some support (bcs emulators)

There should be system - if you buy game, then you can play this game on every platform that it was released.
If it's old game, we should have a way to run them on new system from same company without buying again same shit

 

[Jayro]

I'm happy to see emulation finally being embraced in a positive light from a gaming giant.

 

[MohammedQ8]

All I want is Zelda game and watch for every generations of Pokemon games.

 

[diggeloid]

I bet his definition of "legal" emulation means emulating on a current generation console and re-buying your library.

 

[|<roni&g]

Emulation will be used by any means necessary

 

[Bladexdsl]

and nintendos answer to this:

 

[raxadian]

Yeah, this is a good idea, look at Sega, they basically life off doing this.

 

[SpaceMunkey]

Edit: also emulation is doing great without industry involved, so keep working on your gameless consoles Phil.

LoL... Spoken like a true uneducated fanboy... What world are you living in bro; oh wait, let me guess, you don't own gamepass

 

[djpannda]

My spidy sense are tingling, This feels like an attack to actually stop Emulation.
When companies start doing their own "Emulations", it will be easier to claim that Community and scene Emulation is not needed and will start going after them harder.

 

[adamsef]

Microsoft are in an excellent position to become the Netflix/Spotify of the gaming world! They have proved people love older games and they have the infrastructure to do this..
Imagine a monthly sub to play any game from any year from any system.. linked gamer tags and high scores etc

 

[Flame]

i dont understand why big companies cant work with scene? if they want good Emulation.

My spidy sense are tingling, This feels like an attack to actually stop Emulation.
When companies start doing their own "Emulations", it will be easier to claim that Community and scene Emulation is not needed and will start going after them harder.

thats my second thought on this subject.

 

[Kioku]

I bet his definition of "legal" emulation means emulating on a current generation console and re-buying your library.

Yes, that's why the backwards compatible library of games on the Xbox consoles is short and access is convoluted, right? Oh... Wait...


To be honest, I'd be alright with paying for legal access to roms. Looking at the N64 and SNES library of games? I'm not about to shell out $300+ for the 5-8 titles I feel like playing. Not to mention the titles I missed, some of which being as much as $150 a pop.

 

[CoolMe]

The current MS ideology when it to game preservation is truly a "Role Model" for others to aspire/follow.. Let's hope it stays this way in the future.

 

[slaphappygamer]

A retroarch app will be great. I’d gladly pay $39.99 for it.

 

[Kioku]

i dont understand why big companies cant work with scene? if they want good Emulation.

They do work with the scene, just indirectly.

No but really. It'd be nice for the big bois to work with the community devs to give players the best access to retro libraries.