Microsoft Crackdown Disables Emulators Downloaded To Xbox Consoles 50
An anonymous reader shares a report: Back in 2020, we reported that emulator developers were using a hole in the Xbox Store's app distribution system to get around Microsoft's longstanding ban on emulators running on Xbox consoles. This week, though, many of the emulators that were distributed through that workaround have stopped working, the apparent victims of a new crackdown by Microsoft. Xbox emulator makers and users can't say they weren't warned. In the "Gaming and Xbox" section of Microsoft's official Store Policies, section 10.13.10 clearly states that "products that emulate a game system or game platform are not allowed on any device family."
Microsoft's enforcement of this clause has historically focused on removing emulators published as "private" UWP apps to the Xbox Store. Those apps could be distributed to whitelisted users via direct links accessed on the system's Edge browser, getting around the usual approval process for a public store listing. Previously, users who downloaded one of these "hidden" emulator listings before Microsoft's inevitable takedown could run that emulator on an unmodified retail system indefinitely. That is no longer the case; trying to launch downloaded versions of emulators like Xenia or Retrospection on an Xbox console now generates an error saying, "Unable to launch this game or app. The game or app you're trying to launch violates Microsoft Store policy and is not supported."
Microsoft's enforcement of this clause has historically focused on removing emulators published as "private" UWP apps to the Xbox Store. Those apps could be distributed to whitelisted users via direct links accessed on the system's Edge browser, getting around the usual approval process for a public store listing. Previously, users who downloaded one of these "hidden" emulator listings before Microsoft's inevitable takedown could run that emulator on an unmodified retail system indefinitely. That is no longer the case; trying to launch downloaded versions of emulators like Xenia or Retrospection on an Xbox console now generates an error saying, "Unable to launch this game or app. The game or app you're trying to launch violates Microsoft Store policy and is not supported."
Game consoles are not user-friendly (Score:1, Insightful)
Sony? Bad.
Microsoft? Bad.
Nintendo? Bad.
PCMR forever!
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Consoles have always been a "poor man's" PC with locked down controls. With the PS4/5 and Xbox Series [now] running x86 CPUs it is literally true.
Kind of funny that MS has a "wizard" to help you determine which console [xbox.com] you should buy and they omit "Running mods" in their questionnaire. Guess they don't want to steer you towards a PC and Microsoft Game Pass. /s
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Would you be able to describe anything you were able to do with the SPE units? I had heard that the cell processor had some cool stuff going for it, just wondering if anything made ya raise your eyebrows.
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Re: Game consoles are not user-friendly (Score:2)
That was exactly the sort of response I was hoping for! Thank you, I appreciate your time, man!
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The SPU's are like MMX / SSE / AVX on steroids with their own dedicated RAM.
Towards the end of the PS3 life cycle game devs were doing all sorts of stuff on the SPUs, even crazy stuff like stuffing audio data on it IIRC.
Guerrilla games has some fantastic technical talks on Killzone 2 [guerrilla-games.com], about creating [guerrilla-games.com] Killzone 3, and even about Killzone Shadow Fall [guerrilla-games.com] on the PS4.
EuroGame wrote a few [eurogamer.net] articles [eurogamer.net] on Killzone 3.
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Re: (Score:1, Interesting)
Stupidly expensive, DRM that can affect other uses of your PC, cheaters run amok, and PC publishers can't find their way towards making games that don't involve a gun swaying back and forth in front of your face.
There's a reason you lot have to high-five yourselves to keep the illusion alive.
Re: Game consoles are not user-friendly (Score:2)
Yeah in 2019 lol.
It's 2023 and good GPUs all cost over $1000 now! Gamer grade motherboards are $300 and a good CPU is $500+ for the top grade. Power supplies cost near $200 now. OS and monitor not included nor the Sony exclusive specials.
It is 2002 not 2023 all over again where the real value and performance is the console. Not PC.
You can thank Ngreedia and Asus, gigabyte, and other for getting greedy and ruining the market
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Yeah, we can't download car's yet(we can actually), but we buy gpu's that cost as much as a car. Prices have gone insane.
Windows appears to be nearing EOL for gaming as well. M$ has gone insane.
The future's not looking to bright despite where the hardware is actually at. I think the problem is "gaming" has never been taken seriously or respected. It's always just something to milk because it's either seen as "kiddie shite" or even better "drug addiction", so the ethical bar has always been super low in the
But doesn't everyone love the 'app' store concept? (Score:2)
Where the 'store' continues, in perpetuity, control over your library, whether applications you previously acquired is allowed to keep running?
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>you will own nothing and be happy
just a prelude of things to come.
Regulation (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Regulation (Score:4, Insightful)
The real problem is copyrights. It's completely insane that we're not allowed to copy games made by companies that closed decades ago. Emulation is also the only real way to preserve videogames history.
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I don't really have an issue with anyone who wants to rip and preserve a copy of their own games, but let's not pretend that people running emulators are doing that. Most of it is so economically inconsequential that companies won't bother much over decade old products.
However, several companies have been selling retro titles f
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well let's be realistic as well; if the new IP holding company wanted to sell licenses to items in their back catalog for emulators, at say.. ~$1.00 this wouldn't be an issue either. But they don't want to do that, they're basically hoarding IP to prevent some other large company/studio from making some new product (unless they get a cut). What's happened with music 'piracy' (such a stupid term) after iTunes and then streaming services? it's not that people don't want to pay, it's that companies tend to
Re:Regulation (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't really have an issue with anyone who wants to rip and preserve a copy of their own games, but let's not pretend that people running emulators are doing that.
Yes, let's just assume they are all filthy pirates to push our political agenda and rent seeking instead! No-one would *ever* buy a dumper to backup their own cartridges or take the time to mod a system to dump their optical media before they crumble into dust from bit rot.
Sorry to break it to you, but there are plenty of people who do that simply because they want to be able to play their games in the future.
The Wii Virtual Console was something that I actually spent money on.
Good for you. So did I. Guess what? Doesn't mean people don't have a reason to back up the things. If anything, you should want to back things up because you spent money on it. If you choose not to, you might be regretting it later. For example, the WiiU's eMMC chips are going bad. [techpowerup.com] People started discovering this as a result of trying to get as much as they could before the eShop shutdown. Only to find their systems couldn't boot with no way to repair them short of a hardware mod and a previously made eMMC backup of the console in question.
There have also been the hardware releases where you can buy a replica console that has dozens of games built in. Those were fairly popular as well.
Just because a company might do a re-release doesn't mean they will. (Where's that N64 Mini, Nintendo?) Nor does it mean it will be fully functional if they do. (Pokemon Stadium for Switch Online? Yes! No gameboy connectivity, which is the entire fucking point of the game? PASS .)
A company that closes has probably sold the copyright to the games they published. Just like the original author of a work dying doesn't mean that copyright has ceased to exist.
The public's culture shouldn't be beholden to the profit whims of a corporation for eternity. Hell, I'd argue that if the company closed then their copyrights should be forfeit regardless of who bought them. They obviously were not worth enough to prevent the closure, and the whole fucking point of copyright is to enrich the public. Which can't happen now as the creators are bankrupt. So why should the public continue enforcing the copyright on a worthless IP for the next 70+ years?
Most of it is so economically inconsequential that companies won't bother much over decade old products.
Even more reason to revoke the copyrights then. If the rightsholders won't bother enforcing their copyrights, (or at least they won't until threatened with revocation), they clearly have no need for them.
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However, several companies have been selling retro titles for a while now. The Wii Virtual Console was something that I actually spent money on.
I've purchased wii vc games as well, but I do have a couple complaints - first there's no save state or checkpoint system in their system. I would think if you're going to re-release a classic game on modern hardware, the least you could do is add the option for quicksave or checkpoints for people who want a retro experience without the pain and time consuming permadeath of NES games. Second, if I understand correctly it's a bit of a pain (or even impossible) to transfer them, and it should be a seamless
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The real problem is copyrights. It's completely insane that we're not allowed to copy games made by companies that closed decades ago. Emulation is also the only real way to preserve videogames history.
You are free to copy games whose copyrights have expired. All you need to do is live for more than 70 years or so (so video-game history can be preserved if you are sufficiently patient).
It should be noted that Nintendo is still active, and aggressively enforces its copyrights on it's games (ROMs), as is their right under current laws.
There are many who argue that (in the US) copyright terms are excessive. And one may have a valid point. I encourage everyone to contact their congress critter to chan
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No we don't. Seriously not running an emulator of choice for something never supported in the first place is not a good use case for regulation. And I say this as a pro government pro regulation person, not one of those small-government idealistic nutjobs. We do *not* want regulation demanding this level of nuance defining what a company does which its own wholly owned and completely vertically integrated product.
If you want to introduce legislation to protect the PC - a multi-vendor multi-platform device t
Rent seeking corporations on the rise led by M$ (Score:1, Insightful)
That is NOT your console (Score:2)
M$ owns it, they just "lease" it to you.
And they can delete all "your" stuff on a whim.
PC MASTER RACE!!!
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And in order to run 90% of games, what OS would you be running on that PC?
I'm just being difficult. I agree with you.
Sincerely,
A boring Mac user.
Re:That is NOT your console (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:That is NOT your console (Score:4, Insightful)
And in order to run 90% of games, what OS would you be running on that PC?
GNU/Linux with a reimplementation of Win32 called Proton.
This is why the 360 was my last console (Score:5, Insightful)
I had an original Xbox, and it was amazing. With XBMP (later XBMC, later Kodi) and emulators installed I was able to get rid of all my old consoles, and it did streaming better than any STB.
I knew the 360 wasn't going to be that, but I got one anyway. And the only cool trick it would play was viewing a tiny subset of my media files when presented by a dlna-equipped file server, or all of it via transcoding (which ate my desktop up pretty good) using PS3MediaServer. And eventually I just got rid of it, which meant I wasn't buying any more games for it. Even used game sales raise the value of new games, but I wasn't doing even that.
Now I just don't fuck with consoles any more. I have a Google TV that can run Kodi very well, and I play games only on my PC. And I'm way, way happier. I have a 360 controller and a wireless USB dongle to go with it, so I can play controller games. (I'm using Eneloops in the AA carrier, they last a good long time, possibly even longer than the stupid shitty dies-faster-than-you-can-believe official rechargeable controller battery.)
Microsoft has sent a clear signal, which should surprise no one, and it is "that's not your hardware". I, for one, took that shit to heart generations ago. You're right, Microsoft, it's not mine, so why should I pay for it and have it in my home?
Re:This is why the 360 was my last console (Score:4, Insightful)
and with each release of windows it's becoming less and less your computer.
(or if you're on linux and such then nevermind)
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Devuan 4 with root on ZFS, pipewire+wireplumber from -backports, KDE, Steam, ProtonUp-Qt, Proton-GE, steamtinkerlaunch, latest nvidia, etc etc. 1600AF+1070 OC. It's been a bit of a walk but it's humming along nicely now, and it's mostly Free. Just can't quit nvidia though.
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You're right, Microsoft, it's not mine, so why should I pay for it and have it in my home?
If your purchasing decision was based on the freedom of the hardware rather than the enjoyment and playing of games you wanted to play then you were doing it for the wrong reason anyway.
You are right, *you* should not pay for it. You clearly aren't interested in a games console for what it is.
People want to play games even if emulated (Score:2)
If your purchasing decision was based on the freedom of the hardware rather than the enjoyment and playing of games you wanted to play then you were doing it for the wrong reason anyway.
Some of the games that people wanted to play ran in emulators. And according to the featured article. Microsoft took away the ability to play those games on the living room TV.
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You clearly aren't interested in a games console for what it is.
It's now just a computer that you're not allowed to use as one. When game consoles had more powerful graphics than a PC, they had a reason to exist. The SNES, for example, was an amazingly worthwhile piece of hardware, but really all of the popular consoles up to that generation could make an extremely strong argument for themselves. But even by the time of the original Playstation, you could buy a cheap GPU that would absolutely blow away console graphics (I had several of them, and about eight PS1s at var
Re: This is why the 360 was my last console (Score:3)
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Same, as soon as there was talk of XBOne being online-only, I realized consoles are dead. Then Sony pulled that shit with yanking the new Silent Hill demo off of the PS4s of people that downloaded it. Consoles are dead, PCs forever
I still have PT. It wasn't yanked from my PS4. It is no longer available to redownload if I ever delete it which is still a dick move but I have a backup and don't plan on deleting it. I'm probably unlikely to ever play it through again either, I just like having that option.
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MVG video on this (Score:2)
MVG posted a video on this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Bloody hypocrites (Score:3)
Microsoft wants to develop "App Store" emulator for iOS. Using this app, user can download all of the games from Microsoft and run on iOS instead of having each game as a separate app. Apple does not allow it and they are accusing Apple of monopoly. But they don't want to allow users to do the same on Xbox.
PCMR FTW (Score:2)