Phil Spencer, Head of Xbox, announces original Xbox Backward Compatibility at the Xbox E3 2017 Briefing on Sunday, June 11, 2017 in Los Angeles. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision for Microsoft/AP Images)
With every new generation of console released, the old one gets left behind. This is pretty much true of all technology, but what we’re seeing Microsoft do is try to keep some of its older stuff alive through backwards compatibility, where the Xbox One is capable of playing games from the Xbox 360 and also the original Xbox.
However that’s not where Microsoft wants it to end because speaking to PC Gamer, Xbox chief Phil Spencer seemed to be pretty open to the idea of bringing Xbox emulation onto the PC. When asked if maybe emulation could find its way onto the PC in the future, Spencer replied in the affirmative. However he also noted that due to PCs having varied specs, it makes it slightly more complicated than a console whose specs are fixed.
According to Spencer, “I want people to be able to play games! [Emulation] is hard. [Xbox] 360 specifically is a PowerPC chip, emulated to x86, which is difficult. It’s a little bit easier when you have a fixed spec, when you think about Xbox, Xbox One S, and Xbox One X. And you think of the variable specs of the PC space, so you’re taking a fixed-spec PowerPC emulator and then moving it over to run on PC, so there’s a lot of work there.”
While Spencer did not provide any timeframe as to when this emulation feature might happen, he did state that this is in their future, so it looks like we’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime how do you guys feel about Xbox emulation for the PC?