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[IbizaPocholo]

I’ll copy and paste my email from a friend at the Xbox QA team :

Hi there,

Thanks for getting in touch with us about the recent ban on emulators on the Xbox store front. We appreciate your interest and concerns.

To answer your questions, the primary reason for the ban is related to legal issues with Nintendo. While emulating itself is not illegal, it can be used to play games from consoles that are still under copyright protection without permission, which can create issues with Nintendo and its affiliates.

Additionally, we take security seriously, and some emulators require permissions beyond what is typical for an app. This could create a potential security risk, as these permissions can be exploited by bad actors to gain access to sensitive information. For these reasons, we have made the decision to ban emulators on the Xbox store front.

However, we understand that many users have dev mode enabled to run legal emulation. We don't seek to remove this ability, as it doesn't grant access to the retail components of the system and is considered safe. Unlike retail emulators, dev mode is limited to certain functionalities and doesn't have system read-write functionality.

That said, we are still exploring ways to allow safe and legal emulation on Xbox. We are in talks with legitimate emulator developers to bring their software onto our platform while ensuring that all copyright laws and security protocols are followed.

We appreciate your understanding and patience as we work through this issue. Our goal is to provide a safe and enjoyable gaming experience for everyone, and we are committed to finding a solution that meets those goals.

If you have any further questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to us.

Best regards,

 

[Henry Panic]

Good, I thought they were removing the dev mode loophole and almost had a heart attack.

 

[01011001]

I really hope they'll work with the Dolphin and the Retroarch team to bring both to the store officially.

 

[feynoob]

Nintendo must have sent their ninja lawyers to MS for this to happen.

 

[Sleepwalker]

I hope im wrong but I think it's not gonna happen, there is too much red tape around the issue, specially where nintendo is concerned. Im sure they have or are looking into it, but thats about it.

Developer mode it is.

 

[Knightime_X]

I like how they respect Nintendo but mention nothing about sony.

 

[DrFigs]

So people can pirate games on their platform?

 

[01011001]

I hope im wrong but I think it's not gonna happen, there is too much red tape around the issue, specially where nintendo is concerned. Im sure they have or are looking into it, but thats about it.

Developer mode it is.

with more and more digital store fronts officially endorsing it, it's more likely than ever that Microsoft will also allow it.

Amazon App Store, Google Play Store, and Steam all officially allow it and all have Retroarch available, which in return lets you basically emulate most systems already... PS2, GameCube, Dreamcase, PSP, and of course all 8 and 16 bit system are in there.

 

[Bonfires Down]

I would love official emulators on Xbox, but I doubt it’s worth it for them to antagonize Nintendo and Sony over it.

 

[Fredrik]

So retail Retroarch is gone now?
Sucks, it was my emulator solution, dev mode is too annoying to use as long as you need to restart the console. Time to build another Retropie box I guess.

 

[Banjo64]

I like how they respect Nintendo but mention nothing about sony.

Nothing to do with respect but more to do with Nintendo’s heavy handed legal approach to all things emulation.

 

[IbizaPocholo]

Xbox has banned the use of UWP apps including emulators and certain homebrew running under Retail mode on the Xbox One and Xbox Series line of consoles. This is a blow to the emulation community but all is not lost. In this episode we discuss what happened, why and what the future holds.

- Microsoft has blocked emulators in retail mode running on Xbox consoles.
- Emulators such as Dolphin, Xenia, Duckstation, and all the emulators in Homebrew that we've covered on the channel in the past will no longer work.
- This is a huge blow to the Xbox and emulation community who want to enjoy legal emulation on their consoles.
- Xbox offers developers a way to build applications in UWP (Universal Windows Program) that can be in the form of emulators or applications.
- These particular UWP apps can be run and installed on your Xbox One, Xbox series S, series X, 1X, anything that supports the Xbox can run UWP apps.
- In recent months, there has been a huge burst of emulators and FTP programs.
- Xbox has provided a developer mode sandbox that allows you to install and run these UWP apps, but there is a price associated with this (a one-off fee of $20 at least in the US to get a developer mode license to turn your Xbox into a dev kit).
- These emulators can be run and installed in the Dev mode sandbox without fear of repercussion.
- It was possible to run UWP apps under retail mode simply through a workaround that was discovered many years ago.
- Being able to run UWP apps under retail is not anything that has been just discovered in recent times; it's been around for a long time.
- The reason why Microsoft has finally decided to fix this is probably that they knew about it for a long time and wanted to patch it at some point.
- It is not the end of the world, as users can still put their system into developer mode and go that route.
- Dev mode can easily be switched back and forth between developer mode and retail mode, and the experience is going to be the same as running emulators in retail mode other than convenience.

 

[Ansphn]

I like how they respect Nintendo but mention nothing about sony.

They respect Nintendo because they don't see Nintendo as a threat.

 

[The Pleasure]

Nothing to do with respect but more to do with Nintendo’s heavy handed legal approach to all things emulation.

Nintendo be all like

 

[feynoob]

Nintendo be all like

Nintendo is like honey badger of gaming.