XBOX

[SentaiBrad]

The xbox is hard to crack because boiled down, it's pretty much a PC actually. It runs a modified DirectX competent and everything. It's like writing a Windows XP Era emulator for newer machines, and we all know how bad virtualization can be, now add on a closed off system that uses customized and internal code, not something super well documented outside of Microsoft. It actually uses a modified exe for the games even.

[cleverest]

 If only there could be a breakthrough from someone providing a lot of that data, like an insider who has the documentation... that would considerably speed things up.

[heelsinc]

right I thought I had read about the "blue prints" for the system not being around. 

[Argos]

I'm honestly a bit worried about Xbox preservation in the future, it seems to be a perfect storm of frustrating hardware (although I didn't know that its similarities to PC actually made it harder to emulate!) and lack of interest. The last I checked there were only one or two people working on the most promising Xbox emulator, and one of them had gotten a job that took them away from doing much work. It would probably be a far different story if the original Halos weren't ever ported to PC, but a lot of the remaining exclusives are relatively niche, even if those "niche" games are well worth the effort. I remember seeing someone else on some emulation forum break down that only two or so million-selling original Xbox games were true exclusives, so there's less clamoring for something to get done. Panzer Dragoon Orta, Phantom Dust, Otogi - these are the kind of "cult classics" that never quite got the attention they deserved when they first came out. They're the kinds of games that we love to discover, but there's a worry that they don't seem a pressing enough need to attract the kind of enormously talented, dedicated programmers that are necessary to get emulation running for such an evidently complex console. There's that fear that the time where it would have gotten the most attention has already passed.

It's a real shame because not only do many of those games stuck on the original Xbox look fascinating (I'd die for a chance at Jet Set Radio Future in particular) but it also has the best version of many multi-platform games by most accounts. The thing that still makes me hold out hope is that surely some enterprising programmer or programmers will see the ongoing lack of an Xbox emulator as a challenge. The Mednafen Saturn core is a great example - though there has been at least some emulation of Saturn for a while, though often limited and overly complicated. Still, if the Sega Saturn - a console that sold fifteen million less units than the original Xbox, had notoriously complex and haphazard hardware and with a good percentage of the best of the library being ports of arcade games easily emulatable elsewhere - can get a good emulator, why not the Xbox? All it takes is a few people with passion, talent and opportunity to get something going.

[SentaiBrad]

One of the projects wasn't even an emulator, at least mostly speaking. They were trying to figure out a way to almost natively run Xbox games on Windows. It would use emulation in a lot of areas, but it would have been like a combination of emulation and porting. Yea, the Xbox is very much like a PC. There's a full IDE hard drive inside that has the OS installed on to it and uses a lot of Microsoft specific windows type code. Like it using a modified DirectX. So it would be foolish to call the Xbox a straight PC, but it's certainly derived from a PC in how it was built (no surprise).

I have a theory in mind, but it's shattered by the mere existence of good PSP and Wii emulation, but I think it's because it was so easy to mod. It's fairly easy to do, but it also took off, way more than Wii and PSP modding did. Kodi (was XBMC) got it's start as being an Xbox Media Center application. So it might be a bit of apathetic-ness on the part of users. Why emulate something when it's easy to mod, easy to replace the hard drive, and have every single Xbox game inside your Xbox. Hell, mine is modded because I got tired of waiting for emulation. I think it will come, but you're right in your Saturn comparison, it will just take some time. The PS2 was much much more popular, and harder to mod (less people knew about that too), so it was emulated faster (even though the 'emotion engine' is apparently a bitch to emulate). The GameCube was also popular, harder to mod, less people knew about it, so it was emulated. Since the Wii shares the exact same architecture and is essentially a beefed up GameCube, that's primarily why the Wii was modded so so fast. They went hand in hand, and the Wii being modded the way it was helped. The Xbox and PS2 being modded didn't really help with emulation, but I think Wii was blown so wide open that it helped. Wii U emulation is progressing so fast because it's yet another extension of the same architecture. 3DS emulation is progressing so fast because it's an extension of the DS hardware.

It also helps that some of these systems were so damn popular, irregardless of the mod capabilities, but the harder the system was to mod the more of a need there was for emulation? Some were also modded so hard it aided in emulation? There's really no perfect equation here, and one potential reason doesn't fit nearly at all to another system and it's reasoning.

[ALIE]

9 hours ago, Argos said:

I'm honestly a bit worried about Xbox preservation in the future, it seems to be a perfect storm of frustrating hardware (although I didn't know that its similarities to PC actually made it harder to emulate!) and lack of interest. The last I checked there were only one or two people working on the most promising Xbox emulator, and one of them had gotten a job that took them away from doing much work. It would probably be a far different story if the original Halos weren't ever ported to PC, but a lot of the remaining exclusives are relatively niche, even if those "niche" games are well worth the effort. I remember seeing someone else on some emulation forum break down that only two or so million-selling original Xbox games were true exclusives, so there's less clamoring for something to get done. Panzer Dragoon Orta, Phantom Dust, Otogi - these are the kind of "cult classics" that never quite got the attention they deserved when they first came out. They're the kinds of games that we love to discover, but there's a worry that they don't seem a pressing enough need to attract the kind of enormously talented, dedicated programmers that are necessary to get emulation running for such an evidently complex console. There's that fear that the time where it would have gotten the most attention has already passed.

It's a real shame because not only do many of those games stuck on the original Xbox look fascinating (I'd die for a chance at Jet Set Radio Future in particular) but it also has the best version of many multi-platform games by most accounts. The thing that still makes me hold out hope is that surely some enterprising programmer or programmers will see the ongoing lack of an Xbox emulator as a challenge. The Mednafen Saturn core is a great example - though there has been at least some emulation of Saturn for a while, though often limited and overly complicated. Still, if the Sega Saturn - a console that sold fifteen million less units than the original Xbox, had notoriously complex and haphazard hardware and with a good percentage of the best of the library being ports of arcade games easily emulatable elsewhere - can get a good emulator, why not the Xbox? All it takes is a few people with passion, talent and opportunity to get something going.

Preservation is hopefully looked in soon if Backward-compatibility is added to Xbox-one and games could be re-released digitally. 

[DOS76]

Backwards compatibility on another console that will just go obsolete isn't really preservation IMO

[Zombeaver]

7 hours ago, SentaiBrad said:

I have a theory in mind, but it's shattered by the mere existence of good PSP and Wii emulation, but I think it's because it was so easy to mod. It's fairly easy to do, but it also took off, way more than Wii and PSP modding did. Kodi (was XBMC) got it's start as being an Xbox Media Center application. So it might be a bit of apathetic-ness on the part of users. Why emulate something when it's easy to mod, easy to replace the hard drive, and have every single Xbox game inside your Xbox. Hell, mine is modded because I got tired of waiting for emulation. I think it will come, but you're right in your Saturn comparison, it will just take some time. The PS2 was much much more popular, and harder to mod (less people knew about that too), so it was emulated faster (even though the 'emotion engine' is apparently a bitch to emulate). The GameCube was also popular, harder to mod, less people knew about it, so it was emulated. Since the Wii shares the exact same architecture and is essentially a beefed up GameCube, that's primarily why the Wii was modded so so fast. They went hand in hand, and the Wii being modded the way it was helped. The Xbox and PS2 being modded didn't really help with emulation, but I think Wii was blown so wide open that it helped. Wii U emulation is progressing so fast because it's yet another extension of the same architecture. 3DS emulation is progressing so fast because it's an extension of the DS hardware.

I think that makes some amount of sense; although console modding, to my mind, has always been even more niche than emulation and they're not necessarily mutually exclusive. In my limited and entirely anecdotal experience, all of the people I know who have taken the time to mod their consoles are knee-deep into emulation as well, but not necessarily the other way around. The majority of (also anecdotal) information I've found on the lack of progress in Xbox emulation has pointed to a lack of interest + difficulties due to Xbox complexity. That's a shame because there's a ton of good stuff for the Xbox: Breakdown, Conker: Live & Reloaded, Crimson Skies, GunValkyrie, Jet Set Radio Future, Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes, Ninja Gaiden, Otogi 1 + 2, Outrun 2, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Phantom Crash, Phantom Dust, Quantum Redshift, Shenmue II, Voodoo Vince... there are actually quite a few exclusive games that are absolutely worth playing. I feel like the retro gaming community is more aware of this stuff than ever and with greater and greater acceptance of emulation as an important factor in gaming history preservation I still have faith that we'll see Xbox emulation some day.

Xbox games are (comparatively) extremely cheap to collect currently, so that's something at least.

7 hours ago, SentaiBrad said:

It also helps that some of these systems were so damn popular, irregardless of the mod capabilities

Not a word! 

I got into a debate with a family member at Christmas about proper use of the word "myriad"... I think I need help.

[SentaiBrad]

Wikipedia AND the Huffington post say it is a word! (I don't hold stock in to either, but yea).

Modding an Xbox was rather easy, but a majority of people I knew who had one modded used a friend or a service, paid for a HDD and like $30, got it modded, had a ton of emulators, roms and xbox games. Like I said, there's no right equation here. Xbox has been blown wide open by modding like the Wii and PSP (the level of access is so deep you can install custom firmware on the Xbox and PSP), but in this case it's not helping because of the complexity. Working with the console and it's similarities to a PC help developers, but make emulation worse ironically. The PS4 is essentially a PC and it's OS is a proprietary variant of BSD (supposedly). I don't think the Xbox Is far off in using a variant of Windows 10 even. So those could be either extremely hard to crack and emulate in the future, or extremely easy. Too close to a PC, and it could simply be ported or configured to run on a PC. Close enough to a PC to offer easy development benefits, but far enough from a PC that it requires more than that, and you'll have to emulate a PC like environment. Very tricky stuff. Irregardless is still a word though.  

Edit: A website I do hold stock in for validity of words is Merriam-Webster though, and they say it's real!!!! (though they need to stop changing the defenitions of words, like Literally. Add new words, stop changing existing ones!)

[Zombeaver]

19 minutes ago, SentaiBrad said:

Modding an Xbox was rather easy, but a majority of people I knew who had one modded used a friend or a service, paid for a HDD and like $30, got it modded, had a ton of emulators, roms and xbox games. Like I said, there's no right equation here. Xbox has been blown wide open by modding like the Wii and PSP (the level of access is so deep you can install custom firmware on the Xbox and PSP), but in this case it's not helping because of the complexity. Working with the console and it's similarities to a PC help developers, but make emulation worse ironically. The PS4 is essentially a PC and it's OS is a proprietary variant of BSD (supposedly). I don't think the Xbox Is far off in using a variant of Windows 10 even. So those could be either extremely hard to crack and emulate in the future, or extremely easy. Too close to a PC, and it could simply be ported or configured to run on a PC. Close enough to a PC to offer easy development benefits, but far enough from a PC that it requires more than that, and you'll have to emulate a PC like environment. Very tricky stuff.

You could be right. All fair points.

20 minutes ago, SentaiBrad said:

Irregardless is still a word though.  

...except for this one.

10 minutes ago, SentaiBrad said:

Edit: A website I do hold stock in for validity of words is Merriam-Webster though, and they say it's real!!!! (though they need to stop changing the defenitions of words, like Literally. Add new words, stop changing existing ones!)

It also says it's non-standard and that "regardless" should be used instead. Irregardless is a word insomuch as you can say it and people will understand what you're trying to convey - just like "orientated" and "acrossed"... neither of which are words either  If we want to get into the actual etymology of it, it's an improper melding of "irrespective" and "regardless". Breaking the "word" itself down, it's a double-negative as the prefix "ir" (meaning "not") and "regardless" (meaning "with no regard") are both negatives... so it doesn't actually make any sense. "I do not have no regard for that thing." "Oh, so you do have regard for it?"

It's a matter of enough people saying something incorrectly and often enough that it becomes "accepted" into the public lexicon. Dooooooooesn't make it a word.

I minored in Journalism in college and part of that involves AP Style training which is an even more extreme approach at grammar and writing style than is commonly employed by most grammar Nazis. Reading the average Youtube comment makes me die a little inside.

[Charco]

As long as the software is more performant we should all be ok.

[Zombeaver]

1 minute ago, Charco said:

As long as the software is more performant we should all be ok.

 

[Argos]

6 hours ago, SentaiBrad said:

Wikipedia AND the Huffington post say it is a word! (I don't hold stock in to either, but yea).

Modding an Xbox was rather easy, but a majority of people I knew who had one modded used a friend or a service, paid for a HDD and like $30, got it modded, had a ton of emulators, roms and xbox games. Like I said, there's no right equation here. Xbox has been blown wide open by modding like the Wii and PSP (the level of access is so deep you can install custom firmware on the Xbox and PSP), but in this case it's not helping because of the complexity. Working with the console and it's similarities to a PC help developers, but make emulation worse ironically. The PS4 is essentially a PC and it's OS is a proprietary variant of BSD (supposedly). I don't think the Xbox Is far off in using a variant of Windows 10 even. So those could be either extremely hard to crack and emulate in the future, or extremely easy. Too close to a PC, and it could simply be ported or configured to run on a PC. Close enough to a PC to offer easy development benefits, but far enough from a PC that it requires more than that, and you'll have to emulate a PC like environment. Very tricky stuff. Irregardless is still a word though.  

Edit: A website I do hold stock in for validity of words is Merriam-Webster though, and they say it's real!!!! (though they need to stop changing the defenitions of words, like Literally. Add new words, stop changing existing ones!)

It does make me wonder about the path emulation takes in the future if current-gen consoles similarity to PCs ends up being more of a hindrance than a help. PCs and consoles are sharing more and more games recently with even Japanese companies slowly beginning to realize that there's something to porting over their games to Steam and while I totally welcome that it does mean that there are fewer true exclusives that would entice emulation efforts. Just seems as if there's been a shift over the past few generations where first-party/exclusive games get less prominent while multi-platform games take more and more of a central role. The Xbox One is kinda an extreme example of that, and I'm interested in seeing how the community tackles it in the future. If their play-anywhere initiative holds up throughout the rest of its lifespan and those games remain available on PC after the Xbox One cycle there will be something like...ten non-Kinect retail games that are truly exclusive to the system. This isn't a dig on the Xbox, but something I'm worried about when the time comes. These companies don't seem particularly interested in investing in real, long-term preservation efforts for their games so that burden rests largely on talented, passionate hobbyists for now and I wonder if that will be enough if the systems keep getting harder to emulate for less games. That's probably way too far in the future to even begin worrying about though, and I'd never claim to actually begin to know what the actual programming challenges for any particular system would be.

[SentaiBrad]

They don't seem interested in long term preservation because they're living in the moment, and just assume they'll have some sort of method for you to buy the old games you want on new systems. Easier preservation theoretically equals easier piracy to them, or preservation is used as the scapegoat in name only so people can feel like they have a "free pass" to pirate all the new games. Neither side is technically wrong, but the people who are interested in preservation like Frank Cifaldi end up getting shafted from either side.

[DOS76]

The companies only concern for preservation is if they can monetize the game again in the future. Preservation is something that will have to be done by fans of the medium as the companies aren't willing to expend their resources on it. Nintendo is interested in preservation but only because they are monetizing their games through their virtual consoles and their new retro consoles (how soon to the SNES mini) if they weren't they wouldn't care. You can't expect to get a historical preservation from a corporation as funding it would interfere with your profit margins and bottom lines plus even the future monetizement is only a small pittance when factored in these old games aren't reselling for more than a few dollars where they have been legitimately rereleased.

[SentaiBrad]

Even VC titles are ripped roms from the community. I forget which NES game it was, but they ripped the VC title and saw it had the same rom header as as the Good NES set.