Developers emulate PS2 games on Xbox Series S and X using RetroArch



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The developers have now made it possible to emulate PS2 games on the Xbox Series X and S using the RetroArch emulator – something that the PS2 successor PlayStation 5 cannot.

Using the “developer mode” of Xbox Series X / S consoles, emulation software can be added as a Universal Windows Application (UWA), allowing users to download a retail version of the emulation software directly to their console. without tricky workarounds. players don’t have to wait for a reissue to play an older favorite.

While RetroArch is able to emulate several different consoles, the compatibility for running PS2 games using the PCSX2 core is particularly noteworthy due to the limitation of Sony’s PlayStation 5 when it comes to backward compatibility compared to the Xbox. The new console is only natively backward compatible with PlayStation 4 games (with a few caveats), and Sony currently only offers the ability to play PS3 and PS2 games using its PS Now game streaming service.

It should be noted that Microsoft does not officially support this type of emulation and that support for PCSX2 is still in the works, but the first results with RetroArch are exciting: despite the limits imposed by a cap on the file size, PS2 games run at almost the same quality as on the original console.

The process of adding RetroArch to your Xbox using Developer Mode is a bit complicated. You will need to pay a $ 19 registration fee to be part of Microsoft’s developer program, then download the “Dev Mode Activation” app from the Xbox store. Once the app is downloaded and running, you can connect to your Xbox from a web browser using your local network and add the UWA RetroArch files. This UWA RetroArch is notably limited by a file size limit which might prevent you from running games larger than 2 GB.

The most recent and simplest method of doing this, created by the “tunip3” programmer, was first covered by Ars Technica. The Tunip3 method uses a retail version of RetroArch listed as a “private app” in the Xbox Store. By adding player emails to a whitelist, the full version of RetroArch can be downloaded directly to your Xbox with a code. This method removes the file size limitations that come with a developer UWA app, which means more games are compatible – at least until Microsoft eliminates this loophole.

With RetroArch on the new Xbox, there is now solid proof that emulation of these older consoles is possible on next-gen hardware. In fact, Microsoft is already relying on an emulator it designed to run Xbox and Xbox 360 games on the Xbox One and Xbox Series X / S. For PlayStation games, the ball is in Sony’s court, and it’s not yet clear whether he intends to offer a formal backward compatibility option on the PS5 that goes beyond cloud streaming.

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