Xbox Series X/S Consoles Are Once Again Featuring Emulators

gameranx.com:

Emulators have been around for ages as players typically get these pieces of software on the PC. It was a means to play some of the previous generation console platforms on your modern PC hardware. Now, of course, we’re seeing emulators pop up much faster than before, especially with Nintendo. For years Nintendo Switch was being emulated, which might have persuaded some players with a capable PC to avoid purchasing the Nintendo hybrid console platform. But now it looks like emulators are returning to the Xbox Series X/S consoles.

Thanks to VGC, a new report we’re finding unveils that emulators are being run on retail mode Xbox Series X/S consoles. In the past, this was something that players could pull off rather easily. These emulators could be downloaded through the Microsoft store, and from there, loading ROMs could allow you access to content from previous-generation console platforms. So if you wanted to play some of the past Sony PlayStation exclusives, it was viable through the Microsoft line of Xbox Series X/S consoles. But that was eventually killed off as Microsoft blocked the ability to download these emulators for the console.

What Microsoft didn’t do was prevent these emulators from being accessible with developer consoles. It’s worth noting that players could gain access to these special features just by paying a one-time fee of $20. That’s not bad to gain access to developer mode and, in turn, gain the ability to download these emulators. But today, we’re finding out that the retail version of the Xbox Series X/S consoles is gaining access to these emulators again. Of course, the method to do this has been restricted behind Patreon.

The group to have discovered this new method of gaining access to