Xbox360 games on PC

Windows 8 will support X-Box360 games

Update:
References to the Xbox 360 found in the kernel of Windows 8

 

DAM I rather have PS3 games, I already have a 360.

I want to play games like Killzone, Resistance, MAG, Uncharted series, Socom, motorstorm, and so much more.

 

Wait a minute - subscription fee? I hope this refers to the ability to play online only, and not to use the feature at all.

 

I find this very unlikely.

 

Agree with Overath. Without the custom chips from an Xbox you would need a mammoth of a computer to emulate the 360

 

i will finally be able to play halo reach!

 

Given that it's hard enough even to emulate a PS2, I call BS on this one.

Look at console ports for example, they have been ported over to x86 code and had *some* optimisations for PC put in and yet they still run terribly and require a quad core to get any decent life out of them. Then you extend this over to pure emulation, and things would get even worse. The 360 uses a different instruction set to PC's for a start so it would have to convert everything from whatever the 360 uses (some sort of reduced instruction set iirc), and then run on a computer with no optimisations at all.

If anything, console games are optimised in the wrong direction. Because developers are trying to squeze out every last possible inch from their dated hardware, they're starting to do things like making the CPU do some of the grapichs work. They know they can get away with these things because obviously consoles are all the same and it will run the same whoever has it. PC's on the other hand have different hardware, in terms of layout and the general balence of different powers (consoles have proportionally more powerful CPU's, far less RAM, lower graphics and various other odities).

All in all, console games were never designed to run well on a PC. By the very nature of how some of them are work, it pretty much dooms them to hell as far as PC's are concerned without having to rewrite the whole game from scratch.

 

Well.. um.. I don't know if you know this, but Microsoft created the xbox platform from scratch. It wouldn't be a third party garage-junkie trying to make his retail xbox 360 work with his desktop, it would be two streamlined and commercial products being integrated with one-another by their parent company. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see this happen, especially once the 360 is pushed into the dark by whatever next-gen consoles come out.

Would be a genius move by Microsoft when you think about it.. because it's something that sony simply can't do.

 

You don't have to emulate if you take it from source and compile it to windows/dx ..
M$ can do it .. sony can only release their own devices ..

 

^ Agree!
If they have claimed then they have thought something.
Its their console and their operating system so they can do whatever they want. I trust them.

 

Yes, it would be a lot easier for them since they do own the Operating System and the Console Source Codes. Emulation of the PS2 started from scratch where they had to figure things out in the dark, Microsoft however will have everything documented and ready, therefore making this possible.

 

I just dont think this will happen, but we will see.

I think they would lose console sale money and it would probably boost pirating of 360 games.

Also even if they had the perfect emulator so many people probably would not have a PC powerful enough to do it, so it would cause a lot of uneducated people to be complaining about how it does not work when its simply a case of lack of hardware.

 

^
Well by that time the xbox360 would be at the end of its lifespan so any sales would be good sales...
but even i'm skeptical about the system requirements..Perhaps it'll be limited to the lower requirement XBLA titles.. Or perhaps even an Onlive type service considering the monthly fee payment structure..

 

Maybe is just a speculation, but I think the future is going into "this" direction..merging somehow everything, like they are doing with smartphones now,which they can do everything and are currently running with a dual core CPU.
I believe laptop will be as powerful as desktops one day,and the future in the technology field will always be a surpise for us.

Anyway still wondering if they really will do it with the release of Windows 8..

 

So you're implying that before you play your game, you effectively have to port the whole thing over beforehand and have huge 8GB file sitting around on your hard disk? The only way I can really see them getting round things is to do it in a series of blocks in the loading screens.

 

Updated first post.

 

They'll just have to throw this on the label

New Windows 8 Minimum Requirements:

-Quad core processor @ 3.0ghz
-8gb Ram
-64gb SSD
-ATI 5000 or Nvidea 400 series GFX card w/ 256mb ram

lol

 

It's possible they go the 'steam' route, and when you stick your 360game in, it links to you account downloads the Windows source version for free.

 

That sounds plausible, the trouble is, how much work is microsoft willing to put in to make these x86 'source versions'?

I just don't see this as happening unless there is a breakthrough in recompiling PPC to x86 code.

 

Not sure why people think this is going to happen.

 

This is all very silly... Microsoft would be doing this... not some group of people having to reverse engineer it.

These are the people who made both the console AND the PC versions of the most of the same games.

As for Piracy... the Xbox is already a pirated box and its games are already pirated just as much if not more than PC games at this point.

The only real problem will be that the PC users wil be expecting more than the 360 and its hardware can produce.

 

Just because microsoft made the 360 and also happen to make windows, it doesn't mean that they can get around he vastly different designs of PC's compared to consoles. Obviously at a very basic level PC's and consoles are the same in that they all have pretty much the same busses and basic layout, but that's about as far as it goes. Console games are actually written with those facts taken into consideration, one of the reasons why they run so badly on PC's.

Although microsoft did develop the 360, it won't give them that much of an advantage. Sure, they know exactly how everything functions and how it's different to a PC but that still doesn't get you very far. The simple fact that they developed the 360 deosn't in any way get around the fact that they use completely different instruction sets (at least you have DX9 though). You also have to bear in mind that microsoft really do very little when it comes to actual game development, they just built the system (In the case of PC's, it goes even further in that they merely built the operating system on which runs the computer).

 

The problem with normal emulation is that usually the CPU has to emulate everything the graphics card the sound card the cpu and everything else this makes the emulation a very hard task for the CPU.

However because the xbox 360 still uses the Direct X APIs it means that the CPU will not have so much to do as you will be able to use the graphics card in your laptop to help run the game. This was the case when the pcsx2 emulator started using hardware acceleration.

Plus as has been said before all other emulator have been made by reverse engineering the consoles and lots of trail and error.

So while the idea that a mid-range/pc could play xbox360 games is probably possible whether or not microsoft will do this is another question all together

 

I have a feeling this is possible, with similar developing style for pc the 360 uses dx9 with a power pc, so im sure it wouldn't be too difficult to get something like that running. It would be nice to be able to play a few 360 exclusives I havent been able to play on pc or ps3, namely the HALO games would be nice to slug out with a couple of friends. The cooler part is I have a program that makes my Dual shock 3s into xbox 360 controllers on my pc.

 

I don't get why people think this is going to happen. Microsoft gains nothing from this; no increase in sales per OS nor increase in brand recognition. Their 'kinect' device would be obsolete. MS knows when to draw the line...and 360 is not in the cards.



Cheers to those that think this is 'remotely' a reality for w8.

 

LOL QFT

 

I think otherwise. Win8 sales would skyrocket, not to mention the X-Box360 game sales, MS would have PC+console game sales in his pocket. The money they loose with the decreasing number of console sales would come back from the games sold to "PC gamers".

Why would the kinect device be obsolete? I don't see a reason why would it be obsolete...

IF MS would really do this, it would be a black day for Sony.

 

Are you for real? Re-release an x360 store up on steam, or even their on in games for windows, they'd sell metric tons of halo series games. Kinect is now fully supported by windows now anyways. This isn't meant to be in direct competition with the x360, this would be more for when the x360 is dead and gone and some pc gamers would still like to pick up a halo game or 2. What doesn't make sense to me is why they don't just start releasing older titles now on 360, no ones buying halo 3 anymore, let pc side have a taste.

 

I agree ... this will be an awesome move by MS if they are really thinkin of doin so ... I'd love to play Gears of War 1, 2 and 3 on PC using Xbox 360 controller ... that'd be amazing.

Im now thinkin, why MS didn't do it with Original Xbox ... sure computers today are like almost 5 times more powerfull then Original Xbox ... I say if it is still rumored then Sony has got a brilliant idea here that they should grab on ... releasing Sony PS2 official emulator for PS2 fans and games they have bought. Reminding that original PS2 was having ... dont quote me on it about 300Mhz cpu and 32Mb GPu ... not sure ... becaus Xbox was 700Mhz something.

 

I don't see how they could do this, games such as the Battlefield series would suffer surely? Bad Company 2 for PC ended up being pretty much a poor console port. At the moment the battlefield community is up in arms about Battlefield 3, console players are complaining that the game looks bad on Xbox and ps3, understandable on 6 year old hardware, while the PC version looks better (also supporting more players online and with a server browser)

What I'm saying i guess is if a games company like dice didn't need to make a PC and 360 version surely they would take the cheap option of making one version that works on both platforms, ending up with a product that's not optimized for either, just in some murky middle ground?

 

taking money from one platform to another platform is not really doing too much.

Think about it this way they would be losing money on any future sales of x360 consoles, all the while essentially giving the capability to pc's that are purchased with the W8 software license included in their PC purchase.

All of this while 'most' pc's sold in the world are NOT capable of playing games on par with the 360. Most PC, laptop, netbook purchases don't have a dedicated graphics card. That shrinks your market by ateast 95%.

This is simply not going to happen.

 

A few of you are messing up a bunch of key Ideas here, and to clarify it now sounds just like a crash code error for debuggers over at MS, or a function that just tethers the console with your win 8 machine, Kind of like the vaio cross talk function with ps3 that allows you to stream your ps3 game over your home network to a laptop screen and play in another room.

Back to the discussion though. First, MS does not support an old console after a new console release, this was done to get the optimal amount of users and their old platform to buy the new one right away. And while talking about xbox for a moment, someone asked why they couldn't play their xbox games on their pc, and the answer is, because most games from the original xbox are playable in some form or another already on PC.

The same goes for 360 games, most games already have a PC counter part like most of you have seen or even pointed out like BFBC2 and Gears of War 1. This would be purely for exclusives which would list something like : Halo 3, Reach, ODST, Red Dead Redemption, and maybe a handful of other titiles. For the most part you can get the rest of the games already on pc.

But this rumors already been squashed. A neat function they should focus on for the next gen consoles is splitscreen over 2 different screen, either by 2 HDMI ports on the console, or by using some cross talk function to another dummy system or laptop/media extender like the vaio ps3 cross talk.

 

microsoft would not losses any money form allowing a pc to run 360 games. It is general knowledge that most of the consoles are sold at a loss or break even. where they make most of their money is on the games so if they can get everyone who owns a pc (a mid to high range pc) to buy xbox games then they have potentially a huge number of new buyers.

 

After they pull 360 from the market that is, but Wii btw makes money on their consoles, your general statement only applies to MS and Sony. That said again, most games are already found a home on PC anyways, its only a handful of exclusive games that would make this worth while. Thats the same for sony even. I'd go as far as to say Sony has way better exclusives games being pumped out then MS does these days.

 

Rumor is that microsoft is trying to do that with Windows 8. Future W8 machines will have the performance power to play xbox 360 games.

However, I don't believe that. The xbox 360 is the most popular console. How many gaming teens and young adults have BOTH an xbox and a computer? Like 90%! I dunno. I lot... If you took the xbox out of the picture then I think microsoft's revenue would be hurt badly. No xbox sales. No xbox live sales. No xbox merchandise sales. The PC games would die since xbox games would just replace PC games.

But I know that microsoft is trying to integrate xbox and PC together like many of you already said. I hope it works well.

 

Xbox 360 pops up in Win 8 code, console game compatibility coming to the PC? -- Engadget


Its a crash code, probably for remote play like sony vaio laptops have with ps3. Dont read too much into this, Ill state it again, most 360 games are already on PC with the exception of a small handful. I just hope they don't try to force LIVE on pc gamers again, its completely useless and gaming has gotten along fine for years without having to pay for online functionality. Please MS, stay out of PC gaming and let steam run the show.