For a good while, there was a bit of hype built around the Xbox Series S, in particular for the retro gaming scene. It was a cheaper device that offered a small form factor. Likewise, it allowed consumers to download emulators and enjoy various retro video games. But while this process was available, some consumers were skeptical. Of course, it didn’t take Microsoft too long before they outright banned emulators from being available in the marketplace, making it impossible to download and enjoy. That’s just the emulators being used in the Xbox Series X/S retail mode.
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RETAIL MODE ON XBOX IS DEAD!
- 15-day suspensions handed out to users of retail emulators as a warning shot from Microsoft.
- Devs warning users to delete emulators
- Retail Mode team disbanding and shutting down the Patreon. Sorry to bear the bad news. RT to warn others
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Pro-tip: Linus torvalds won’t ban you from using Linux if you use emulators
Neither will Windows. But issue is this was a way to use emulators, play purchased Xbox games, and still have an active friends list at the same time.
Neither will Windows, yet. It won’t be long before they start telling you what you’re allowed to do, for your own benefit of course.
Seriously. I never understood why people do consoles and buy into every sleazy tactic the companies pull.
Why not both?
This comment was sponsored by !steamdeck@sopuli.xyz
well, you see… not long ago, Valve barred Dolphin from their store because Nintendo told them to
but yeah, you can also run other stuff on the Steam Deck, it’s a full featured Linux machine
They may not host it on their store, but they still allow you to play through steam.
You don’t need the steam store to play games on the steam deck, it’s a PC. they even have EmuDeck to make it seamless with your steam library.
I used them for years until I switched to a gaming pc and steam link. The steam link is unfortunately dead as a concept so I just keep my tv as mirrored screen of my main monitor and plugged into my desktop.
But for what it’s worth it is easier to just buy a console if all you’re interested in is couch gaming
I recommend the Moonlight/Sunshine Combo for this.
Do you know if it works with arch based distros?
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There is a file called sunshine_aarch64.flatpak, maybe this is the one for you? https://github.com/LizardByte/Sunshine/releases/download/v0.20.0/sunshine_aarch64.flatpak
Thank you very much! I’m loving Garuda but it can be inconvenient that it’s built on arch whenever I want something that isn’t a detailed explanation of what’s broken
This is a real bummer. If I own the console Microsoft shouldn’t be able to dictate what software I run on it.
If i own the console
Oh no, don’t give them ideas. Soon they’ll make you rent the console like some tech companies are doing. :(
They kinda already do that, you can finance an Xbox over the course of 3 years
Pretty sure you own the console, but none of the software which is a license. So if you flash the console with new core software, you’re good. But then you probably can’t use an MS account, buy their games, run their games, use friends etc.
Sure, there is a path to do that if you keep your Xbox off the internet. But then you lose multiplayer with friends, being able to download new games, etc.
Wait, you guys have friends?! 🥺
(e: You all seem to think I’m kidding. I’m really not. B1ueSkyRanger on Xbox.)
You can still run all the emulators in developer mode. you just have to switch back to the walled-garden mode if you want to play actual xbox games.
It just sounds like console gaming is getting shittier as the years go by. Like now I can’t do what I want with it? They know the only things keeping old games from the void are emulators and enthusiasts right? Are they making these old games available? No? Then they should fuck off.
They dont want you playing the old games, because the old games were good with high replayability and staying power. The new games are designed for you to drop it before you mindlessly buy the new one hoping it will be better (it probably won’t).
Or the endless microtransactions. Oh god the hideous microtransactions! These two things are why I stopped playing new shit.
My App Store is a graveyard of games I deleted the moment they showed me an ad. I don’t care how good the game is, I’m not watching ads in order to play. I’ll happily pay a fixed price because developers and designers need to eat, but I play games to have fun, and constant ad interruptions are the opposite of fun.
Even worse, many games now want like $10 a week. Bitch, that’s more than I pay for Sibelius and the full Adobe suite.
Micro transactions, subscriptions, and ads absolutely ruin gaming. I’ll happily pay $10 for a decent game and $20 for a good one, but fuck off with the ads or ridiculous subscriptions. (I’m talking mobile. Like $60 for a console game, but you’d better not nickel and dime me after that.)
/rant
Lol don’t even get me started on phone games, last game I played on a phone was fucking Bejeweled 3 ffs! Been done with those!
Honestly, that’s why I’ve been liking Apple Arcade so much. $5 a month, tons of quality mobile games with 0 micro transactions. Most games work across my phone/iPad/MacBook. I know that subscriptions kinda blow. But I don’t have Netflix or Hulu or any of the big streaming sites.
They just recently added Stardee Valley, and it’s also where I found out that Slay the Spire is fucking awesome. On top of that, there’s many updated classic mobile games that had all the micro transactions ripped out and put on there.
I’m no Apple shill, but I give credit where it’s due. Apple Arcade fuckin slaps
Don’t forget the best invention mankind has come up with: loot boxes! Where’s your sense of pride and accomplishment?
I don’t think they care about the void, honestly. There was a story last week pointing out that like 87% of games are being lost to time. They don’t seem to care. They’ll just keep churning out clones and bullshit so long as the money keeps flowing. And it will.
Its a slow motion septic pipe burst. I’m just watching as 80% of people don’t care and neither to 100% of organizations. These are pieces of our digital history. They matter. We can’t see how things were before all the bullshit profit squeezing if no one preserves them. Even my “techie” friends don’t give a shit. “Why would I care abiut old games?” Its so much more than that.
I totally agree. It’s not frivolous; it’s an important part of who we are now, and it’s a real shame we’re already losing it.
In case you’re interested, there’s a fantastic video by NeverKnowsBest on the entire history of video games that I watched yesterday and found fascinating. There’s lots of vintage footage and interviews that I’d never seen before. It’s six hours long and I watched it in one go, it was so interesting.
I hope there are enough independent people saving at least some of our gaming history, because it’s a shame to see it evaporate like this.
Watched that documentary a couple months ago (also all at once) and can vouch
It’s a great video
I hope there are enough independent people saving at least some of our gaming history, because it’s a shame to see it evaporate like this.
I have a buddy who had fond memories of an old Apple ][ game, but he couldn’t find it anywhere. No copy of the software existed anywhere he could find, for sale or otherwise.
After a literal decade of searching, he finally found a copy of the game disk on eBay! He picked up a 5.25" floppy USB drive, hooked up an Apple ][ emulator… And nothing. The disk was encrypted in some way that made it unreadable.
Not one to give up easily, he then found and purchased an Apple ][ with a working drive.
The disk worked!
He started researching old copy protection schemes and it turned out that the disk had information written between the standard tracks to make it unreadable by standard hardware, but accessible to the software on the disk when it manually tweaked the drive head’s position.
One USB driver patch (and a couple months) later, he was able to extract the original software from the disk for archival. It works in emulators and is finally archived.
That’s amazing. I’m glad some independent people are doing things like this. Kudos to your friend.
“How DARE you to run… EMULATORS… on YOUR Xbox? Oh, sorry… OUR Xbox!HAH!”
- Billy bill
Thankfully even a $10 dollar device can run playstation games nowadays so el oh el to whoever is running emulators on a console.
ALL YOUR GAMES ARE BELONG TO US
You’ll own nothing and you’ll be happy
~Microsuck
Exhibit number I-lost-count in why my 50/50 PC/console split a decade or two ago is now a 100/0 split.
Steam Deck killed off the last console gaming I was doing.
The steam deck is the first “console” I’ve brought in a LONG time. It’s definitely done right. The controls feel good, and have plenty of options for various games.
The default mode lets me play all my computer steam library. It’s slick and mostly just works, even with older games.
On top of that, if I need to, I can just boot to a Linux desktop. It works with Bluetooth keyboards and mice, as well as giving hdmi and usb sockets via the USB c port (needs an adapter/dock). This means it can double for word processing etc, if required.
I actually struggle to find a viable feature it is missing.
Bought*
Yeah the steam deck is pog, keen to see future advancements
Is there a reason you’d want to use retail mode for emulators over developer mode? I don’t know what the two modes offer.
The ease of not having to boot into dev mode and rebooting into retail mode if you want to play with friends.
You also don’t need to pay the dev fee iirc.
Booting out of dev mode will also remove your apps if you don’t explicitly tell it not too. Which in turn is a hassle (there is an app that can be used to bypass this question tho).
You have to pay a 20$ fee do get access to dev mode and reboot the console to switch between the two. So it’s mostly just the convenience factor of having your emulators in the same menus as your regular games
Are these modified consoles or are they getting the emulator off the Xbox’s own fucking store? Banning people for using something you yourself provided is fucked up, and seems likely to be illegal somehow.
Why would anyone use an unmodded console for emulating? Rooted devices and PCs are the way to go.
Because it’s easy? Why wouldn’t you? If I had an Xbox sitting around and it was an easy option that performed well, I’d give it a shot.
Mac-only household and I can’t afford a PC just for gaming. I don’t want one, anyhow. I’ve been gaming since 1977 and have always preferred consoles, from the Intellivision through every Nintendo (except the Wii), PlayStation, and Xbox iteration. I like controllers and hate Windows with the passion of a white dwarf.
But that’s just me.
Many emulators run on mac or Linux and you can buy usb-ended controllers for damn near every console that has ever existed.
Oh shit, really? I didn’t know that. Mac hasn’t been good for gaming historically, and I basically gave up trying ages ago.
I think you’ve just destroyed my week.
https://www.retroarch.com/index.php?page=platforms
RetroArch has versions for both ARM and Intel based Mac’s. You shouldn’t have a problem playing up to Dreamcast, possibly later. There is a bit of a learning curve, but RetroArch is on pretty much everything now, and it’s worth learning.
I haven’t owned a mac in a long while, but I had one around 2012 and back then I was happily running N64 and SNES emulation and was somewhat active in the Super Mario World romhacking scene. I can only imagine it has improved since then. I know for a fact you can run tons of emulators on Linux because I have them all installed on my steam deck.
If you can do it on Linux, you can do it on Mac, right?
There are some programs where this isn’t true thanks to Apple’s M1 chip design not being compatible natively with x64/x86 applications. But most emulator projects support the M1.
On Intel Macs this is always true.
Can confirm - used to run Windows 11, got a steamdeck -> installed all the emulators - switch emulation is OP, was so impressed I ended out switching gaming pc over to linux. 90% of titles run just fine, the remaining 10% seem to be certain EA titles (and apparently that’s just due to their crappy launcher).
Emulators to check out:
Linux-specific gaming (outside of Steam - Valve’s Proton compatibility layer seems to make almost all titles work):
Take a look at the video from Retro Game Corps going over retro gaming on Mac.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=XohIHgpe1NI
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.
I bought a 130 dollar mini-pc that I slapped Batocera on, it turns any computer into a console that runs tons of emulators.
It’s revitalized my love of casual gaming
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It’s still okay to use emulators in dev mode though, right?
