X360 Games On PC With Win8?

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StreamsOfInferno

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http://ingame.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/07/12/7069092-your-pc-might-just-play-xbox-360-games

Microsoft's next operating system will include a feature that will allow gamers to play Xbox 360 titles on their PCs — at least according to some insider information making the rounds.

Insideris is reporting that unnamed sources have told them that Windows 8 will enable Xbox 360 gaming on PCs — though PC owners will have to pay a subscription fee akin to the one Xbox owners pay for access to Xbox Live. (Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal.)

And here's a tidbit that seems to back up the rumor: Clever snoopers have discovered references to the Xbox 360 in Windows 8 kernel code.

On the downside, apparently this feature will not allow PC owners to play multiplayer games against Xbox 360 owners — at least not initially. After all, it's generally agreed that PC players using mice would have a distinct advantage over their controller-holding competitors.

Windows 8 doesn't yet have an official launch date. But with a new version of the Xbox reportedly arriving in the next couple of years, this move is expected to help extend the 360's lifespan.

What do you think, gamers: Is this too good to be true? Is this something you would use and pay for? If so, what Xbox 360 games would you like to play on your PC?
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Not that I'd want to play an X360 version of a game on my rig, but it's interesting, I suppose.

Thanks to my gaming nerd wife, she found the article and I'd not heard shit about this, ha ha... though neither one of us touch consoles.
 
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already a thread in the console section ironically but damned if I'll ever buy another xbox now.
 
piscian18 said:
already a thread in the console section ironically but damned if I'll ever buy another xbox now.
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Ah, well I never look in the console thread, so I'd have no idea.

Yeah, no kidding (not that I'd buy another console in my life again anyway)... but, if anything, I'd think they'd be afraid this would decrease sales of the console. More people play on consoles these days, but it would certainly hurt consoles sales, I'd think.
 
mmmm....Halo 4....

I wonder what the system reqs will be...
 
I find it funny that MSN is reporting about a rumor about a Microsoft product.
 
Makes sense for Microsoft, and I've though console makers should pursue something like this. They make their profits mainly off licensing costs for games, along with addons and nowadays subscription services. It would make even more sense early on in a console's life cycle as it eliminates the loss per hardware while creating a larger user base.

Somethings will need to be answered though -

1) What will be the control scheme?
2) Will the games be as is, or can you do things like increase resolution?
3) What is the subscription cost versus the cost of a 360 by the time the service rolls out?
4) Does the subscription fee include xbox live?
 
It's definitely not something that's going to appeal to the already existing PC gaming crowd, for obvious reasons... no one is going to play the console version of a game that's available for PC already.

Regarding games that aren't on PC, it still makes little sense to me, because there aren't that many 360 exclusives.

For console gamers, I suppose it could be a "boon" for them, being able to play a 360 game on their laptop anywhere they go, which I suppose it cool for them.

In terms of the 360 itself, though, I'd think sales would see a drop-off since, for those who own decent laptops and/or desktop systems but who are really console gamers, they wouldn't have to spend money on buying another 360, and the visuals would be at least equal to what you'd get on a HD LCD TV. With the exception of the fact that gaming on a large screen is, of course, far better.

In terms of control schemes, since controllers are USB, they'd probably just depend on people using controllers the same as you do on the console itself.

In terms of resolution changes, that's something that devs would have to start coding into console games as a setting that could be adjusted.

Seems like an interesting, but odd move on MS's part.
 
makes sense I mean the xbox uses pc parts.. Given the power of new hardware running emulation shouldnt be all that hard.

This would be a good way to get a pure PC gamer like myself to consider some xbox titles for pc. LA Noire, Red dead redemption etc

That said I just realized this could canabalize pc versioons of games since the argument is the xbox version plays on PC's already.. So I could see this hurting PC optimized games also.
 
Not going to see any 360 games on the PC, what you are going to see is unification of GFWL and Xbox Live and then games compiled for different platforms using XNA.

Current PC hardware cannot even hope to emulate a 360
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
Not going to see any 360 games on the PC, what you are going to see is unification of GFWL and Xbox Live and then games compiled for different platforms using XNA.

Current PC hardware cannot even hope to emulate a 360
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You've already had that crap debunked in the other thread about this.
 
Plague_Injected said:
You've already had that crap debunked in the other thread about this.
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Don't bother , he fails to see reason.

Its possible to emulate 6 year old hardware on current generation CPUs/GPUs even though it would have a steep requirement. It won't happen however as it would damage there already fragile console market share.
 
StreamsOfInferno said:
Regarding games that aren't on PC, it still makes little sense to me, because there aren't that many 360 exclusives.
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Fighting games, sports games, jRPGs, 3rd person action games, platformers and etc. all have a much larger available selection on the Xbox 360.
 
dajet24 said:
makes sense I mean the xbox uses pc parts.. Given the power of new hardware running emulation shouldnt be all that hard.

This would be a good way to get a pure PC gamer like myself to consider some xbox titles for pc. LA Noire, Red dead redemption etc

That said I just realized this could canabalize pc versioons of games since the argument is the xbox version plays on PC's already.. So I could see this hurting PC optimized games also.
Click to expand...

The first Xbox used a 733MHz x86 Intel CPU, however the 360 uses a tri-core 3.2 GHz PowerPC CPU.

Not sure how hard it will be to get games made for a PowerPC CPU to work on Windows 8 machines with x86 CPUs.
 
Interesting...can't say I care much for the core Xbox lineup since most of the games I'm personally interested in are available for PC as well. However, there are some neat shmups and other downloadable games on their store that would be fun to play...
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
Not going to see any 360 games on the PC, what you are going to see is unification of GFWL and Xbox Live and then games compiled for different platforms using XNA.

Current PC hardware cannot even hope to emulate a 360
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Huh? What are you smoking from?

Emulation does require more horsepower than original hardware, but the efficiency really depends on how you implement it.

The PC hardware today are definitely more than capable of emulation on any console in market.
 
450 said:
The first Xbox used a 733MHz x86 Intel CPU, however the 360 uses a tri-core 3.2 GHz PowerPC CPU.

Not sure how hard it will be to get games made for a PowerPC CPU to work on Windows 8 machines with x86 CPUs.
Click to expand...

Its still a power pc... the gpu requirements are easy enough to supplement especially if you can can find a way to harness the gpu processing power for some cpu side stuff.
 
I do admit that it would be cool and I'd actually like to play a few console exclusive titles like Soul Caliber V on my PC, I almost just wish the other companies followed suits and just had a licensing cost per year to use official emulators or something like that.
 
if i could play some of my games like Forza in offline mode so i dont have to pay a sub, im all for it. Otherwise..........pffft.
 
shansoft said:
Huh? What are you smoking from?

Emulation does require more horsepower than original hardware, but the efficiency really depends on how you implement it.

The PC hardware today are definitely more than capable of emulation on any console in market.
Click to expand...

to put it in perspective the fully compatible Gamecube emulator requires a 2.2 GHz dualcore and 2GB of ram. Thats athlon 64 era.

The only thing of note is that emulators are more CPU intensive but a I5 or I7 is still more than capable of emulating xboxb360 or even Ps3.
 
It would be alright as far as being able to play exclusive titles,but the drawback could be the game companies might just stop developing more advanced PC versions of games altogether,and we'd be stuck with pitiful direct ports.
 
Plague_Injected said:
You've already had that crap debunked in the other thread about this.
Click to expand...

lets go back to 2004 shall we?

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/mar04/03-24xnalaunchpr.mspx

http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft-Unifies-Game-Development-Under-XNA/1080292669

now we get news of GFWL and XBL live merging.

Looks like I am correct

come back reality using common development tools != to running 360 game on your PC...

To all of you saying current PCs can emulate a 360, get a life no it's not going to happen with current hardware. just because you can emulate older single processor systems does not mean you can smoothly emulate a 360 or PS3

Now speaking of a 360 or PS3 it's going to be EXTREMELY difficult to emulate 3 cores let alone the 8 cores in the PS3 and have all of them interact correctly with each other.

Graphics are easy for the 360 and most likely the PS3 as you can translate those rather easily to DX or OGL...

Btw, the Dolfin emulator recommends at a mininum 2+ GHZ Core 2 Duo or AMD phenom 9550+ at 2.2Ghz just to "emulate" a measly gamecube or wii game smoothly.........and the dude flat out recommends 3+Ghz for best performance...........

Single processor systems are easy to emulate......multi processor systems are not
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
lets go back to 2004 shall we?

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2004/mar04/03-24xnalaunchpr.mspx

http://www.betanews.com/article/Microsoft-Unifies-Game-Development-Under-XNA/1080292669

To all of you saying current PCs can emulate a 360, get a life no it's not going to happen with current hardware. just because you can emulate older single processor systems does not mean you can smoothly emulate a 360 or PS3

Now speaking of a 360 or PS3 it's going to be EXTREMELY difficult to emulate 3 cores let alone the 8 cores in the PS3 and have all of them interact correctly with each other.

Graphics are easy for the 360 and most likely the PS3 as you can translate those rather easily to DX or OGL...

Btw, the Dolfin emulator recommends at a mininum 2+ GHZ Core 2 Duo or AMD phenom 9550+ at 2.2Ghz just to "emulate" a measly gamecube or wii game smoothly.........and the dude flat out recommends 3+Ghz for best performance...........

Single processor systems are easy to emulate......multi processor systems are not
Click to expand...

You have no official first-party emulation software to compare anything to but just user-created emulation programs...which everyone else has already pointed out. Nobody is talking about emulating the PS3 either, but the Xbox 360 which has an architecture much more resembling that of a modern PC. If MS launched and failed at an attempt to run 360 games on PCs then you'll have a point.

If you were arguing that it's unlikely MS will endorse or develop the ability to play 360 games on the PC then that is one thing, but to argue that it is impossible is quite another.

You are posting the exact same thing over and over like repetition equals factual accuracy.
 
Given that Windows 8 purportedly will support ARM out of the box, I imagine they've done some intensive programming and compiling to maximize its efficiency, and will be applying that to the 360 on PC programs.
 
Plague_Injected said:
ut the Xbox 360 which has an architecture much more resembling that of a modern PC.
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I don't understand this statement. Mostly because I don't understand how computer architectures work.

Is PowerPC to x86 simple?
 
I don't know how to react to this news.... Part of me wants to like it for the fact that it will allow me to play some Xbox exclusives with a mouse and keyboard (except I already purchased a XIM3). But the other part of me sees this as an excuse for game studios to stop developing PC titles.
 
I wouldn't buy a game for this I think it would be a major excuse to stop developing PC games and that sucks.
 
Hmmm, I wouldn't mind playing some of the 360 exclusives that I still haven't gotten around to playing. Will have to see if anything comes out of it.
 
michael.pa2 said:
It would be alright as far as being able to play exclusive titles,but the drawback could be the game companies might just stop developing more advanced PC versions of games altogether,and we'd be stuck with pitiful direct ports.
Click to expand...

Or worse, no ports at all. I really hope that isn't the direction MS is going to try and go with this.
 
Plague_Injected said:
You have no official first-party emulation software to compare anything to but just user-created emulation programs...which everyone else has already pointed out. Nobody is talking about emulating the PS3 either, but the Xbox 360 which has an architecture much more resembling that of a modern PC. If MS launched and failed at an attempt to run 360 games on PCs then you'll have a point.

If you were arguing that it's unlikely MS will endorse or develop the ability to play 360 games on the PC then that is one thing, but to argue that it is impossible is quite another.

You are posting the exact same thing over and over like repetition equals factual accuracy.
Click to expand...

uhm

IBM core is != X86 and I just love how you jump right over the technical hurdles required to properly run muticore software on another platform......I am not arguing that it is impossible as someday hardware will be fast enough to do it but today's hardware isn't and that is my point.

keep dreaming though......

btw I already gave the answer to how it's going to be done but you said I was full of it until actual links were posted conforming it.

Game is developed on XNA and then compiled for the different platforms and made available through Live! (or retail if they wanted). This makes the game available to Windows Phone, XBL and PC......
 
If I can play any 360 game eventually on a pc with Windows8, I will be thrilled. Think about it. By having a good gaming pc with Windows8 next year you will be able to play any pc or 360 game on your pc. I wouldn't even mind if it required a $60 per year Xbox Live Gold account if that meant never having to buy another console.

Things it makes me think about:

1. Next xbox console is probably coming out sooner rather than later.

2. The next xbox console might not be backwards compatible with 360 games and this is their solution regarding that.

3. Is Microsoft trying to get out of the hardware end of the business possibly? If they decided to go this route in the future, they would sell the games and it would be up to the gamer to provide the pc. When his pc breaks, Microsoft would not be responsible for fixing it. Microsoft makes little to no money off of xbox console hardware sales, in fact they are a head ache to Microsoft since they have to repair them under warranty.
 
The more I think of it, the more I think they won't need to use emulation or whatever (I am not some programmer, so take it easy on me). Whatever software/OS it is that the 360 runs on maybe they will just incorporate that into Windows 8. Then you would just need to have one of the compatible gpu's and cpu's (they could provide a list of both that would work), and you would be able to run the game just as if you were running it on a 360. No emulation at all.

It's just a theory.
 
^ last time I checked x86x/64 cannot run PPC code natively therefore it would have to be recompiled or emulated.........and it would be EXPENSIVE to recompile every XBox 360 game or even just the big hits becuase they would have to go back and tweak for PC in the control department if they wanted the games to run good.

leh18621,
MS is making a KILLING on live and making a tidy profit on hardware so I seriously doubt that they are leaving the hwardware business anytime soon. also with mid rage current hw able to run 1080p effortlessly, the next gen hardware will be a lot cheaper to make vs the current stuff as the 360 has a solid foundation on which to build a new console.......
 
450 said:
The first Xbox used a 733MHz x86 Intel CPU, however the 360 uses a tri-core 3.2 GHz PowerPC CPU.

Not sure how hard it will be to get games made for a PowerPC CPU to work on Windows 8 machines with x86 CPUs.
Click to expand...

Technically, we have true 6 core intel procesors now with hyper-threading for an emulated 12 cores. A lot of PC gamers have quad-core processors /w hyper-threading too for an emulated 8 cores. Regardless, if we have 4 cores today and 6 cores being the high end, by the time Windows 8 is fully finished, it would not be surprising if 6 cores became more mainstream and 8 cores became the high-end.

At which time, each intel core just has to produce half the work as a six-year-predecessor from another company b/c you'd have 2 intel cores to every 1 PowerPC core. It sounds possible to emulate perhaps.
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
leh18621,
MS is making a KILLING on live and making a tidy profit on hardware so I seriously doubt that they are leaving the hwardware business anytime soon. also with mid rage current hw able to run 1080p effortlessly, the next gen hardware will be a lot cheaper to make vs the current stuff as the 360 has a solid foundation on which to build a new console.......
Click to expand...

Yes, currently MS is making a killing on xbox 360 hardware and on xbox 360 software. Pretty soon though, the xbox 720 will be coming out and sales of the xbox 360 and xbox 360 software will decline as people start to switch to the new console. Its not a huge-leap to assume this. Ps2 sales slowly declined as PS3 very slowly rose. Xbox original sales decreased quite quickly as xbox 360 sales rose pretty sharply. Mostly b/c xbox original support was nearly entirely dropped upon 360's launch.

In any case, Microsoft can milk a lot more profit from all the xbox 360 software titles if they make xbox 360 games playable on the PC --when-- the xbox 720 comes out or shortly before. At which time xbox 360 hardware profits will ahve shrunk as the console price ocntinues to drop and people are saving for xbox 720s over 360s.
 
YeuEmMaiMai said:
To all of you saying current PCs can emulate a 360, get a life no it's not going to happen with current hardware. just because you can emulate older single processor systems does not mean you can smoothly emulate a 360 or PS3

Now speaking of a 360 or PS3 it's going to be EXTREMELY difficult to emulate 3 cores let alone the 8 cores in the PS3 and have all of them interact correctly with each other.

Graphics are easy for the 360 and most likely the PS3 as you can translate those rather easily to DX or OGL...

Btw, the Dolfin emulator recommends at a mininum 2+ GHZ Core 2 Duo or AMD phenom 9550+ at 2.2Ghz just to "emulate" a measly gamecube or wii game smoothly.........and the dude flat out recommends 3+Ghz for best performance...........

Single processor systems are easy to emulate......multi processor systems are not
Click to expand...

Having worked with emulators for device development, I can say that while I think this kid is smoking something, he isn't totally wrong either. It's non-trivial to emulate this. The number of cores here means nothing...but getting it to run well means having a top of the line gaming rig and a VERY optimized emulator. While the PowerPC chip in the XBox may be dwarfed by a i7...emulating powerPC on x86 will not be simple. Endianess, timing and whatnot make it very complex.

How do you think Xbox 1 titles work on the 360? It has to be emulation...it's possible, but non-trivial. That said, if anyone were to do it...MS might be able to.
 
rampantandroid said:
Having worked with emulators for device development, I can say that while I think this kid is smoking something, he isn't totally wrong either. It's non-trivial to emulate this. The number of cores here means nothing...but getting it to run well means having a top of the line gaming rig and a VERY optimized emulator. While the PowerPC chip in the XBox may be dwarfed by a i7...emulating powerPC on x86 will not be simple. Endianess, timing and whatnot make it very complex.

How do you think Xbox 1 titles work on the 360? It has to be emulation...it's possible, but non-trivial. That said, if anyone were to do it...MS might be able to.
Click to expand...

lol at the kid comment

of course the 360 runs xbox games but as of last count it was only 51% and the 360 is significantly faster than an original xbox. single core realitively slow cpu (a celeron for all practical purposes) but even MS cannot get it 100% functional as almost 1/2 the library does not work

these guys are talking about the PS3 but the same thing applies towards the 360....the hardware is complicated

The problem is as follows:
One of the cores in the console executes a series of commands. The emulator needs to execute the same series of commands to achieve the same effect. And the emulator needs to execute this series of commands in the same amount of time. The system running the emulator may not have exactly the same commands available in hardware as the emulated system. So the emulator needs to translate the console commands to commands the system running the emulator understands. This takes time. To still finish the series of commands in the same time as the console, the system running the emulator needs to be faster than the console core. The problem is that it seems the cores in PCs do not gain a lot more speed anymore, so 1 PC core can perform about as many operations as a console core. To still finish the series of commands in time, the PC needs to use multiple of its cores to emulate 1 console core. It is simply the only way to finish in time.

The problem is: how does the emulator decide to distribute the commands over the cores? If the commands are unrelated, there is no problem. If however the order in which the commands are executed is important, there is a problem. One of the cores may need to wait for the result of another core, before it can continue. This may take a lot of time. So the trick would be to avoid the situation where a lot of time is lost by waiting. Unfortunately there is no way for the emulator to know how to do this in general.

see what I am getting at?

So next time you want to call someone a kid, might want to reconsider.....ahahha

http://ubuntuforums.org/archive/index.php/t-1124607.html
 
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