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Play PSX Games On Your Xbox
falzbro writes "Now Xbox owners (well, modded Xbox owners) can do what the Playstation people have been able to do for years; play PSX games on your console! PCSX has been ported to the Xbox. It's unfortunate that the homebrew Xbox development scene is stuck in a world of pseudo-legality, due to the lack of a usable Legal XDK. A compatibility list is currently being hammered out, and it's limited to only playing games stored on your Xbox HDD."
So you essentially have to rip the game onto your hard drive to play it? .... How big is an Xbox hard drive, and how much is your average PSX CD, again?
Somehow, I don't think this is as big a drawback as you make it sound.
This project may not interest you, but as an XBox and original PSX console owner this is extremely cool for those times I want to play Twisted Metal 2 and my PSX is being flaky because the plastic piece containing the laser assembly has warped slightly giving me problems reading discs.
You are talking about a tool. All tools can be used for good or for bad. A hammer can be used to damage a car, or to fix a house.
I'll be choosing to fix my house with this tool.
The emulator was developed using MS's XDK, and is itself nothing more than a bunch of stolen libraries and system calls.
You'd probably break down and cry if someone violated the GPL.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
One way or another, for Microsoft, your installing a modchip is A Bad Thing. Either you do it to turn your box into a PC, therefore very likely forgoing games (which they make all their profit from), to actually pirate games, or to use it for some other obscure purpose which I can't think of at the time being. :)
You'd protect your interests if you were in MS' shoes. If you're looking for someone to hiss at for unsavoury practices in the industry, take a look at some of Nintendo's early-nineties antics.
I'm talking about a piece of software that was developed using stolen code from microsoft, and is a port of open source code (GPLed, IIRC).
Sure makes the OSS community look grand, doesn't it?
So fine, you don't respect MS's IP in the XDK, but you respect the IP of every PSX devloper. I'll buy that.
But I'd bet the next step is to use the same reasoning as the kazaa users. "Why should I pay 20 bucks for a game with only 1 good level?"
I already said that technically I think emulation is really interesting.
I used to follow the develoments closely a couple of years ago. I watched NES and GameGear, then SNES and Genesis, then N64 and PSX emerge from the works of skilled coders.
By then it had all changed 100%. It was about 0-day r0mz and free games, not about mastering a piece of hardware.
Watch the emu community now, this "preservation of hardware" stuff, which used to be the driving mission, is now mostly lip service. Lots of work emulating popular stuff like GBA or PSX, little to nothing on Jaguar or Saturn or Dreamcast (the platforms in need of "preservation").
So this is just another step. Free 0-day r0mz for your xbox. Very little skill created this. It's a port of some open source using stolen libraries. It's written for a community that cares nothing at all for IP, and feels entitled to free games.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Just talking strategy, what's one of the biggest reasons the PS2 is kicking them around in the marketplace? The huge back-library of PS1 titles that can be had for $10. Suddenly, with NO work on Microsoft's part whatsoever, all those PS1 games are playable on X-Box - removing one more reason for people to shell out for a PS2. Of course, they'll probably just sue everyone anyway.
The consequences for Microsoft of people modding their Xboxs outweigh the benefit of people buying an XBox because they can play PS1 titles on it.
It would be nice to have such a big library of games to choose from, but the PS1 doesn't have such a bad price. Microsoft may figure that people who want to play those games will buy a PS1 if they also want to have an XBox.
...to burn, transfer, etc, one could earn the money even working a minimum wage job and buy a PSOne. Forget about "evil corporations", etc, on a pure time basis it's really cheaper to buy one.
So if MS really feels this way, why are they so obstinate about the Xbox modding? Xbox's protection is highly analogous to the Paladium in the way it uses a secure platform. So it seems like I ought to be able to diable this at boot time. Okay in return I should expect that Xbox games and Xbox network should be inaccessible in a non-secure platform mode, but if we take steve balmer at his word then this should be an acceptable choice left to the user to make.
On the other hand one could draw a more troubling inference. MS is saying, we are going to lock out non-approved game vendors by using our secure computing platform as a club. This is not unreasonable if it just stopped at Xbox (since they dont have a monopoly on game boxes). But this may also be a the camel's nose in the tent for genertal computing: we're going to do the same with paladium to secure our software monopoly. We will just call it a choice-- a hobson's choice--to evade the monopoly problem.
Of course I'm just talking out my ass here. But I see a strong parallel and dont like it.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Not to be a dick or anythingm but who cares? You can get a PSOne for $50.00 (US) almost anywhere. That's less than getting your XBox modded. And you won't have to worry about whether or not the emulator works with any particular game.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
You're talkin to Linux users remember. The same ones who'll spend hours downloading/building/tweaking/building/tweaking/bu ilding an app that offers 60% of the functionality of any of six Windoze shareware/pd apps (and about 30% of commercial apps) just to either save the $15 shareware fee/$120 commercial fee/just to avoid M$.
/.'er has more time than anything else (e.g. a life).
Remember, "it's only free if you don't value your time" and the average
*Applause* Seriously. I'm glad I'm not the only person that feels this way. The same applies for everything else, you can't use two wrongs to make a right.
... when it only has ..." is nothing more than an excuse to reason with yourself why your doing something illegal or wrong. If you don't want to pay money for the software, don't use it.
The whole excuse "Why should I pay
Seriously, applause again..
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
- How would they benefit from this?
- What aspect of their business interests would this serve?
- How does letting people modify their console to play their competitor's products help them?
- Do they get any money from those $10.00 PSX titles?
.ISO's, that's not really true, either.)
I don't see any business case for Microsoft not stomping this into the ground. Hell, they might even get Sony to help them out with this one as the need forThey wouldn't.
None.
It doesn't.
Nope. Sony does. (And since you have to use
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Except person #2 doesn't have to do all this work anymore because person #1 has made a .deb or an RPM after all his hard work.
... person #n.
Saves $120 for person #2, person #3
Who wants a bunch of crummy bugs and imcompatabilities? Just go buy a PSX at your local shop for a few bux.. They dont even cost anything anymore.. The only reason I could see why someone would want this on their XBox is to pirate games (As usual.)....
Right... Nintendo and Sony OTOH made their consoles with the only concern being the consumer's "fun". They had no intention of making any money whatsoever.
I bought a used PSX. It appears to be in good condition, but it sucks. Half my games won't play at any given time. I bought some used, but even the new ones with no scratches have problems. I'd like to be able to play the game I want when I want.
Are all the PSX systems like this? I'm sure their black CD surface "copy protection" doesn't help. I'd rather go back to the days of DOS where you have to configure the game for all your hardware and cross your fingers--assuming the game even supports your hardware at all...
"The reason no one writes good emulators for Jaguar or Saturn is because those consoles failed miserably and not enough people care about them."
Hence the "the platforms in need of "preservation" comment by the original poster.
"Sure there's a bunch of good Japanese Saturn games, but who wants to play a game in a language you can't even understand? Not me."
Then go download the translation patch. It's how I played Seiken Densetsu 3.
"Dreamcasts are still very cheap and easy to find, and there's not going to be any improvement with the graphics for like 10-15 years, if ever."
640K should be enough for anybody!
"GBA emulation on Xbox will let you play games on your TV with a nice backlight, and bigger display. You still can't do this, unless you import the expensive Gameboy Player for Gamecube,."
First off, you can't wait until next month to get a domestic Game Boy Player? I mean, hell, the damned thing will be released in North America before an import model would reach you from Japan!
Secondly, it's $50. If $50 is too much for you, you're in the wrong damned hobby (and probably the wrong website). This isn't exactly the Sega 32-X we're talking about here. Hell, I payed around 50% more than that for my copy of Final Fantasy "III," and that was before the US dollar started slipping. Worst-case scenario, you also buy a $150 GameCube to connect it to, which brings your total to about the same price as an Xbox. And you won't have emulation bugs, either.
If your excuse for emulating the Game Boy Advance on an Xbox is "to get a bigger picture" or "to get a back-lit picture," you're either too damned stupid to get a GameCube instead, or your only true reason is to be able to play illegal ROMs. You should be honest with yourself.
"Even though it would be nice to respect the open source community, it's not really worth it to reinvent the wheel to port these things to the Xbox legally."
And what, praytell, it the ultimate goal the "effort" you speak of is striving for? If the goal is anything but "play illegal games," then I'd have to say that the ends do not justify the means.
"This stuff does have the potential to be very useful, and not all of the new kids in the emulation scene are in it for piracy."
If they're not in it for piracy, why did they pirate the Xbox SDK?
"Most of them probably buy many more games than your average video gamer."
I'd agree with you a few years ago (I wouldn't have dug up an old Master System if I hadn't been introduced to Phantasy Star through emulation), but today I'll have to disagree.
Consider this: After the release of the Game Boy Player, there will be no legitimate reason to use a Game Boy Advance emulator to play commercial games*. Even those interested in making their own games can just go buy a Flash Advance. And yet there's no sign of the GBA ROM scene disappearing come June.
*(Actually, I can think of one reason, but if the GB Player doesn't do anything with Super Game Boy code, as both the GBA and GBC have failed to, I'll still always have my actual Super Game Boy)
Well, I can prove you wrong. ;)
The PSX emulation scene is quite mature and has been for some time. Emulators such as EPSXE for the PC and Linux are highly compatible with PSX games, nearing 98% compatible with all games.
PCSX2 is a Playstation2 emulator however, not a Playstation emulator, which is why it only runs a few demos. This is a port of its predecessor, PCSX, which is about on par with EPSXE.
I understand that it is cool to be able to do this... but i just don't see why we ignore such a powerful console(PS2) which is atleast slightly more open to Linux and the community.