Are PS4/Xbone emulators possible on PC? (eventually)

[Nvidiaguy07]

Since this gen of consoles is now pretty much x86 based - does this mean that unlike the 360 and ps3 which had very different architectures than PC, it will be easy to create a xbone/ps4 emulator in the next few years? I know there is a lot of DRM and such to break before anything like that is possible, but if it were for that - would it be possible?

I know this change is gonna make porting games to platform to platform easier, but I was just thinking what this means in terms of playing a xbone game on my PC in the future.

I personally dont like to keep a lot of crap around the house - so the more consoles that are eventually on PC the better for me long term. Right now, and many years from now, if I want to play NES, SNES, PSX, Wii, etc. I dont need to go up in the attic and get out all controllers and all that crap, its all available on PC now - which is what im hoping will eventually happen with current systems.



Learn to search please. Thanks.

Anandtech Moderator
KeithTalent

 

[Revolution 11]

There have been several threads on this, just FYI. But yes, it is certainly possible. I think maybe even easier to do than for the 360 and PS3 generation for the reasons you mentioned.

But that doesn't mean that emulation will be "easy". A emulator team can't really start without some form of documentation and knowledge about the firmware and architecture of the platform. This can take 10 years or longer to accomplish, depending on the platform. The whole process would be greatly speeded up if the company released this information, which they would never do.