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Microsoft officially launched console backwards compatibility for PC last week, bringing over a handful of original Xbox titles to the PC platform for the first time. Now, evidence suggests that Xbox 360 titles will soon be supported too.
According to a new report from Tom’s Hardware, the backwards compatible releases shipped with a native x86 version of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 emulator. Modders quickly discovered that the PC versions of the newly released OG Xbox titles were running inside Xe03, the same emulator used for backwards compatibility on Xbox One and Xbox Series consoles. This discovery was further backed up by dataminer findings shared by TheLunarixus, confirming that the PC packages contain both the 360 emulator and the OG Xbox emulator nested inside it.
With Xe03 now running natively on PC, modders have already begun loading Xbox 360 executables directly into the emulator with promising results. Early tests have seen titles like Plants vs Zombies, Steins Gate, Fuzion Frenzy and Midnight Club Los Angeles booting with varying degrees of stability. This opens the door for major Xbox 360 exclusives such as Gears of War 2 and 3, Fable 2 and Fable 3 and many more console-only titles to finally make their way to PC in the future, either through official releases or community driven projects.
Microsoft has promised to bring more backwards compatible games to PC over time, but it has not yet announced plans for Xbox 360 support. However, the fact that the emulation tech is already in place shows that Xbox 360 titles will be making their way over to PC in the near future.
KitGuru Says: There are a ton of exclusives from the original Xbox era and the Xbox 360 era that never came to PC. With official emulation tools in place, that should soon change. Even if a game isn't officially supported in the backwards compatibility program, there is a chance that those with enough know-how will be able to run unsupported games through Microsoft's own emulator.
