Friday, April 7, 2023

Emulation Station Eradication (salty language)

Ars Technica is right, you know. Unlicensed emulators won't run on the Xbox Series, even if you've already downloaded them. I've tried it. They're toast. That was like, seventy-five percent of the reason I turned on my Xbox Series in the first place!

Microsoft, this wasn't the arrangement. You said you'd let us play in the virtual backyard of the Xbox Series and run our own software as long as we didn't publicly jailbreak the system. So what is this? A Darth Vader-style changing of the agreement and a warning that it could be changed further in the future? If I pay the twenty dollars for Dev Mode, will I lose that in the future, too?

By the way, I don't want to hear this shit about section 10.13.10 in the official Xbox Store and Junior Woodchuck guidebook, either. Microsoft and other publishers are just fine with emulators, as long as they're getting their licensing fees from whoever's making them. I should know; between the Xbox, Switch, Playstation 4, and Steam, I've bought well over a hundred games and collections, running in emulation. They're mine legally, and I'd buy more if Nintendo actually sold them instead of putting them on the rental plan like they were fucking Blockbuster. 

I'd also buy more from Microsoft if they took the stick out and came to an agreement with Hamster, which has the rights to hundreds of classic arcade games but for whatever reason won't publish them on the Xbox platform. I don't care what the issue is between these two companies... if Microsoft can afford to buy Activision, it can sit down with a Hamster representative and cut them a check. Xbox owners deserve as much, especially now that other avenues for playing these games have been closed.

By the way, I'm getting damn tired of the recent vilification of emulation, not just from Microsoft but detested DRM software developer Denuvo as well. Were you planning to give me a legal way to play Capcom vs. SNK 2 or Bloody Roar Primal Fury without digging a twenty year old game console out of the closet and hooking it up to an LCD television set it wasn't designed to use as a display? Were you going to release the thousands of arcade games we've never seen in an official capacity on home consoles, because publishers decided that getting the rights was just too much trouble? No? Well then shut up, and eat a king-sized dick.

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