RPCS3 team comments on developing original Xbox and Xbox 360 emulator

RPCS3 is the world’s best Sony PlayStation 3 emulator. Not only can the emulator play a vast majority of PS3 games on PCs with good performance, but RPCS3 also brings cool features like the ability to play PS3 game discs. Seeing all of this, it is not a surprise that many people want the folks behind RPCS3 to develop more emulators.

Under a recent post on X announcing the stability fixes in several PS3 games, a user asked the RPCS3 team whether they can “have a small team look into forking and or developing an original Xbox emulator possible also an Xbox 360 emulator too?” To this, the RPCS3 team replied that “we have no plans to work on any other emulators besides RPCS3”. Moreover, the team further explained that they have “no particular interest in Xbox and most of us do not even own an Xbox console”.

This is not the first time that the RPCS3 team has shut down requests for the team to develop more emulators, particularly for other PlayStation consoles. Admittedly, this is quite disappointing, as the folks behind RPCS3 are super talented, having made the emulator into a tool that now plays over 79% of the PS3 library without any hitches. RPCS3 also gets frequent patches and improvements, which resolve critical issues and boost performance.

That said, Xbox fans can look forward to Microsoft’s efforts with Xbox Backwards Compatibility on PC. The program allows gamers to run a small set of selected Xbox games on PCs and Windows handheld gaming consoles like the Asus ROG Ally (get one on Amazon). The program is still in a very early phase. But it does give us hope regarding comprehensive official Xbox and Xbox 360 emulation in the coming years. Microsoft might even be planning the feature for the next-gen Xbox Helix, but this is pure speculation at this point.