Xbox Series X/S als Emulator-Traum: PS1, PS2, SNES; Mega Drive (Update)

+++ Update: Microsoft has blocked RetroArch on the Xbox Series X/S. It is now no longer easily possible to use the emulator on the console. RetroArch may still work in paid dev mode. +++

Original message

You can install the RetroArch emulator platform on Microsoft’s Xbox Series X and Series S consoles and set up various emulators and play ROMs on it.

For example, emulators for the Super Nintendo, Mega Drive, Neo Geo, PC Engine, PlayStation 1, PlayStation 2, Arcade, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast or Nintendo’s Gamecube run.

warning in advance

But before you consider using your Xbox as an emulator machine, you are purchasing RetroArch off Xbox Live and if you do so, it is at your own risk. We are not aware of any cases where fans have been banned by Microsoft for this, but it cannot be completely ruled out.

Worst-case scenario, you’ll lose access to your Microsoft account, and with it, access to your Xbox Game Pass, which you may have paid for a year in advance.

However, it is theoretically possible to create a second account and obtain RetroArch from it.

Set up RetroArch

Access to the developer mode (“Dev-Mode”) is no longer necessary. RetroArch download works via a website that can be accessed with the Edge browser on the console.

In the video above you can see how to access Retroarch and install the Durango FTP program to move files to internal storage.

The latter is necessary, for example, to place certain BIOS files or games that consist of multiple files (such as PlayStation 1). These usually only work if they are on the internal memory and not if you want to load them from a USB stick. Again, this works on SNES or Mega Drive roms.

Getting started with RetroArch

We advise you to use RetroArch in English, because over time you may want to solve various problems and most of the information, including the videos included here, is in English. For the sake of consistency, you should stick with this language.

First you should update the cores and other settings: Navigate to Main Menu and Online Updater. Updates all items preceded by “Update”.

Now you should set a hotkey so that you can always call up a menu when playing games – for example for options, for closing and exiting RetroArch:

• Settings
• Input
• Hotkeys
• Menu Toggle Controller Combo
• For example select hotkey “L3+R3”.

start games

If the cores for the platforms are installed and you have stored your games internally in a “Games” folder, you can easily start them:

• Main Menu
• Load Content
• Navigate through folders to the destination path
• select game
• Select correct core

Start games from the USB stick

It is also possible to put games on a USB stick formatted with the NTFS format, plug it into the Xbox and then start it. You then simply select the path name of the USB stick in RetroArch, maybe it’s “D:\”.

Create playlists and favorites

If navigating through the folders for game selection is too annoying, playlists can also be created. This works as follows:

• Import Content
• Manual Scan
• Content Directory: Enter the path of the platform’s games folder here
• Default Core: Select the core for the platform here
• Start Scan

A playlist should appear in the bottom left corner of the main menu, such as “Arcade”. If you select a game there, you can also save it as a favorite and access it even faster later.

If you don’t have an Xbox, you can also install RetroArch on an Amazon Fire TV Stick.