Why Xbox Chief Phil Spencer’s Emulation Comments Matter in the Controversy Surrounding Video Game Preservation?

There’s no bigger murky situation in the gaming world right now than emulation. As the world moves ahead, the need for preserving older video games has become very important. While fans and many console manufacturers like Xbox try to preserve them through software emulation, legal issues trouble them a lot, causing many players to miss out on a fair chunk of nostalgia.

However, recently, Xbox chief Phil Spencer talked about the need for legalizing emulation to save gaming history. While it’s not the only way, Spencer explains why it’s probably the best. With so much controversy surrounding this problem, it’s high time for developers to take a stance to fix this issue.

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Xbox head honcho Phil Spencer on the need for emulation

Phil Spencer recently talked to Axios about the need for preserving historical video games. With many companies and franchises celebrating 20 and 30 year anniversaries already, many old titles have gain newfound popularity. However, with the lack of hardware options to play them, players can only reminisce about the good old days.

Spencer believes that the industry needs to use software emulation and provide players with an opportunity to play them. Xbox has done that for years with its Backwards Compatibility program. The company recently added over 70 games to the long list. However, it also provided some bad news because they will be the last ones to join the list, as the Microsoft owned brand can’t add more because of legal issues. Spencer wants to remove these issues by legalizing emulation, as he also mentioned how the industry needs to make sure that modern hardware allows fans to play any older game they want.

“My hope (and I think I have to present it that way as of now) is as an industry we’d work on legal emulation that allowed modern hardware to run any (within reason) older executable allowing someone to play any game.”

The grey area surrounding emulation

Software emulation comes with its fair share of issues as well. Currently, average users have access to many emulators on smartphones and other devices to run games from older consoles. This includes consoles from manufacturers like Xbox, Nintendo and PlayStation. However, as of right now, companies like Nintendo prevent them from gaining access to files and ROM players need to run the games as they continue to crackdown on the websites selling them.

But, fans have no other option as of right now. This is because if they want to play old titles they need to have access to these illegal files because developers like Nintendo have done a shoddy job at preserving these games. For example. Nintendo recently released nine N64 titles as part of the Nintendo Switch expansion. However, many players believed that fan-made ROMs and emulators provide a better experience compared to the ones developed by the company.

Piracy continues to hinder progress in emulation. However, developers need to work on providing a system, which allows players access to old games on new hardware. Like Phil Spencer mentioned, the industry needs a system which prevents companies like Xbox from facing legal trouble if they want to port/emulate old console titles for the players to have fun on modern hardware. While emulation provides a lot of cons, developers and console manufacturers can’t overlook the pros it provides as well.

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