PS4 / Xbox One, Will we really need an emulator?

[ert3]

given the similarity in hardware (although the PS4 does sport a much faster basic ram speed / capacity) and the fact that Xbox one is basically just Windows 8 TV gaming edition one has to wonder if this next generation of consoles will require an emulator so much as a few specific DLLs and a copy of wine for the mac crowd.

Theories?

 

[0098386]

given the similarity in hardware (although the PS4 does sport a much faster basic ram speed / capacity) and the fact that Xbox one is basically just Windows 8 TV gaming edition one has to wonder if this next generation of consoles will require an emulator so much as a few specific DLLs and a copy of wine for the mac crowd.

Theories?

So you're after piracy of next gen console games?

 

[AdrianK]

given the similarity in hardware (although the PS4 does sport a much faster basic ram speed / capacity) and the fact that Xbox one is basically just Windows 8 TV gaming edition one has to wonder if this next generation of consoles will require an emulator so much as a few specific DLLs and a copy of wine for the mac crowd.

Theories?

It would be great if it worked like that, but it really doesn't. The original Xbox was powered by a Pentium 3 and a custom version of windows. 12 years later there are no decent emulators for it. Really the most recent console emulator we have is Dolphin for the Wii (and GC), which is 7 years old.

So you're after piracy of next gen console games?

Yeah, this guy's going to put you out of the job

 

[Dookieman]

The age of emulators will most likely end at the GC/PS2 generation, or the Wii I suppose but its just an enhanced GC so a lot of the work was already done in Dolphin. The complexity of PS3/Xbox and future consoles will make it almost impossible to create an emulator. The amount of processing power required just doesn't exist, and won't exist for a long while. On top of that, the new systems will most likely require a network connection to have the best user experience. This by itself will be difficult to reverse engineer since you would have to understand both the server and client side of things.

Now, I'm not saying it impossible, but you would have to have the man power and hardware knowledge of Microsoft, Sony, or Nintendo to build anything close to useable. Even then, emulators made by the big boys still have lots of bugs and issues. But alas, there is literally NO reason for them to do this.

I feel confident in saying this: They will NEVER exist or be attempted.

 

[musicjunky]

At this point, console games aren't interesting to emulate on computers as they're too similar in architecture as PC games, with little "console." In my opinion.