PlayStation games are designed to be played on the PlayStation 5 and nothing else. Lately though, modders have grown more mischievous than ever and have been doing things never done before. Through the use of emulators, the community has managed to get PS5 games to run on PC, which is quite the feat in and of itself — though still significantly less difficult than getting those games to run on Microsoft's Xbox consoles. Turns out, that's now possible too.
Devran Cosmo Uenal, a developer, has managed to get a few PS5 games up and running on the Xbox Series X. He pulled it off by using an existing open-source PS5 emulator that normally runs on PCs – KytyPS5 — and ported it to the Xbox. He's named this unique version the PS5X. Interestingly, PS5X runs through the Xbox's Developer Mode, an official feature that any owner can turn on. It's designed to let any retail console run software that's being built and tested.
So far, Uenal has shown that the PS5X can load four PS5 games. These are GEX Trilogy, Hellboy: Web of Wyrd, Marvel Cosmic Invasion, and Quake II. These games were probably selected specifically since they're less demanding and easier to get running. Indeed, all four managed to run okay and even responded to an Xbox controller – though only one of them could produce audio.
Uenal even shared footage of the game, showing it running between 25 and 45 frames per second, though it does occasionally dip below 20 FPS, too. There's also a noticeable latency between pressing buttons and seeing the result on the screen.
PS5X has overcome a lot of hurdlesNow, it's worth mentioning that none of these four games are PlayStation exclusives. So technically PS5X hasn't gotten any big-name exclusives up and running just yet. That said, there's a more recent follow-up video on Uenal's channel showing a menu modeled on the PS5's home screen – except it's running on the Xbox. It possibly shows what's to come. The library now lists bigger names like Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time and Gran Turismo, though none of them has been shown in action yet.
Still, it's an impressive proof-of-concept (Uenal specifically calls it a research project), especially considering the graphics hurdles involved. On PC, KytyPS5 is able to draw everything using the Vulkan graphics interface. But the Xbox doesn't support Vulkan natively – instead, it relies on Microsoft's DirectX, Microsoft's own graphics interface. As a result, Uenal has to convert KytyPS5's graphics code so it works with DirectX.
Besides the lack of Vulkan, the DirectX conversion causes a second problem. Whenever the KytyPS5 team improves its PC version, Uenal can't simply copy those changes over to Xbox. And these improvements have been coming in pretty quickly. For instance, in early September, the emulator ran the PS5 remake of the Demon's Souls at a measly 1 to 2 FPS. Cut to the end of the month, and a video showed the same title hitting 40 to 50 fps. PS5 emulation, or emulation in general, is pretty demanding too and does call for some high-end hardware – unlike some of the best emulator on Android that are able to run their games on a regular phone.
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