Phil Spencer Calls For Industry-Wide Support Of Emulation To Preserve Video Games

Just days after Xbox's compatibility program lead Peggy Lo said the team had "reached the limit" of its ability to bring new games to the backwards compatible catalog due to various technical and licensing roadblocks, head of Xbox Phil Spencer has now called for the entire games industry to get behind legal emulation strategies.

Speaking to Axios, Spencer noted how important emulation was in order to preserve the history of video games:

“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.”

“If we said, ‘Hey, anybody should be able to buy any game, or own any game and continue to play,' that seems like a great North Star for us as an industry.”

Axios co-author, Stephen Totilo, also noted how Spencer had some comments about CMOS issues. Until recently, there were concerns amongst PS4 users that when their internal CMOS batteries died and the PlayStation Network was shut down, there would no longer be a way to access the console - even when replacing the battery - because a PS4 must connect to the PS Network at least once before it can be used.

Fortunately, this was reportedly fixed in a recent firmware update for Sony's last-gen console.

Xbox has also conjured up similar concerns in recent times, and here's what Axios & Spencer had to say about it:

"Not in story, but regarding CMOS issues on Xbox hardware: "The hardware team is hearing the message about our consoles should.. allow for the ongoing relationship between the player and the content that they own. So like, we hear the message and the teams are looking at things."

"Unclear the extent to which Spencer envisions a way around the need to do online downloads and checks to keep running games on Xbox down the line. But his sentiment suggests support for long-term access to what you bought."

What are your thoughts about Phil's comments following on from the addition of 76 new backwards compatibility titles earlier this week? Comment down below.

[source axios.com, via twitter.com]