How To Play PS1 Games On Your Xbox Series X/S

An emulator that can play PS1 games at native 4k and 60fps has just been ported to Xbox Series X and Series S consoles, so BRB while I boot up Spider-Man (2000).

On July 11, the creators of emulator software DuckStation dropped a UWP Xbox port, letting Xbox Series X and S players run the emulator and play PlayStation 1 games, among other console games, in developer mode. Unlike the original console’s limitations, however, PS1 games can run at a native 4K and 60fps on Xbox’s new-gen hardware.

And the best news? It’s super easy to do!

How To Play PS1 Games On Your Xbox Series X/S

First, make sure your console is in developer mode. If you don’t have access to it, you’ll need to get a developer license from Microsoft.

Access your console’s internet browser and download a file named “duckstation-uqp.appx” from here.

Once that’s finished, head to the device portal (you can find that in the Home Screen) and install the app file by hitting “Add”.

Set the app to game mode and either download a BIOS image to the console and upload it to Duckstation or upload a BIOS image from a USB to the state directory. You can do the same by downloading games (ROMs) onto the console hardware or via a USB.

Boot up DuckStation and voila.

How to play PS1 games on Xbox Series X/S in 4K 60FPS

If you want to play games in 4K, go to the enhancements settings in DuckStation and change the resolution scale to 9x which will enable a 4K and 60FPS output.

You can also change the aspect ratio from 4:3 to a widescreen, as well as use true colour rendering (although warning, it can affect the rendering of some games), and smoothen the blockiness of magnified textures on 3D objects with texture filtering. The latter is particularly more effective on higher resolution scales so best recommended if you’re running PS1 games at 4K.

Note: it’s best recommended to save memory cards to a USB drive rather than the actual Xbox console since any files related to DuckStation will be removed if you uninstall the app.

For a full breakdown of all this, check out this video below:

A decent sum of the best games on the PlayStation 1 are available as remastered or ported collections, but this is a great win for anyone who’s missed playing the hidden gems of that era. PaRappa the Rapper? Digimon World? Ape Escape? Chrono Trigger? Wipeout 2097? Parasite Eve? Sign us up.

It’s unclear what the exact copyright laws are around this emulator and whether PlayStation will try and shut it down. Earlier this week, Nintendo ordered a site that uploads ROMs to “destroy” them all, or else.

Xbox meanwhile has been rather open about making some of their first-party games cross-platform — Ori and the Blind Forest on Nintendo Switch is a good example of this — but Xbox and PlayStation exclusive software have always stayed in their respective lanes.

In the meantime, you can download and play PlayStation 1 classics on your Microsoft hardware. Enjoy!