Win64e10 | The Quickly Pulled N64 Emulator Released for Xbox One

So here's an odd little story you may not have heard of. Back on the 26th of September an N64 emulator by the name of Win64e10 quietly made its way onto the Xbox Live marketplace. Initially the game was only available for Windows 10 devices through the Windows store and was the first emulator to be available officially through a console marketplace. Win64e10 cost a hefty £7.69 and quietly sneaked past Microsoft's certifications. Never the less the app was only available for roughly a day before Microsoft caught on and removed the app the following day. Luckily(?) I did manage to get wind of the news and swiftly purchased it hours before it's removal. Don't worry, you're not missing anything.

I'd rate the app less than 3 stars if I'm honest.

The emulation is, to be frank, rubbish. Majority of the titles are emulated poorly, when games do run somewhat optimally, the audio will be insufferable. Audio glitches are the serious offender here with many titles making you want to rip your ears off in seconds. You're also going to see the common issue of graphical glitches where the emulator struggles to render specific sprite based images within games. In Chameleon Twist 2 for example, the bridges used to traverse the environments aren't even rendered. Slowdown plagues nearly every title you throw at it making most games practically unplayable, with some being more insufferable than others. If that's not enough, you have the controls. Unfortunately analogue movement isn't emulated here, so if you decide to use D-pad movement or analogue movement, it will always be emulated as digital. Racing and platform games are more difficult than they should be due to this as finite movements can't be replicated. If you're wondering what settings there are for the games well, there are none. Unfortunately selecting the 'settings' options just crashes the app, so what you see is what you get. 

I'm glad Microsoft didn't remove the app for people who bought it

Despite mentioning the poor compatibility with nearly all titles, there are a minuscule handful that I would deem nearly fully playable. In terms of compatibility it really does seem the emulator is optimised to play Mario 64 predominantly as the emulation for this title is near perfect. There are some very minor audio glitches and tiny bits of slowdown in some areas, but otherwise I'd call it fully playable; albeit for digital controls. Another weird title that played near perfect was Buck Bumble, aside from minor slowdown when hitting enemies, the game ran perfect with no audio glitches either so you can hear that amazing OST in all it's glory.

The last game that I'd consider playable would be the first Turok game, where slight slowdown and minor audio glitches only occur for a split second during cutscenes. Other than that the game runs surprisingly well despite not being able to configure the control scheme meaning you'll uncomfortably be moving with the right analogue stick. Turok's sequels don't fare as well probably due to them trying to push the systems a lot more than the original.

Aside from that there aren't many other titles worthy of being called "fully playable". A number of titles do play at full speed without any graphical glitches are plagued by excruciating audio problems. Games like Tetris 64 with the audio off is a pleasant experience, as is titles like Ms Pacman. Though if you're playing with your TV muted you have to wonder whether it's worth playing at all...

They games may look good, but they're sure don't play well.

It's not all bad, there are some notable aspects of the emulator that are praise worthy. For one games that do run look great. All games run in full widescreen at 1080P and look impressively sharp. I must also mention that I like the layout of OS specific control options mapped to the Xbox One controller. The right trigger speeds the game up, the back (menu) button pauses the game and pressing B minimises the window to browse the apps home screen. From there you can select another title, browse settings (which as previously mentioned, doesn't work) or for save/load state options.

Getting roms onto the app is pretty cleverly implemented taking full advantage of Xbox One's integration with their Outlook and OneDrive services. First you put roms onto a folder onto your OneDrive, open Win64e10 on your Xbox One and link your Outlook account. From there you can download the roms onto your console so you don't have to rely on an Internet connection. I don't know about you, but that's pretty well thought out if you ask me.

Let's not kid ourselves though, it's a pretty terrible emulator that was most certainly not worth the price. So why did I buy it? Because I knew it would end up as an oddity, a lost part of history that's quite novel. Seeing Mario 64 playing on the Xbox One is pretty surreal and that feeling sticks with me despite the many hours I've done testing. From the 6th of April this year, Microsoft's stance on emulators in general have radically shifted with them banning all emulators from their Windows store. We will probably never see an incident like this happen ever again making Win64e10 a bizarre oddity in gaming history.