PS5 Owners Can Now Play Original Xbox Games
There’s been a huge breakthrough in PS5 emulation that now allows jailbroken PS5 consoles to run original Xbox games and run them fairly well. The breakthrough comes the way of XPSemu, an open-source port of the xemu project for the PS5, and it comes on the back of a similar project involving PS2 emulation, PS5SX2. This is to say, emulation on PS5 has been making huge strides lately.
The new XPSemu runs as a standalone program on the PS5, but it’s still in the early days. To this end, it is currently in Alpha 1. And in order to run it, not only will you need a jailbroken PS5, but the console must be running on firmware 13.6. In its current state, Alpha 1, there is also a recreation of the original Xbox interface, or at least something incredibly close to it. Meanwhile, each game has its own individual settings with its own individual performance. As a result, not every game runs equally.
Some of the highlighted games so far include Halo 2, which is supposedly running at 30 FPS on original settings, and between 36 and 50 FPS during matches with a 60 FPS patch. Crash Bandicoot: The Wrath of Cortex is also described as running very smoothly. Other games don’t run as well, though, especially the more technically demanding ones. For example, Fable: The Lost Chapters hasn’t achieved a steady 30 FPS yet, while in more demanding areas it is often in the 10-20 range. Similarly, the original Forza Motorsport runs between 15 and 21 FPS in races.
Agora é a vez da Xbox original entrar na scene da PS5. O novo emulador XPSemu (port do xemu) a correr nativamente na PS5. Mais um! What's next? pic.twitter.com/EqrQm7irOx
— Filipe Gomes (@FilipeGomesPS) October 3, 2026
The Risks of Jailbreaking
While the appeal of running original Xbox games on the PS5 may feel too strong to handle, it’s worth noting that if you jailbreak your PS5, the following will occur: you will get a console PSN ban, and possibly an account PSN ban as well. You will also void your warranty, be limited to certain firmware updates, and potentially be stuck permanently on older firmware updates. Of course, disabling protections and installing unvetted software can also pose substantial security risks. Lastly, there is always the chance you end up bricking your console.
As for emulation, it’s important to keep in mind that emulation is very demanding on hardware, and as a result, it’s very hard to achieve great performance. It’s certainly not going to be universal, and will rather be a case-by-case basis. There is also the concern of potential malware, and the legality of certain aspects is certainly dubious.
That said, the emulation scene has been around forever and has been growing in both capability and popularity. To this end, an extensive GameCube emulator was made available on Xbox Series X not that long ago.
H/T, Hardware Premium.