It’s pretty sad that we can’t run PlayStation 3 games locally on PlayStation 5 (you can play them from the cloud right now, and Sony seems to be working on emulation), while we can on the Xbox Series console pair…

The developer mode of the Xbox Series has received an update, which means that you can now play PS3 games on both Microsoft consoles. If we announced this when Sony had already implemented it on the PlayStation 5, we’d be happy, as it would allow emulation on both console manufacturers’ products. But Sony is behind on this, so it’s very embarrassing for them, as you can see in the first video below, courtesy of ModernVintageGamer. He says that the Xbox Series S in particular is a masterpiece of emulation.

Mesa support has been added to the developer mode, so OpenGL and Vulkan are supported. This allows emulation of PlayStation 3 games and even Nintendo Switch games. It also runs Citra (from the same people who made the now-unavailable Switch emulator Yuzu), so you can run Nintendo 3DS games on the two Xbox Series devices, although this is still in alpha, so we should see significant improvements over the next few months. Developer Mode is a special mode on Microsoft consoles that allows you to develop and test games on them without the need for a devkit. You can find out how to get access to it on the Microsoft website.

It’s going to be weird when we get to the point where Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots runs just fine on an Xbox Series S, because that game is still inexplicably exclusive to the PlayStation 3 (but Konami will surely include it in Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol. 2, but it hasn’t been announced yet). It will happen, and Sony will just do nothing.

Source: WCCFTech, Microsoft