The Xbox is Microsoft's first console, released in November 2001 in North America, February 2002 in Japan and March 2002 in Europe. It marks the Windows publisher's entry into the living-room market, against the PlayStation 2, the GameCube and the fading Dreamcast.
Its architecture is that of a PC: an Intel Pentium III processor at 733 MHz, an NVIDIA NV2A graphics chip derived from the GeForce 3, 64 MB of unified memory and above all an 8 GB internal hard drive — a first on a home console, allowing saves to be stored, audio CDs to be ripped and game data to be cached. The machine also has an Ethernet port, on which the Xbox Live service, launched in late 2002, would rely.
Commercially the Xbox stayed well behind the PlayStation 2 with around 24 million units sold, but it established Microsoft in the sector for good. Its catalogue revolves around Halo: Combat Evolved and Halo 2, its true system sellers, alongside Ninja Gaiden Black, Jet Set Radio Future, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Fable, Project Gotham Racing and Knights of the Old Republic.
| Manufacturer | Microsoft |
| Year | 2001 |
| Type | Console |
| Media | DVD-ROM |
| Controller | Mandatory |
Emulator availability per board:
| Emulator | RPI3/RPI02W | RPI4/400 | RPI5/500 | OGA/OGS/RG351 | PC | RG353 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| xemu | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ | ❌ |
The Xbox is available on x86_64 PC only. The xemu package is built on no ARM board: neither RPi3/RPi Zero 2, nor RPi4/400, nor RPi5/500, nor the OGA/OGS/RG351 and RG353 handhelds. The system will therefore not appear in EmulationStation on those machines, even with games in the folder.
xemu is a standalone emulator, derived from QEMU, that reproduces the original console hardware. It is the only emulator provided for this system. Netplay, softpatching, RetroAchievements and CRT output are not available. A controller is mandatory; keyboard, mouse and light gun are not supported.
Xbox emulation is demanding and still young. Expect to need a recent x86_64 processor and a graphics card with an up-to-date Vulkan or OpenGL driver. Compatibility varies a great deal from one title to the next: some games run properly, others show graphical glitches or do not start at all. Do not treat this system as being on a par with Recalbox's older platforms.
xemu also emulates the console's internal hard drive. On your first session, a virtual disk and an EEPROM are created in /recalbox/share/saves/xbox/: that is where all your saves and the console settings live. Remember to back that folder up.
Two guides complete this page: Xbox for getting started, and Console settings for language, region, DVD zone and resolutions.
Two files are mandatory, and their MD5 fingerprint is checked: a file with the right name but the wrong contents will be rejected.
| File name | Description | MD5 | Emulators concerned |
|---|---|---|---|
xbox/Complex_4627.bin |
Image of the console's flash ROM (mandatory) | 39cee882148a87f93cb440b99dde3ceb | xemu |
xbox/mcpx_1.0.bin |
MCPX controller boot ROM (mandatory) | d49c52a4102f6df7bcf8d0617ac475ed | xemu |
Place the BIOS files like this:
/recalbox/share/bios/xbox/
├── Complex_4627.bin
└── mcpx_1.0.bin
Without these two files, xemu will not start. The BIOS checker reports any missing file or any file whose fingerprint does not match.
Put your games in:
/recalbox/share/roms/xbox/
Supported extension: .iso
Games must be in XISO format. A raw Xbox disc image, as obtained by simply copying a DVD, is not directly readable: it contains padding data that has to be stripped first. The conversion procedure is described in the Games conversion guide.
No game ships with Recalbox for this system: the folder is empty on first boot.