Update (Sept. 27): As expected, Microsoft has pulled Xbox One support from the emulator discussed below. Those that purchased and downloaded the app before the change can still use it on their systems, but new purchases can only use the app on Windows PC and mobile devices (and Windows Holographic, if they happen to have that).

Despite the change, the written description for the app still claims Xbox One support, leading to anger from some commenters on the Windows Store page. "I'm pissed," writes one commenter going by the handle jackson. "I just hear about this and I go to buy it so I can play some sweet n64 games but now the app doesn't run on Xbox. So either this gets updated, or I WANT A REFUND!"

Original story: In previous generations, if you wanted to emulate one game console on another, you'd generally have to use some sort of jailbreak or hack to install unauthorized homebrew apps on the system. Today, thanks in part to Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform, you can download a Nintendo 64 emulator to your Xbox One directly from Microsoft's official store.

The "Win64" emulator can download ROMs from a user's linked Microsoft OneDrive account, making it quite simple to import and play homebrew titles or copyrighted games (which we're sure you've personally ripped from your own collections for completely legal backup purposes). The emulation quality is far from perfect, though. Simple games like Super Mario 64 run pretty well, but other games we tested suffered from very noticeable sound and graphics problems and struggled to run at a full frame rate.

The quality of the emulation here is less notable than the fact that such an emulator is available through the official Xbox Store in the first place. It's especially notable considering Microsoft already officially emulates select N64 titles through the Rare Replay collection. Even if Microsoft removes this new emulator from the Xbox Store (as we expect it will in short order), the app should still be usable for those who managed to download it beforehand.

This isn't the first time a developer has tried to use UWP to get an emulator onto the Xbox One. Earlier this month, the makers of the NESBox multi-console emulator announced on Twitter that they had been approved for certification on the Xbox One Store. The next day, they announced that Microsoft had asked them to remove the Xbox One support and resubmit the app.

That all suggests Microsoft frowns on running console emulators on its own console. Microsoft has yet to respond to a request for comment from Ars Technica, but the company previously told Ars that UWP apps would be tested to make sure developers don't sneak in games through a UWP program meant for productivity apps.

NESBox got around that restriction, in a way, by converting its emulator to a free HTML5 app that can run on the Xbox One through the built-in Edge Web browser. By distributing through the Windows Store, however, Win64 avoids that problem, and it gets access to the Windows hardware without the added abstraction of running through a browser (though UWP apps do still run through a Windows virtual machine on the Xbox One).

Microsoft isn't the first closed platform to face this kind of emulation access issue, either. Apple doesn't officially allow unlicensed console emulators on its iOS App Store, but developers can occasionally sneak through Apple's approval net (or iOS security holes ) to get emulators onto non-jailbroken devices. Now, with UWP, it looks like the Xbox One is in a similar position and that Microsoft will have to be extra vigilant to stop further emulators from sneaking onto its console.