PS5 games on Xbox: what actually runs, and what doesn't

One PS5 game boots on Xbox Series X. It runs at about 10 FPS. Astro's Playroom — the demo that ships with every PS5 — runs via a community fork of KytyPS5 and Microsoft's official Developer Mode. No other PS5 title has public Xbox footage.

Checked October 19, 2026 (UTC). We do not host installers.

What's actually happening

On October 13, 2026, Windows Central reported that a developer publishing as @maccosmo released a fork of the open-source KytyPS5 project that runs on Xbox Series X through Microsoft's official Developer Mode. It ships as a UWP app and also runs on Windows. It is not a Sony product, not a Microsoft product, and not endorsed by either company.

KytyPS5 is not a from-scratch hardware emulator. It describes itself as a PlayStation 5 translation layer — it converts PS5 software as it executes. That distinction matters for everything below: what boots and what plays are two very different claims.

What has actually been shown running

Nothing in the table is inferred. Where no evidence exists, we say so — that is the entire point of this site.

How it works: Developer Mode, not a hack

Developer Mode is a mode Microsoft provides on retail Xbox consoles. You register a developer account, activate a slot, and the console can run unsigned UWP packages. As of our check in October 2026, registration is reported to be free but requires identity verification, and one account can activate a limited number of consoles. Confirm the current terms on Microsoft's own Developer Mode documentation before relying on this.

Switching a console into Developer Mode takes it out of normal retail use; plan on one console for this, not your main one.

Under the hood, the Xbox fork adds a Direct3D 12 renderer alongside upstream's Vulkan renderer, with shaders translated through Mesa's spirv_to_dxil. That is a second layer of translation stacked on top of PS5-to-host translation, and it is most of the reason the frame rate looks the way it does.

What you need

An Xbox Series X or Series S, a developer account with an activated slot, the build from the port's GitHub repository, and game files you obtained legally. We do not host installers and we do not link to anyone who does — the repositories are listed on our Kyty PS5 page.

Per the port's own README, the Series X|S version is experimental: not every game that runs on PC runs on Xbox, and draws the Series X cannot perform — tessellation among them — are skipped. Game memory is committed as it is used and a swap file keeps titles inside the console's app memory limit.

Performance reality check

Around 10 FPS on Astro's Playroom — a first-party demo built to run at 60. That is enough to prove the pipeline works and nowhere near enough to play through.

For scale: on a high-end PC, the same project family has been reported running some titles above 60 FPS. The drop from 60+ to ~10 is the cost of the console's memory ceiling, the D3D12 layer and shader translation happening at once. Expect that gap to close slowly.

The name problem: Kyty now means three repositories

For the fuller breakdown, see Kyty vs KytyPS5 vs Cosmo's Xbox Fork.

What this is not

Not an official emulator. Not a jailbreak — Developer Mode is a supported Microsoft feature. Not a source of game files; we do not distribute games or system software. Not a replacement for a PS5. And not, at ~10 FPS, something to rebuild your setup around.

What to watch next

We check these weekly and update the date at the top of this page: whether SharpEmu, PCSX5 or AnyPS5 follow KytyPS5 onto Xbox; whether the D3D12 renderer gets merged upstream; any change to the ~10 FPS baseline; and progress on the Series S memory ceiling.

FAQ