And out of the blue, they released on Github a Windows Phone Emulator for Android. O WPR, as the emulator is called, is in early stages of development, but it is already able to start some games.
Easy to use, the emulator can already run several games, see how this feat was done.
See some games running in the video below from the Joaozin Mobile channel (Subscribe):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVXB7Cq-ynE
Windows Phone Emulator for Android in Early Stages
Who posted the news on Reddit was the emulator developer himself. According to him, WPR Alpha 0.0.1 is still in the early stages of development, but already has great advances.
According to the developer, 15 of the 33 games he tested started.
Features of WPR Emulator:
- Currently only supports Windows Phone 7 and 8 games
- Games format must be in .XAP.
- It supports Xbox Live titles.
- For now only available on smartphones with Vulkan API (X64).
- For now, games are stretching the screen too much, but according to the developer, graphical improvements will be implemented in the future.
Like other emulators such as the Switch, WPR directly interprets low-level instructions from Windows Phone for Android. It's as if the emulator takes a shortcut and instead of trying to reinterpret everything, it just takes the instructions that would go to the GPU and translates them to the current GPUs. The result is impressive for its ease and shows how devices of the same architecture can run games without much difficulty.
Games tested so far:
- Earthworm Jim
- Skulls of the shogun
- Ilomilo
- Zuma’s revenge
- Plant vs zombie
- The Sims 3
- The Sims Medival
- Civilization Revolution
- I love Katamari
- Fruit Ninja
- Sonic 4 ep 1
- tower bloxx
- Kinectimals
- MonstaFish
- Bug Village
- Brain Challenge
- Ragdoll Run (bugged)
- Max and the Magic Marker
- tentacles
- Tiki Towers
- Need for Speed Undercover
- More Brain Excercise by Namco
LINK TO DOWNLOAD THE EMULATOR (APK)
Why is this emulator interesting?
This emulator is interesting because it will allow you to run applications and especially games that were stuck in the old Microsoft system. In addition, it will also be possible to run old games that existed on Android, but that were removed from the app stores, and that no longer exist.
Who was this Windows Phone?
For those who don't remember, or were very new at the time, Windows Phone was an operating system developed by Microsoft for the brand's cell phones. It was released in 2010 and discontinued in 2017, but the death of all versions of the system happened only in 2020.
As a result of a disastrous partnership with Nokia, Windows Phone was a good operating system, but it didn't have a good adhesion on the part of the developers. Devs of apps like Gmail, Facebook and Instagram took a long time to get into the system.
Microsoft was a bit arrogant too at the time, as it had made several billion-dollar acquisitions like Skype and Nokia. Success, she said, was almost certain.
It is worth remembering that at the time (2010), all systems focused on touch screens were beginners and most of the population did not have a smartphone, only regular cell phones. Smartphone at that time, it was like the top of the line nowadays, only a small fraction of the population had them.
Back to Windows Phone problems. Very popular apps took a while to arrive on the platform. Many of them like Instagram and Facebook were limited and worked fine. In short, Microsoft underestimated the partnership it should make with great apps to have them on your system in the best possible way.
Who remembers Windows Phone? Did you have one? Leave a comment!
Read also:
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- How to Play Java Games on Android – The Definitive Guide to J2Me Loader Emulator
- How to play Java 3D games on Android
