PS1 classic WipEout gets unofficial Xbox release

A famous PlayStation exclusive has been ported to Xbox and Sony are going to be furious when they find out about it.

While Xbox exclusives, like Sea Of Thieves and the upcoming Gears Of War remaster, are finding a new home on the PlayStation 5, that doesn’t mean Sony intends to return the favour.

Microsoft’s multiplatform push has clearly been in response to the Xbox Series X/S’s dwindling sales. At the same time, PlayStation 5 sales are still increasing, in the US at least, so there’s zero chance of seeing the likes of God Of War or The Last Of Us on an Xbox platform.

And yet an old PlayStation favourite, WipEout, is currently available for purchase from the Xbox store… and it’s clearly not happened with Sony’s permission.

The game has actually been available on the Xbox store since April, where it’s listed as Anti-Gravity Racing Wipeout and is being sold for £14.99.

At a first glance, it seems like it’s just a spiritual follow-up; something meant to resemble WipEout but is still an original product.

Upon learning of its existence, though, Digital Foundry took one for the team and actually bought it, discovering that, no, it’s just WipEout. As in the original PlayStation game.

More specifically, it’s a badly emulated version of WipEout, one that has stretched out menus and Xbox buttons awkwardly placed over where the PlayStation buttons would be.

The game also includes WipEout 3 (entitled Anti-Gravity Racing Special Edition) and even warns you not to try and run it on a 2013 model of the Xbox One. Digital Foundry accepted the challenge and can confirm that it runs terribly.

They ran direct comparisons with the original PlayStation games and while they are by and large identical, some adjustments have been made to these emulated duplicates.

For instance, the emulated WipEout is the PAL version released in the UK. To compensate for running on our 50Hz TVs, developer Psygnosis adjusted the speed so it would match the NTSC version released in the US.

However, the emulated version bumps it up to 60Hz, which means the game runs faster than it should. All references to Psygnosis have also been scrubbed from the game, although all the (un-)licensed music seems to be intact.

If you needed any further evidence that this Xbox release isn’t legitimate, the developer and publisher of Anti-Gravity Racing Wipeout is listed as LLS Games.

With more attention being drawn to it, the game will likely be removed from the Xbox store, especially if Sony decides to send in the lawyers.

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