Seventh generation onward
From the Xbox 360 on, every platform ships signed executables in a vendor format such as XEX, SELF or RPX. Most of them are encrypted. Before any analysis, you need a decrypted dump and the right Ghidra loader. This page covers the home consoles. The DS, 3DS, PSP, Vita and Switch are in the Handhelds section.
The platforms
| Platform | Year | CPU | Executable | Ghidra module or loader | Emulator with a debugger |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Xbox 360 | 22 November 2005 | Xenon, 3 PowerPC cores at 3.2 GHz, VMX128, big-endian | XEX2, signed, usually encrypted, wraps PE | XEXLoaderWV | Xenia Canary |
| PlayStation 3 | November 2006 | Cell: PPE plus six SPEs for games | SELF and SPRX (EBOOT.BIN) | GhidraSPU for SPU; no SELF loader confirmed | RPCS3 |
| Wii | 19 November 2006 | Broadway PowerPC at 729 MHz; Starlet ARM9 runs IOS | DOL and REL; discs AES-encrypted | Ghidra-GameCube-Loader, paired-singles module | Dolphin |
| Wii U | 18 November 2012 | Espresso, 3 PowerPC cores at 1.24 GHz | RPX and RPL ELF variants | GhidraRPXLoader | Cemu |
| PlayStation 4 | 15 November 2013 | 8 Jaguar x86-64 cores at 1.6 GHz | SELF with x86-64 ELF | GhidraPS4Loader, GhidraOrbis | shadPS4 |
| Xbox One | 22 November 2013 | 8 Jaguar cores at 1.75 GHz | Encrypted XVC containers | None known | None known |
| PlayStation 5 | 12 November 2020 | Zen 2, 8 cores to 3.5 GHz | None known | None known | |
| Xbox Series X and S | 10 November 2020 | Zen 2, 8 cores to 3.8 GHz | None known | None known |
No emulator is known to run commercial Xbox One, PS5 or Series games. The PS4, Xbox One, PS5 and Series are x86-64. Many of their games also have PC releases, which may be easier to study.
Keys and encrypted executables
- PS3 SELF files are signed and encrypted. RPCS3 needs the official firmware and a disc key (not confirmed) (psdevwiki: SELF; RPCS3 quickstart).
- XEX2 files are decrypted with the console-family key (XEXLoaderWV).
- PS4 loaders need a decrypted ELF without the Sony header.
- Wii discs are AES-encrypted.
Recompilation projects such as Unleashed Recompiled and the GoldenEye 360 recompilation ship no game files and need the user's own copy (tbreak). GameFrame follows the same rule and keeps all game material out of the repository.
The Switch keys and the yuzu settlement are on the Switch family page. The 3DS keys are on the Nintendo DS and 3DS page. The user decides how to obtain and use their own keys and dumps.
Emulator status
Repositories can disappear, so pin an exact emulator build and keep a local copy.
- Dolphin has a full debugger, shared with the GameCube (Dolphin).
- RPCS3 has a PPU and SPU debugger (not confirmed) (RPCS3).
- Cemu has been open source since 2022. Its organisation maintains the RPX loader.
- Xenia Canary is the active Xbox 360 branch. Secondary coverage reports near-daily commits into July 2026. The original repository gets fewer commits (tech-insider; Snapcraft: xenia-canary).
- shadPS4 runs Bloodborne. Reported versions are v0.16.0 in June 2026 and v0.19.0 in October 2026 (Wikipedia: ShadPS4; itechguides).
- The handheld emulators (PPSSPP, Vita3K, Azahar and the Switch forks) are on the Handhelds pages.
Xbox 360
Hardware
Xenon has three in-order big-endian PowerPC cores at 3.2 GHz with VMX128 (Wikipedia: Xenon). Executables are XEX2 files that wrap a PE. They are signed and usually encrypted (Xbox 360 technical specifications).
Tools
XEXLoaderWV loads XEX2 files. Neither Ghidra's PowerPC module nor Unicorn supports VMX128.
Projects to learn from
hedge-dev's XenonRecomp (PowerPC to C++) and XenosRecomp (shaders to HLSL) produced Unleashed Recompiled, a native PC port of Sonic Unleashed revealed in March 2025. It ships without game files and was inspired by N64: Recompiled (Unleashed Recompiled README; Time Extension, March 2025). ReXGlue (2026) is an open SDK built on XenonRecomp and Xenia, with early ports such as Blue Dragon and Ninja Gaiden 2. It is "in early development" (Time Extension, March 2026; Notebookcheck).
PlayStation 3
Hardware
The Cell pairs one PPE with SPUs. Games get six SPEs. Each SPU has its own 128-bit instruction set, 256 KiB of local store and DMA-only access to main memory (Wikipedia: Cell; psdevwiki). Executables are SELF and SPRX files.
Tools
GhidraSPU adds the SPU. No SELF loader is confirmed. RPCS3 runs the games.
Projects to learn from
PS3Recomp is a PS3 static recompiler. One guide says its first playable games appeared in October 2026 without public downloads. No primary source confirms the claim of "more than three thousand games" (Generation Amiga, June 2026; Held Games).
For an exact reimplementation
Cell SPU single precision rounds toward zero, treats denormals as zero and has no INF or NaN (not confirmed) (IBM Cell SDK 3.0). Host IEEE floats give different results from SPU floats. A port of SPU float code needs a software float model. Export the PPE and SPU code separately.
Wii and Wii U
Hardware
The Wii's Broadway is a PowerPC at 729 MHz. A Starlet ARM9 runs IOS. Executables are DOL and REL files. Discs are AES-encrypted (Wii). The Wii U's Espresso has three PowerPC cores at 1.24 GHz. Its executables are RPX and RPL ELF variants (Wii U). Broadway and Espresso descend from the GameCube's Gekko (Wikipedia: Gekko).
Tools
The Wii uses the GameCube's tools: Ghidra-GameCube-Loader for DOL and REL, and ghidra-gekko-broadway-lang for paired singles (WiiBrew: Ghidra). Dolphin runs the games. GhidraRPXLoader loads Wii U files. Cemu runs them.
Projects to learn from
Super Mario Galaxy was reported 100% decompiled in late September 2026. It is the first Wii game to be fully decompiled. A PC port called AstroCore is in progress. The project uses decomp-toolkit (Android Authority; GitHub: Petari; decomp.dev).
For an exact reimplementation
Gekko paired-single results depend on the quantised load and store (GQR) setup. Confirm it against Dolphin's code. The PowerPC consoles share tooling, so you can treat big-endian PowerPC as one family.
PlayStation 4
Tools
GhidraPS4Loader and GhidraOrbis load PS4 files (codekk). They need a decrypted ELF without the Sony header. shadPS4 is the emulator (PlayStation 4 technical specifications).
Matching decompilations not yet done
No completed PS4 matching decompilation is known.