*Update* NES emulation on 360: XNASharpNES v2

Version 2’s already out, fixing some issues with the previous version and giving it additional functions. The new version still lacks sound, but the new features listed in Lone Coder’s changelog should make up for it:

• Second controller fixed (Yea for Luigi fans!).
• Made thumbstick work as an alternate control.
• Battery saves are stored to disk (Be sure to exit the emu or it won’t save).
• Crude rom navigation.
• Emu remembers which rom was last loaded and will load it up.
• Emu runs at full speed when not being debugged
• Minor performance improvements

It’s not perfect, but it’s something at least. Someone sent us word of Bryan Livingston’s (aka Lone Coder’s) XNASharpNES, a Nintendo Entertainment System emulator for the Xbox 360.

Before you get your hopes up, we’ll let you know some things that might temper your enthusiasm. First off, this isn’t a hack. Rather, it’s a conversion of Jonathan Turner’s SharpNES program that runs using XNA. Second, it’s still got a lot of kinks to work out, as XNASharpNES doesn’t run at full speed and has no rom loading menu.

Lastly, and perhaps least exciting for everyone here to hear, is that you’ll still have to pay to get it to work:

This requires a creators club account which runs $99 a year or $49 for four months. You’ll also need Visual C# Studio Express which is free.

It’s probably not something you guys would want to download just yet, so we’ll just link to his site. Still, you have to admire the work it took to get this far, and someone’s bound to find some use for this emulator conversion. For now at least, it’s still another XNA app that’s got a lot of future potential.