If console games are x86, why can't PC play them?

[Sharks445]

Sorry for my ignorance but if PC Microsoft Windows runs on x86 and so do consoles, then why can't you play a Xbox one game on a PC? Windows can be installed on a Mac, a surface tablet, and its apps can be run on wine Linux all because they all run on x86. So why can't we take console game data, create a exe, and run it? Why must we use emulators when the architecture is the same?

 

[maddogfargo]

Most can be played on PC once they are ported. You won't emulate these, not that there even are any for the new consoles (XB1 / PS4).

It's up to the Devs to port to various platforms though.

 

[Rogue Leader]

Only the most recent console games are x86 (PS4/XBone), and thus this facilitates porting them fairly well.

However just because the system has an x86 processor there is a LOT more that goes into it. The games are optimized for that very specific set of hardware, sound processors, etc. And the operating system on both systems is not Windows, so "creating an EXE" is not so simple, and emulating that software which is proprietary and the source code is unavailable is impossible.

 

[rgd1101]

because of the OS. like mac use intel cpu just like windows. and you can't just run software for the other os without an emulator

 

[James Mason]

For the latest consoles, it's basically all because the OS of the consoles and PC are different. The hardware in them is just lowend PC hardware.
For the PS3, it had a crazy complicated and unique CPU that had to have games specifically written for it, and is proving impossible to emulate properly. Hence why a PS3 emulator doesn't exist yet.
The reason even PS2s are still somewhat difficult to emulate is because it had 2 graphics processing chips of different strengths in it that cause a few games to act up.