Questions

An app you install on your own Xbox, in the developer mode Microsoft provides, that runs Windows games you already own. It is not an emulator — the games are Windows builds, running as Windows builds. The fuller version, including everything it deliberately is not, is on What this is not.

No, and this is the question that arrives most often. Greenhouse includes, hosts, mirrors and sells no game. You bring your own, bought by you, in your own Steam account. A membership pays for the software and the per-title work; it is not a games subscription.

No. Developer mode is a feature Microsoft ships on retail consoles, switched on from a Microsoft app and switched off again from the same screen. Nothing in Greenhouse touches the console's firmware or its protections, and your games, saves and account survive going either direction. The terms of the mode are Microsoft's — see the install guide, which links their own documentation rather than restating it.

Xbox One, Series S and Series X. The compatibility database records results per model, because they do not behave alike: Series X has more memory and more GPU, and a title that is playable on one can be a slideshow or a failure on another. Most of our own testing so far is on an Xbox One, which is the hardest case.

Microsoft charges a one-off registration fee for a developer account, and we deliberately do not print the number here: it has been different at different times and Microsoft is the only authority on what it is today. Check their registration page. Greenhouse itself charges nothing for the app.

Yes. The console switches between retail and developer mode; your library, saves and account are untouched by the switch. You do have to switch back to play them, which is a reboot, not a reinstall.

As much as the games. Greenhouse itself is a small package; a modern title is tens of gigabytes and lands in the console's developer storage. That is the practical limit most people hit first.

Check the database before anything else. Every entry carries the console model, the Greenhouse version and the date it was tested, because “it works” without those is not information. If your title is not listed it has not been checked — which means no, not yet, rather than no. Add it to the queue and it joins the list the work is chosen from.

Some commercial DRM wrappers and all kernel-level anti-cheat stop a title from running under Greenhouse. We do not try to get around either — not as a limitation we are working on, but as a line we do not cross. Those titles are listed as walls, with the reason named, so you can find out before you spend an evening on it.

Greenhouse downloads your games with your Steam sign-in, from Steam, onto your console. You approve the sign-in on your own phone and Greenhouse never sees your password. It will not fetch anything your account does not own.

No. The download happens on the console, against Steam, using the Steam add-on from Packages. No PC stays in the loop once it is installed.

It varies enormously, and the database says so per title rather than in general. Some titles are indistinguishable from a PC; some reach a menu and no further; a large open-world title on an Xbox One can be in single digits. We publish the failures as prominently as the successes, which is the entire point of keeping the record.

For some titles, yes. Greenhouse does not host, mirror or sell mods and never charges for one; what it does is make a title's own mod loader work on the console.

Continued development: the work of making your own copies run, the signed build, the title configurations and themes that come with it, and the service that keeps your consoles entitled. The membership page has the detail and the terms say it in full.

More than one, up to the limit shown on the membership page. You link and unlink them yourself from your account.

Both happen at Patreon. Patreon charges you, Patreon's policies govern refunds, and we never see or hold a payment method. Cancel there and entitlement ends when the pledge does.

The compatibility database, the queue, the install guide and everything else on this site are free and need no account. The app's membership gate is what a pledge opens.

Send a report. It goes straight into the database, failures included, and it helps far more people than an email to us does. Include the console model and the Greenhouse version — a result without them is not usable.

From the console, and only on purpose. When a title stops, the crash screen offers to send the log: you press Y, read what it is about to send, and press A to confirm. Nothing leaves the console unless you do that. It sends the end of the run log, the game's name, the console model and the Greenhouse version — and the console removes account names, file paths and anything key-shaped first. Decline and nothing is sent and nothing is kept.

The status page says whether the compatibility database, crash upload and membership sign-in are answering right now, before you spend time on your own setup.

playgreenhouse@proton.me — membership and billing, a console that will not link, a privacy or deletion request, or anything the pages above do not answer. It is a small project: expect a few days, not a few minutes, and expect a person rather than a ticket system.

Include your console model, the Greenhouse version, the title, what it did, roughly when you sent the crash report if you sent one, and whether it ever worked. Never send your Steam password, a Steam Guard code, a sign-in link or a payment detail. We never ask for any of them and cannot use them. If you paste a log by hand rather than uploading it from the console, read it first — the console scrubs its own uploads, a copy-paste is not scrubbed.

Ask, from the Patreon account in question, naming the console and roughly when you sent anything you want removed. The privacy page lists everything that is stored, why, and how long it stays.