Now, before you get all over me for calling emulation evil, know that I don’t fully agree with the title. There was a time when I, um, knew someone who did a lot emulating. It was great, because you could play all these old games that weren’t around anymore and really relive some great times from your youth. It wasn’t long, however, until companies began to get violently outraged about people emulating their old games. They didn’t want people playing them. They wanted two things: To keep gamers begging for a re-release/port and to keep us focused on demanding new games.
While we will always want new games, there aren’t enough old games ported to new systems, and getting an old system is a gamble because you don’t really know how long it will last. Even if you went out and located the retro console of your choice and the game you wanted, which certain RetroforceGo! hosts seem to do with great ease, are the publisher/distributor/manufacturer making a single cent off of it? HELL NO. Goodwill and anonymous internet folk are making a buck. And while I am not knocking buying a used system on Amazon or the like, I got a Dreamcast in December, my purchase doesn’t benefit the original makers at all. They won’t see a dime if I buy a console/game online or emulate it. So why all the complaining?
Sure, you can argue that services like the Wii Virtual Console, XBLA, and PSN are delivering our classics back to us and allowing us to get our hands on them. I have no problem with this. I understand they hold copyrights and have the right to sell them again in digital form. That’s good, and I recommend buying these titles instead of emulating them because it means we’ll get more and more released. However, what about games made by companies that no longer exist? What about games that were never released in our regions? So many of our favorite titles will never see the light of day again because of the simple progression of time.
So I guess my question is this, what do game companies really want from us? One might think they just want us crying in the dark, mourning the classics of yesteryear.
Captain Apocalypse is a Nobel Peace Prize recipient and Particle Physicist.
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You are an idiot. It's called the virtual console. Also emulation is free and has a far better selection. In some cases it is even legal, unless the law has changed.
The only people it's costing is the guys on Ebay with untrustworthy opened goods and no refund policy, and fuck those guys anyway, the last time I bought something off of them it was a PS2 that arrived broken and clogged to the gills with dog hair and dust.
I hear what you're saying. Like I said, I don't disapprove of emulating, I just wonder if there's a win-win for everyone. But I think you're right, there's no denying how much exposure classics get because of emulation. Good point.
poetic justice.
I really don't like playing SNES games on the computer. Maybe with a bigger monitor or a game pad, but as it is... nah. There is something to the authentic experience of actually handling the cartridges and having the proper controller. On the other hand, I'm kind of glad with the Virtual Console that you can play TG16 games without actually touching a TG16. That system was a bitch.
You don't need anything near that powerful for the PS1. A Pentium 3 with 128 MB of RAM can handle the PS1, I should know, I've done it.