Emulation or No Emulation?

When it comes down to people who just want to play video games, they are left in a dilemma. Do you want to go after some of these games? Or do you want to play them on your computer or on some service that isn't the original system? Some bite the bullet. Others may go towards the cheap route, which isn't always a bad thing.

This does fall into a gray area, which is one of the issues regarding emulation. The only thing I think that gets hurt by piracy is music and film. Everybody has MP3s and other forms of technology to listen to songs. Not everybody has a theater or if they do, they're not willing to shell out a lot of money to see something for a few hours (some places are expensive just to get a movie ticket) Regarding games, I don't think companies really care with the exception of Nintendo. They are within their rights to force sites to get rid of ROMs, but it's a losing effort. There will always be a site that will have downloads for stuff like Super Mario Bros. F-Zero, and everything in-between. 

You don't have much of a choice if you go the PC route. There is DOSBox. It works very well with DOS games from 1981 through 97. Steam does allow it for the games that they have for sale. Abandonware sites have a number of games you wouldn't have thought were on computers back then. Unless you keep all your old operating systems, it's going to be tough figuring out what will work on something like a Windows 95 or XP computer. Some might work on a number of them. Others might on just one system. There is emulation for older operating systems, but it could be a bit of trouble just to get it to work.

For consoles, it's a bit of a question mark. Some strictly do emulation. Some might test a game out to see if it is worth buying. Others may not do emulation. I'm not against playing stuff on a computer, but I'm not going to give up buying games. It's not going to bother me if I were to download something like Earthbound. Unless I'm getting it at a yard sale (games can be found for cheap if you go this route), I'm not going to go out of my way to spend 200 dollars on it unless I was making thousands a week for life. Even before getting Mario Kart 64 at a yard sale, I thought 45 dollars was too much at a used game store. Sometimes, you have to realize that you're not going to get every relic.

Your mileage may vary. I don't see people giving up on playing console games via emulation. I'll be curious to see where this goes regarding the 7th generation of consoles considering things like Xbox Live, Wii Shop, and PlayStation Store. Whatever the case, it's up to you, the reader, on what you do. If you prefer emulation, good for you. If you want the physical copies, happy hunting if you can find of those hard to find games.