The importance of emulation goes far beyond performance and preservation

I have noticed too many people on this sub claiming that people who emulate consoles only do so because they don't want to pay for games, and that everything else is just excuses. This is patently and objectively false. There is just.... ZERO truth in that all... and I can forgive people who really just.... ya know... just aren't educated about emulation, why it exists, and what it really does. I guess that's why I'm here, so let's get into a nice long list of reasons why emulation is very important for the gaming industry. Its not all about "Piracy and free games". Keep in mind, in each of these scenarios, I have purchased the games I own, and have physical copies of all of them, or, they are unavailable for legitimate purchase. I don't just speak for Yuzu/Ryu, I speak for all emulators

The most important reason: We are in the year 2024, going on 2025. 720p30 is no longer acceptable. It wasn't even acceptable when the Switch came out in 2017. Some of us want our games to run smoothly and look good. Some of us are not okay with half-baked choppy laggy pixelated visuals. Hogwartz Legacy, for example, an extremely demanding game had to be stripped down to the point where its basically PS3 graphics, if even that, and it runs awful. This is a problem with Nintendo releasing hardware thats 10 years out of date at the time of release. The same will be true will be true with the Switch 2 (GPU is somewhere around a GTX 780 equivalent). Emulation allows us to play games smoothly, and at high framerates where they are more enjoyable. This is a perfectly legitimate use for emulation

The second most important reason: I don't think game "preservation" is the right there. It's more like accessibility: being able to access games that have no other means of being purchased and are long deprecated. "Oh, well you can buy a copy off ebay for $30. Stop making excuses". Oh, and what happens if there is no emulation, and we are only limited to the ebay option, With millions of players wanting to play older games, and a finite quantity of said games, what happens to the supply and the price of all those games? Its amazing what can happen when you stop a think for a second before making dumb comments

Suppose I have a disabled 10 year old son, who lost one of his arms in an accident, and he wants to play Super Mario Odyssey. A specialized controller system can be assembled to allow him to control half with one foot, and half with his other hand. Said controller would require a PC with an emulator to make this possible, as this is not supported on any Nintendo console that I know of.

Suppose I'm playing a game where the right trigger is frequently used, and pressing it a lot starts to hurt a part of my hand/arm. I want to be able to map the function to a different button on the controller, and use the right trigger for something else, not used nearly as frequently in said game. Emulation makes this possible, as most games on Nintendo Switch do not support this

Maybe I don't want to use a Nintendo controller at all, maybe I'd prefer a PS5 controller, because it fits my hand better, it's what I'm used to. It's more comfortable. It's easy for me to use. Maybe I want to use KBM. That's a personal preference. There is nothing wrong with this. Emulation makes this possible

Case scenario: I am travelling somewhere, and I own a variety of games for each system for NES-Switch. I want to take them with me on travels to... ya know.... maybe play some Nintendo inside the hotel room for a bit before I go to sleep for the night. Imagine having to try and lug around 7 consoles on many suitcases with all their hookups, controllers, and game cartridges, and hook up each one one at a time and take up tons of room and tons of power plugs.... or I just have one device: a gaming laptop that I can take with me. Emulation allows this to be possible. This is a perfectly legitimate use for emulation.

Netplay: There are some emulators of older consoles that allows you to play online. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the NES did not come with any kind of internet connectivity. Emulators allow you to play older consoles over the internet just like we can with newer consoles. This feature can not be "purchased legitimately" anywhere, not even Nintendo itself... or ebay... or anywhere.

Tool Assisted Speedruns (TAS) are a novelty of gameplay, whereby emulators can be used to push the boundaries of what's possible in terms of game speedrunning. Inputs are sent into the emulator from software, able to be rigged to be sent with frame-perfect timing & accuracy, eliminating the real world friction of human error.... at the fastest speed the game can register, resulting in the ability to watch how fast it is possible a game can be played through, where otherwise impossible by a human holding a controller. These videos are fun to watch, and are made possible by emulation. Even when I was 6 years old, I always wondered how fast Super Mario World on SNES could be completed if a human hand could do every move 100% flawlessly. That will never happen, but emulators allow us to make TAS speed runs just to see how fast the game can actually be completed. I was once told many years ago that if you get 1st place on MarioKart 64 on 150CC on all cups in 35 minutes or less, you unlock the 9th character. It was emulation that debunked this theory, as someone made a TAS to do it in 22 minutes.

How well would 320 x 240 video games look on a 60 inch 4K screen? Exactly. Emulators allow us to restore games with texture packs, and upscaled graphics, with smoother framerates. Even NES games can be played and look very good on a 60 inch 4K screen, something an original console could never do.

Creativity: Emulators open up a massive world of endless creativity, allowing for full customization of games, new creative works, and mods. Someone modded an NES emulator into Minecraft where you could go into Minecraft and play NES games in your Minecraft world. To the chagrin of Nintendo, someone modded Charmander into Super Mario Wonder. Ya, its dorky, and silly. So what? Some people think its fun, creative, and humorous, and different. Emulators and mods allows for custom levels, custom characters, custom game mechanics to take your ideas and your creative mind and put it into a game. These mods, along with real game cheats allow for increased replayability, the ability to make endless combinations of ideas to be able to be put to use. Emulators make this possible.

Exploration and discovery: I bet ya didn't know about the unused track in Mariokart 64 called Town. Because of emulation, we know what it looks like and can actually play it. Emulation allows us to explore parts of the game, barried in the original media that never made it to the surface of playability, but allows us to fulfill our curious mind to see what kind of neat ideas the developer was working with.

Suppose you have mastered a trick in a game that took lots of practice, and now you want to teach someone else how to do it. Emulators can be intentionally slowed down, so you can teach the person how to do it at 10% speed. Then when they master it, increase the speed to 20%. Then when they master it again, keep going and going until the person has mastered that trick at full speed. Emulators make this possible. I, myself have applied this method in a real world situation, teaching someone how to do something on a switch game. As well, the speed can be increased far greater than 100% to skip boring cutscenes, and fast forward through boring parts of gameplay, or to just make it more challenging for you as a player who has already mastered the game.

State save: Oh gawd, I love this way. It's a shame this never made it to Yuzu/Ryu. Many-a-would-be-broken-controllers-lives have been saved by this feature. Remember all those times you were running, and approaching the edge, and you pressed the jump button right before hitting the edge, and the game decided you fell and died anyway? Ya, well, state save has solved this problem, made possible only by emulation.

Game recording: The only Nintendo console to support recording allows you to record a whole 30 seconds of gameplay. Every gaming PC is capable of recording gameplay, with no limitation to length. So now I can record all my gameplay and share it with friends and family.

Conclusion: These are just some of the many reasons why people prefer emulation over playing original Nintendo consoles. There is many more I haven't even listed. With emulation, its one of those things where its like... once you learn to use an emulator, its features, and see how well they work, there's kind of no going back. It's like... once you use it, you don't wanna go back. I have no problem keeping my Switch games in the closet and letting them collect dust, just so I can say I own them legitimately, with I use Yuzu/Ryu. Now, all of this said, yes there some people who use emulation and pirate just because they want free games. That is true. But that is not everybody. There are plenty of legitimate, clean uses for emulation, and it's not just because "I want free games". It's because I want to be able to do all the things I listed above, and then some

So kids, what have we learned today? Now we can stop making dumb comments like "You just dont want to pay for games, you just want it free because you're entitled and selfish and greedy". Next time someone says to you "People who use emulators just want to play for free and want to pirate game and dont want to pay", you can refer them to this thread. You're welcome for the free education.