Emulation vs. real console

[jmcslob]

My home theater display ( no tuner so not a tv) has RCA progressive scan inputs and works with the PS2.... That said my PC emulates just fine and I have not come across a single issue with a game..
I have two emulators on my Android phone for NES and SNES and both of them come equipped with every single game for those systems and they are freely available at no cost on Google play...
I still enjoy playing CTR, Tony Hawk's pro skater 1 and Syphon Filter from the PS1 and since they have not been remade I will continue to use emulators with them..
For N64 I still like starfox 64 and DKC 2 and from PS2 my wife likes the Sly Cooper series..
From the Xbox and PS3 era I have every game I liked on Xbox and they are all compatible with the Xbone so no need to emulate those.
I have to say a mix of both console and emulator is necessary if you really wanna play those old games.
Nothing wrong with new retro consoles like the $35 hyperkin HD3 for all your old consoles cartridges... But they are basically emulators too.
Amazon sells a 5 style pack of USB retro style controllers for $30 shipped if you really want that old feel...

 

[lyndonguitar]

emulation is better if the hardware is powerful enough to fully emulate the said console and then even add some more(like anti aliasing).

this is like vinyl vs mp3s. if the mp3 quality is good enough then it's better since you can store thousands of mp3 files in a small device and access them seamlessly

 

[SamirD]

Light gun games (Duck Hunt, Time Crisis, etc.) still require the original hardware. EuroGamer wrote a good article about the genre's slow inevitable death due to the end of CRTs.

I still remember the time we split the Nintendo output to 3 tvs when playing duck hunt--it was wild that you could shoot at any tv and it worked. It was some amazingly awesome tech for the time.

As far as the answer to the OP question, I think the merits of each have already been mentioned, but there's just nothing like playing Rocketball with your brother on the c64 the way we did to settle disagreements--and you can't do that with modern hardware since each of us had favorite joysticks for certain games. We still have our original c64, but it doesn't show a screen anymore when powered up. Luckily, we have a few spares as well as a couple of completely brand new in-box c64 pieces. One of these days, my brother and I may re-live the glory days. And if he doesn't, I don't think finding a c64 gaming friend today would be as hard as it was back in the day...

emulation is better if the hardware is powerful enough to fully emulate the said console and then even add some more(like anti aliasing).

this is like vinyl vs mp3s. if the mp3 quality is good enough then it's better since you can store thousands of mp3 files in a small device and access them seamlessly

Actually, I think when you think how the consoles tried to emulate the arcade (and fell short), the consoles themselves were emulators. So you have a emulator of an emulator, which in your mp3 analogy is an mp3 of an mp3, with mp3 being a lossy format. I think in that sense, nothing beats the original arcade, but most of us can't have an arcade at home. (But we do wish!)

 

[ozmafioso]

I agree with what you're saying in regards to the MP3 analogy, but the statement about consoles being emulators of arcade games is incorrect. The games are ported. When they port games over, they change graphic style, effects, sometimes they add extra game modes, etc. They actually rework big parts, if not all of the games in question to work properly with a console (dumbing them down a bit to work correctly on said console). Killer instinct is a great example of a rework from arcade to SNES.

Basically what I'm saying is that emulators and ports are two completely different things.

 

[SamirD]

Ah yes, from a strictly technical standpoint of the word and the consoles, yes they were definitely ports vs emulations. Hence why some of them (like pacman on the atari 2600) lacked a lot of the appeal of the full-blown arcade game.

 

[Vayra86]

For Sony Playstation I can only say: emulation all the way.

Its a fairy tale that consoles are stable. Multiple PS2 games are prone to hard lockups and sometimes emulation actually gets around that while the original console does not. Additionally, you lose all the artificial console limitations (number of saves, anti cheat measures, etc.) and you can get better graphics... what's not to like?

When it comes to stability the PS3 is in a worse state than PS2 by the way.