What do you think is the future of emulation?

[maelbrazil]

Nowadays, it is still pretty easy to find almost any retro game's ROM/ISO online. Although yesterday I was looking for some SNES games and found out that some of the websites I used to download ROMs from were either taken down or are just unavailable, like Emulator Games and Roms max. Also we all know what happened to EmuParadise and CDRomance. So that made me wonder how long will the remaining ROM sharing websites stay alive for? And how old the original media can get before a working SNES cartridge becomes almost impossible to find?

 

[Heinzu]

I'm just happy that something like this even has a future. Because these days you can't be sure of anything anymore. Nintendo will certainly not rest until they wipe out all emulators. But thankfully, they probably won't get very far with that. I hope so at least.

 

[AntiAktion]

Half a decade for 80s NES and 90s SNES. A lot of analog tapes for C64 systems have decayed in normal storage conditions. It's all happened pretty fast in the last 10 years.

Preservation of art and games that came before are like stepping stones for people today and in the future to carry on. Emulation is just another tool of learning and exploration that people need to live.

 

[Geocide]

This is more of a question about piracy than about emulation itself. Emulators are not illegal, as much as the big N pisses and moans about it. At least, as long as there isn't copywrite protected code being used in said emulators (that IS illegal).

As for the ROMs themselves, that is a whole different can of worms. But, at the end of the day, piracy will always win. As long as there are digital archivists on the internet, there will always be people preserving history, whether the companies hate it or not. New websites will always pop up, and there are always websites popping up in areas where copyright laws can't reach them (though DDoS attacks are still a thing, and are often what is employed to take these websites down, like what happened to archive.org a while back). I know of one particular website that popped up years back, and though they changed names at least once (that I know of), their current iteration is amazing. They also host the hShop, which has been an absolute boon to 3DS software preservation (I believe they have achieved 100% preservation).

The problem is that you have to stop using google as a search engine because google is literal dogshit trash-tier garbage as a search engine now (and has been for over 8 years now). Stop using google search. Use other search engines (startpage is a good one, and though duckduckgo has turned into trash as well, it's still a million and a half times better than google). You will find ROM content eventually, and it's never going away.

Now, if you want my two cents on emulation in general...

Hardware emulation is the future, at least for the first 6 generations of console gaming. Though, let's be honest here: the first 6 generations of video games are really the only ones worth worrying about (even though I fully support data archiving of everything; I just don't find the gen 7-9 console gaming experience and library to be all that impressive or impactful, but that could also be due to my age

Spoiler

and severe depression

). Hardware emulation breaks wide the dam of accuracy of game consoles that nearly all software emulation can't truly replicate. Imho, accuracy should be the #1 thing emulators get first, and then work on the bells and whistles from there. And yes, I know how hard that is, which is why I don't dog on software emulation whatsoever for not being as accurate as I'd like. Which is why I was so happy that hardware emulation has not only become a thing, it's thriving with the immense success of the MiSTer.

As long as there is demand for these older ROM libraries, there will always be these websites where you can grab them. They just have to hide themselves better now due to the use of weaponized DDoS by these corporations who don't want to compete with their older libraries (because then the lie is exposed that the modern video game industry is healthy; which it isn't). Private, closed communities have started becoming popular again. More websites and communities are starting to go back to how things were in the 1990s and 2000s with completely closed off communities where quality control is easier to maintain, and even more websites are going the completely sealed off route unless you know someone who is already in the community, a la BakaBT (this is showing my age here because I was there before they completely closed off their website to outsiders), and that one BEMANI HDD dump community that loves to shit all over the poors (and hates when their hdd dumps inevitably get leaked because they are actual assholes and aren't dumping these hdd's for archiving, but for the status of having something they shouldn't and laughing at the people who don't have what they do; yes, they are this petty).

Just keep your ears low to the ground, and if you haven't already built a home NAS to perpetually save all the ROMs you can, then you really need to start investing in one that is both redundant and can handle bit rot. Because with just how much worse the internet has gotten in the past 5 year (after basically losing the old internet back in 2014ish when games journos got exposed for their decades of lies and opened up pandora's box, ruining it for everyone afterwards), there may come a time where you can't even get on the internet without some form of ID. (We really are turning into a cyberpunk nightmare, just without all the actual cool aspects of cyberpunk...)

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

I believe that the future is consolidation. And I don’t necessarily like that, but it is the way of the future.

Normie audiences, like myself, don’t like downloading lots of individual cores. You’ll notice that people who heavily emulate complain often about Retroarch and the like, but mass audiences still adore and use it a lot. In truth, I can see a future where many individual projects either get merged with emulators for other systems or get replaced in the minds of the mass market by emulators that are merged with other systems. For example, right now you have to seek out various emulators for every PlayStation. Imagine, if you will, what will happen if a project releases that combines decent PS1, 2, 3, PSP, and Vita emulation cores all into one package? For over a decade, Nintendo emulators for the NES, GameBoy, Super Nintendo, and GBA have been packaged together, so you don’t need to imagine. It’s already reality.

The more that people who aren’t emulation nerds adopt emulation, the more that convenience and speed will be prioritized. People want an easy menu to play every game for every system ever made all in one, where they can just choose a name from a list and play it in seconds after boot up. That’s probably where the future of emulation is headed, as it becomes more mainstream.

 

[ThirteeTooBeets]

To preserve it

 

[Questless Knight]

I'm just happy that something like this even has a future. Because these days you can't be sure of anything anymore. Nintendo will certainly not rest until they wipe out all emulators. But thankfully, they probably won't get very far with that. I hope so at least.

That´s why we need t o wipe out Nintendo they are a threat to gaming in general. Thanks to does idiots putting their games at 80euro now every one and their mother is doing it.

They trying to sue competition out of existence and they try to take patent on game mechanics like a bunch of morons.

We need to kill Nintendo off or at least make them join sega in to being a company that makes decent game for PC and other consoles. "not that Sony or Microtards are any better these days they could also go and die".

 

[Heinzu]

That´s why we need t o wipe out Nintendo they are a threat to gaming in general. Thanks to does idiots putting their games at 80euro now every one and their mother is doing it.

They trying to sue competition out of existence and they try to take patent on game mechanics like a bunch of morons.

We need to kill Nintendo off or at least make them join sega in to being a company that makes decent game for PC and other consoles. "not that Sony or Microtards are any better these days they could also go and die".

I think they'll all finish themselves off. Nintendo, PlayStation and Microsoft believe they are gods but the truth is somewhat different. We just have to wait and see.

 

[Questless Knight]

I think they'll all finish themselves off. Nintendo, PlayStation and Microsoft believe they are gods but the truth is somewhat different. We just have to wait and see.

one can hope sadly super fanboys are the ones keeping Nintendo alive. They are such hardcore fans even if Nintendo threw shit in their face they would eat it up like it´s candy.

 

[celestialempire]

I don't know, but I know that in 10 years the Big N will still be taking down 50 year old ROMs

 

[RETRO-VETRO RETRO-VETRO]

The future of emulation is both promising and uncertain. Emulation has become a cornerstone of video game preservation, allowing players, researchers, and archivists to keep interactive history alive even as the original hardware ages and physical cartridges become increasingly rare. As you’ve noticed, many of the popular ROM-hosting sites have been taken down over the years due to copyright enforcement, and that trend will likely continue. The legal environment around ROM distribution is tightening, which means casual access to free downloads will diminish over time.

That said, emulation itself isn’t going away. It remains a vital tool for ensuring that classic titles don’t vanish as consoles deteriorate and media becomes fragile. We’re already seeing legitimate preservation efforts through official re-releases, mini-consoles, and subscription services like Nintendo Switch Online or PlayStation Plus Classics. These initiatives show that publishers recognize both the demand and the cultural importance of retro games.

Looking ahead, the challenge will be balancing accessibility with legality. Independent communities will continue to innovate, but the mainstream future of emulation may lie in partnerships between developers, publishers, and preservationists. As original cartridges and discs inevitably become rarer, digital preservation will be the only way to guarantee that future generations can experience these works. In short, while the distribution of ROMs may become harder to find, emulation as a practice will remain central to gaming history!

 

[Blue Buddha]

That´s why we need t o wipe out Nintendo they are a threat to gaming in general. Thanks to does idiots putting their games at 80euro now every one and their mother is doing it.

They trying to sue competition out of existence and they try to take patent on game mechanics like a bunch of morons.

We need to kill Nintendo off or at least make them join sega in to being a company that makes decent game for PC and other consoles. "not that Sony or Microtards are any better these days they could also go and die".

Nintendo functionally can't be wiped out like Sega because they have unrestricted access to strong, marketable IPs (mainly Pokémon and Mario) and a core audience of about 5-10million or so very dedicated, militant cheerleaders who can only be likened to a cult and won't ever let them do more than somewhat underperform. Sometime around 2019 or so they realized that they can just fleece this core audience for all they're worth without getting any meaningful pushback against it, so now you have them just outright charging 80 dollars for Kirby shovelware of all things.

It's possible that Nintendo recedes away from gaming of their own accord to leverage their IPs as multimedia brands like Sega does with Sonic but I don't think their army of spineless drones will let them meaningfully fail to any serious extent.

 

[Advil Lavs]

Well, devices are getting more capable, thus making emulation of more consoles easily predictable. Hardware emulation would become as easy and as accessible as those retro handhelds you can find on aliexpress for 100 bucks. Nintendo and Sony will continue their ways of taking down rom websites and preservationists would make new ones. Emulation might become so mainstream that it completely replaces standard console and pc games for some, leading big companies to either make better new games or take absurd legal actions to keep their profits flowing. That's probably what's going to happen the next decade, as for what would happen after that, maybe some really big changes to how games are viewed as a medium and a product/ art piece that can be just as successful, no matter the size of the team that developed it.

 

[moonrider_]

The future of emulation intrigues me greatly. It's super interesting to see modern console "emulators" utilize compatibility layers and virtualization--since those consoles are running AMD x86 SOCs. One of the current PS4 emulators mostly that, and I wonder if we'll have Xbox emulators (even though they're mostly unnecessary due to Micro$oft's PC support) that utilize virtualization.

I also wonder if the switch to ARM based processors in PCs will make ARM based consoles, like the Switch, see virtualization/compat. layer based Switch emulators. I'm also surprised to see Apple allow you to run iOS apps on Apple-silicon based Macs, but that's not really emulation.

 

[Shameless]

Biggest advantage older games have is file size, now days i would not be surprized if you could every single game from the atari all the way to the n64 on like a single thumb drive. with disc based games they start getting to big to easily spread and consolidate but can realistically fit there entire library's on one or 2 drives. Like all it takes to spread the entire snes library is a torrent seed and a single folder with a forgettable small size.

 

[contrail_]

The future of emulation is data hoarding, as all the classics take up less than a terabyte, and it's easier now than ever to find old roms.
Given enough time, all these games will become public domain, but hardly anyone will even remember them by then. Kind of like old obscure theater plays and black and white movies.
There's something to be said for entropy. Data hoarding didn't help the library of Alexandria either. Just imagine what it must have felt like for the ancient nerds who, in the span of 2 to 4 centuries, gathered, indexed and cared for all the texts in there. I suppose there's no point in thinking too hard about what has been lost.
What actually worries me is that good crt televisions will become pretty hard to come by, long before emulation becomes obscure, yet my backlog keeps growing larger...
On a large enough timescale any such point is rendered moot. Imagine being that one weird monk who specialized in transcribing ancient Persian war songs and held very strong opinions about obscure Neo-Babylonian children's tales...

 

[Psychonara]

I think people underestimate the role that will be played by clone hardware. There has been a significant surge in the last 7 or 8 years in devices specifically optimized for emulation, such as the various handhelds & emulation boxes that you find on sites like Ali-Express, and reproduction hardware, both on the budget & higher end, has gotten significantly better.

The many different brands of Linux & Android-based emulation handhelds from the likes of Retroid, Anbernic, Powkiddy & Miyoo. Multi-carts & flash carts. Reproduction cartridges that work just fine on clone & real hardware that one can't even tell the difference. Low-end clone hardware like GamerzTek's NES & SNES clones and premium products like the Analogue 3D. A lot of these kinds of products have come a long way from the old 500 in 1 8-bit flea market plug n plays. And even the surge in unlicensed retail releases of new games for old systems like Dreamcast, Game Boy Color, Intellivision etc. (heck, even McDonald's released a homebrew GBC rom for free download, that now has thousands of bootleg physical releases). The future is a lot brighter than recent Nintendo Ninja assassinations would suggest.


Also, on another note, keep in mind that some of the ROMs you're downloading for the 300th time on this site or on archive.org are the same files that were dumped decades ago and that you downloaded off of Emuasylum or after avoiding weird hentai popups while browsing Romnation (probably showing my age there). That's what real game preservation looks like, not limited physical collector's editions that sit unopened on the shelf of some youtube commentator's man-cave/recording studio.

 

[starseeker300]

Data hoarding didn't help the library of Alexandria either

i think the big difference here though is instead of one vast library with 1 copy of thousands of books, its 100 of libraries with each their own copy and when something is checked out , another copy of it is actually made, so if the library burns down the checked out copies still exist and there are other libraries that have their own copies

 

[Psychonara]

i think the big difference here though is instead of one vast library with 1 copy of thousands of books, its 100 of libraries with each their own copy and when something is checked out , another copy of it is actually made, so if the library burns down the checked out copies still exist and there are other libraries that have their own copies

Also, before anyone asks "what happens if the internet suddenly dies?", I think if that ever did happen, you'd have a lot more to worry about than playing video games...

 

[Zeo]

If the internet dies, then the world will stop

And thats not a joke

 

[Izzy]

Half a decade for 80s NES and 90s SNES. A lot of analog tapes for C64 systems have decayed in normal storage conditions. It's all happened pretty fast in the last 10 years.

Preservation of art and games that came before are like stepping stones for people today and in the future to carry on. Emulation is just another tool of learning and exploration that people need to live.

It's better just to have them in some form over physical, fan-mods are interesting because you can and can not see them the same way after how they handled them. It's a shame that sites like these have to be kept secret in order to keep game preservation going.

 

[Guinea]

In the future there will be the Supa Dupa Poopa Scoopa, a device that has every single game ever made, ever. It will be epicccccc like bro wtf it's so fucking cool. Until then, we'll probably keep chuggin' along as usual.

 

[redux007]

Nowadays, it is still pretty easy to find almost any retro game's ROM/ISO online. Although yesterday I was looking for some SNES games and found out that some of the websites I used to download ROMs from were either taken down or are just unavailable, like Emulator Games and Roms max. Also we all know what happened to EmuParadise and CDRomance. So that made me wonder how long will the remaining ROM sharing websites stay alive for? And how old the original media can get before a working SNES cartridge becomes almost impossible to find?

As one dies two arise in its place. Especially if their servers are located in Russia, China, or some other magical bullshitlandia location. The question is what are these incredibly powerful and useful tool sets the emulators themselves going to lead to once they are all project complete, and that can be seen in the mod scene. It's very well within the realm of possibility that Duckstation and PCSX2 etc will find themselves as distribution engines in the near future for indie projects.

 

[χKai]

Me.
I am the future of emulation.
I've been emulating most of my life, and gaming for all of it.
I've built an incredible collection of ROMhacks, bootlegs, prototypes, and rare games and mods.
And I will continue to do so, until the artform dies..

I am the future.