I've been itching to write this blogpost for a while...
I'm an avid retro-gamer, as well as a contemporary gamer. My emulation-antics took off in the late 90s when I started getting nostalgic about old DOS-games from the late 80s and early 90s. For the most part, DOS-emulation was pretty accurate even in the early days.
But these days emulation is pretty much a native thing. CPU-cycle-imitation and other emulation-techniques have pretty much reached the runtime-levels of the actual systems they are emulating.
I don't favor the new idea of releasing limited special-editions of consoles, like the NES classic mini and the SNES classic mini, when you can build a COTS-computer (or even use a deprecated laptop/desktop), load it up with RetroPie and ROMs, and you basically have a multi-emulation box that runs EVERYTHING, and can be CUSTOMIZED.
If you go for a Raspberry Pi 3, such a system could even cost you as low as $30 (apart from cables and gamepads / arcade-sticks, then it would cost you a minimum of $50).
Sure, a few people argue that the RPi3 is a fad, or that the SD-card gets worn out so it's not made to last, etc.
Well, a $30 credit-card computer isn't really that hard to replace, and SD-cards are a dime a dozen these days and are even getting cheaper, not to mention quite easy to back up (making a copy-image on your computer harddrive / usb-drive).
Sure you cannot for example use exotic console-hardware, like the microphone gamepad for the Japanese NES. Nor can you play roms made from FX-gamepaks (Nintendo addon-technology to render pseudo-3D on the SNES). Then again, would you want to? Hey, if that's your thing, have at it. I don't give a flying f**k...
Emulation is king - imho.
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