
Many retro gamers have asked the question: Are emulators illegal? The answer is no; you can download them without a problem. Don’t get excited, though. The emulators are legal, but they are kind of useless on their own.

Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.

TG writes: If you’ve ever wanted that chaotic, large-scale modern warfare feeling from Battlefield but in full VR immersion, Forefront delivers it better than anything else currently available on Quest.
Emulation is an interesting thing. It's not right but it's also right when it comes to game preservation of decades old games. Or even making the game look better or run better than the hardware that ran those games. Or the televisions that had limited resolution and scan lines.
Not only that, but fans of these old games have released fully translated languages of foreign ROMS for others to understand and enjoy those games that the developer never got around to doing or thought of doing or release in another country.
Some ROMS have fixed bugs. Some have returned music or characters or moves to games that were taken out from porting to more censor heavy counties and the games can be played as originally intended.
There are games that no longer have an owner because the parent company is no more. Creating new fans of an old title. Some hacks of these old ROMS have crossovers of playable characters that were never in the original release because most companies never collaborate. All these things and more are part of the emulation and ROMS discussion.
It should never be right to "test" a new release game as the developers should be paid for their hard work and dedication. Games that are 20, 30, even 40 years old that made their money and never see the light of day today because the parent company is only happy to sit on history. Those games are a little hazy like an old copyright or trademark that expires. As long as you're not selling or profiting off of playing old titles, the crime is a little bit easier to swallow.
I personally don’t see any problem with emulating a game provided it isn’t readily available anymore - either via the original console + game being on sale or via backwards compatibility.
Emulating hardware is not illigal, we can even make backups of our games.
Pirating is a different issue.
YoU wOuLdN’T DoWnLoAD a CaR!!
Lol
Easily yes, there are games that only exist through emulation now. Not only that, it's not like the devs/publishers get anything out of these games. Emulation is 99.99% for games no longer in print, so whether you pay or not makes no difference to them. Only one standing to gain is some rando who just happens to have the game, likely at an absurd price. It's great for preservation, and for those that want to experience the devs work without having to pay potentially hundreds of dollars, or spend days, or even years hunting down a copy.