Paid Legal emulation

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I'm looking for a way to play my classic games from the past (not emulating on a pc) or dirty rom sites they are out. but emulation that is legal of course I will have to pay
Any ideas

Which console(s) do you have the games on? If you're looking to play old-school Nintendo (NES/SNES/GB) or Sega Genesis/Mega Drive games on a console, you could check out the Retron 5:
https://hyperkin.com/Retron5/

It's a multi-platform emulation system that supports a decent selection of cartridge-based game consoles. It even has the proper slots for every cartridge type. Sadly I don't own one myself, so I can't tell you whether it's worth the $160 price tag or not.

160? Where are you in the USA
I'm in rippoff land (Australia) that would like
500 au here

There aint nothing like the real thing , just buy old consoles - no emulation needed

Not a bad idea but old consoles are expensive and are probably faulty due to age

Having said what I just said , that looks awesome - how fickle am I

broken consoles are a lot cheaper and sometimes relatively easy to fix and maintain , if you're not into fixing electronic things then not a good choice. I take apart nearly every electronic item I own

I'm a little confused. So you have old game cartridges but no way to play them? Or you want to play games you used to own but don't have anymore?

Legal emulation is all over the place, depending on your preferences. As others said, if you need a device to play actual carts, there are things like the Retron. If you don't have the carts, there are things like Nintendo's Virtual Console, or collections of Sega games, etc.

And yeah, old consoles have gotten really expensive lately, especially on eBay. Disc-based consoles are more prone to failure than anything else, if you're worried about old consoles breaking. Another concern is that if you don't have an old CRT television, hooking up old consoles to an HDTV isn't exactly the most optimal way to play them (you'll get bad picture, or have to buy an expensive upscaler, and you'll get input lag).

I don't even live in the US. The $160 is the price they give on their own webstore.

It REALLY depends on exactly what you're looking for.

When it comes to paid emulation? You'll find next to nothing. Only very specific games get emulated. Usually badly.

And that's only if you're talking console games. If you're after arcade games, you're out of luck. Even less of those ever get used in paid products, and often VERY badly.

That's the problem with this entire concept, and one of the reasons why non-paid emulation is so incredibly rampant: Because the companies that do otherwise dont actually give a fart. They make a product that they KNOW isnt going to make them much money, so the quality is usually.... pretty freaking terrible. Even Nintendo's Virtual Console is pretty awful, and that's as good as it gets.

Also yes, they'll absolutely rip you off. (oh, and that Retron 5 thing is a BIG ripoff. Dont buy that. It isnt worth what they're asking. I've owned things like that. There are other options for this, heck if I remember the names though). And remember that the Retron type things arent "full" emulation. You still need the cartridges. They simply take the place of the console.


Without emulation (and even with a Retron device) you're left purely with buying the old games and hoping they dont break.

Exactly why I usually dont bother. I make an exception for the Atari 2600 strictly because I can, but other than that... dont care, just gonna emulate. Particularly arcade games. They're literally impossible to play otherwise, in most cases.

I've heard some bad things about the WiiU VC, but everything I've played on the Wii and 3DS have been fine.

I do wish there was a proper controller solution for the N64 games, though. Maybe next year we'll get the N64 Classic Mini.

Seriously though, legal emulation only exists on certain consoles and on a per-game basis. You can buy emulated games on Sony consoles, on Nintendo consoles and on Microsoft consoles, but you will be gouged to hell and back on every single game while the people who developed those games get nothing.

As for the virtual console, all I know of Nintendo is that I couldn't move my account to a new 3DS after my old 3DS died, because my old 3DS wasn't present (it was dead). That was enough for me to seriously question whether I should ever give Nintendo any money ever again for anything, and I still avoid it wherever possible. Please tell me they changed this system with the Switch at least? (and this is relevant, because I lost some virtual console titles too, so there)

edit: it's ALSO worth noting that emulation itself is technically legal, only the game copies themselves are illegal. May not be useful for the OP but don't feel bad about emulating your legal copies of PSX games or w/e

I refer you to the Midway Arcade Treasures compilations and Namco Museum and there were also compilations released for Capcom and Taito during the PS2 era. The OP could also do a lot worse than the Activision Anthology (faithful emulation of Atari 2600 games like River Raid, Stampede and Pitfall!) and the Sega Mega Drive compilations.

IMO the only hardware clone worth a damn is the GB Boy Colour (Chinese clone of the Gameboy Color with DS quality backlight):
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/2-7-GB- ... eLevelAB=0

If it's Nintendo stuff then there are a lot of games on the various Virtual Consoles on 3ds and WiiU (although not Switch yet), or you can get the fantastic SNES Mini Classic (or the NES one if that is more to your liking).

I have the SNES Classic and it's really lovely - feels just like the real thing, the controllers take me back 20+ years.

I have to admit though I've been to those "dirty rom sites" and installed some more games one it that were missing.