Emulation absolutely has an effect, it lowers the amount of people buying the game to play it. Why spend hard earned money on ancient, dying hardware when you can just emulate it for much cheaper and get a (subjectively) better experience? Even for those who dont know or care about those options, virtual console is emulation, and so is xbox 360 and xbox 2001 gameplay on ones and series xboxes. Even if these people's purchase habits don't affect demand, there are more old pieces of hardware in circulation simply because emulation means people can sell old hardware without losing the ability to play the old games they want to play occasionally.
Kodiakweb t1_jduhccl wrote
Reply to comment by CactuarKing in Ordered 1 Used Copy, Got 2 new, sealed copies by c_binghamton
Emulation absolutely has an effect, it lowers the amount of people buying the game to play it. Why spend hard earned money on ancient, dying hardware when you can just emulate it for much cheaper and get a (subjectively) better experience? Even for those who dont know or care about those options, virtual console is emulation, and so is xbox 360 and xbox 2001 gameplay on ones and series xboxes. Even if these people's purchase habits don't affect demand, there are more old pieces of hardware in circulation simply because emulation means people can sell old hardware without losing the ability to play the old games they want to play occasionally.