Most games retain their copyright despite the increasing time-span of the original system and products' discontinuation this leaves regular consumers and emulation enthusiasts to resort to obtaining games freely across various internet sites rather than legitimately purchasing and ripping the contents (although for optical media, this is not uncommon for legitimate owners). The code and data of a game are typically supplied to the emulator by means of a ROM file (a copy of game cartridge data) or an ISO image (a copy of optical media), which are created by either specialized tools for game cartridges, or regular optical drives reading the data.

Emulators are also a useful tool in the development process of homebrew demos and the creation of new games for older, discontinued, or rare consoles. More often than not, emulators carry additional features that surpass the limitations of the original hardware, such as broader controller compatibility, timescale control, greater performance, clearer quality, easier access to memory modifications (like GameShark), one-click cheat codes, and unlocking of gameplay features.

Project64 running Star Fox 64 on Windows 8Ī video game console emulator is a type of emulator that allows a computing device to emulate a video game console's hardware and play its games on the emulating platform.

Xbox emulator roms