(C) BoingBoing
This story was originally published by BoingBoing and is unaltered.
 . . . . . . . . . .



How good are Nintendo's official emulators, actually? [1]

['Grant St. Clair']

Date: 2025-09-10  

Since the days of the Wii (and even the Nintendo 64 if you count Animal Crossing's built-in NES games), Nintendo has offered official emulators on its consoles, allowing users to explore the company's significant back catalog for a price. The practice continues to this very day with the Switch 2's expanded Nintendo Switch Online service, allowing access to that catalog for a flat monthly rate rather than paying 10 bucks for a single N64 ROM like you would have in 2014.

The question remains, though: how good are these official Nintendo emulators, especially compared to unofficial emulators and, of course, original hardware? These questions have re-emerged in the wake of the Switch 2's launch, which featured notable delay on its built-in GameCube emulator. Luckily, one nerd with too much free time (which I say lovingly, of course) has written a custom ROM just to find out.

Even if you know nothing about the inner workings of your console, it's an engrossing watch all the same.

[END]
---
[1] Url: https://boingboing.net/2025/09/10/how-good-are-nintendos-official-emulators-actually.html

Published and (C) by BoingBoing
Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 3.0.

via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/boingboing/