Station Emulation

With emulators traditionally covering 8bit machines, you’d be forgiven for thinking the whole scene was nothing more than a luddite cult. But over the last couple of months, emulators have exceeded everybody’s expectations. PlayStation emulators appeared around 12-18 months ago, most of which were hideously slow and played little (if any) software. It seemed then as though perfect emulation was months, if not years, from becoming a reality.

That was until Connectix released the Virtual Game Station at the MacWorld EXPO in January. A software program that enabled PlayStation games to run on Macintosh computers, VGS was effectively the world’s first commercial games emulator. The $49 package scooped the coveted ‘Best of Show’ award.

Quicker than you can say ‘Ally McBeal’, Sony filed a lawsuit against Connectix for infringements of their copyright and intellectual property. Within a week, the courts had rejected Sony's request for a temporary restraining order on VGS shipments – a moment of judicial sanity or the calm before the storm?

The pending legal battle could set an important precedent in the area of software emulation. The VGS is reverse engineered, and that in itself is not illegal. After all, Codemasters reverse-engineered Nintendo hardware in 1990 to produce the Game Genie, won a protracted legal battle against Nintendo, and paved the way for a myriad of unofficial accessories.

Though not a perfect substitute for a PlayStation, VGS gives Mac owners more games to choose from and PlayStation owners more choice where they play. It will also increase the PlayStation games market, from which Sony make a fair amount of revenue in licensing.

Sony feels that the VGS offers a low quality representation of the PlayStation, and does not accurately emulate the PlayStation gaming experience, but then, neither does using the console with a 14" black & white TV. Requests from Connectix (for endorsement and technical assistance) were turned down due to the product’s inferior performance – Sony striving to maintain standards or retain their monopoly?