When emulators were legit – Polygon

Macworld 1999 was marred by two utterly disastrous announcements about gaming. The first was that the infamously-Xbox-exclusive HaloLaunched on Macs, as well. Although it was eventually ported to the Mac, it wasn’t until many years later. Steve Jobs created a killer new app which would instantly turn the Mac into an extremely powerful gaming device.

Connectix’s Virtual Game Station emulated Playstation discs for Mac hardware — and it was high quality software. There were very few emulators available for the current-generation consoles, most of them fan-made. More than anything, they were a grey market — nobody was really sure if they were legal, or if they counted as piracy.

So it was surprising to see Steve Jobs up on stage, bragging about how this software would play a couple hundred Playstation games — without the need to pay for a Playstation.

Upon seeing the Macworld clip, my first reaction was to realize that Jobs didn’t care about Mac gaming. An emulator was the easiest, cheapest way to increase the Mac’s game library: You don’t have to woo publishers or make your platform enticing to developers.

Apple’s user base was tiny in the late ’90s, and game makers didn’t want to waste the effort of porting their games for such a small audience. Retailers didn’t want to waste shelf space for this niche little company. So an emulator was actually a pretty brilliant strategy to expand Apple’s game repertoire.

But there was no way Sony could allow that to happen — and not because it would lose sales on the Playstation itself.

Watch the video above to learn more about Sony’s response, which was inevitable, and the outcome of their efforts, which were wholly unpredictable.