I know a couple people who tell me playing video games on the console it was made for instead of emulating on pc is way better. I can understand that its a little weird playing these console and handheld games on a pc ,especially controls wise but I wanted to ask you guys, how do you think its better and what do you prefer?

I've pretty much been a pc player for a long time. So, for me emulation works for me. As long as I can map the controls to something that works for me. I feel more comfortable with it.

plus, most emulators have things like save states, fast-forwards, and all that good stuff which can provide benefits every now and then.

That being said, I also wouldn't mind playing on the original, and I might want to if it's a new game I can't run on the PC, or want to help the company out, but PC/Emulation is something I do.

There are advantages to both. Although I personally prefer playing games on the original hardware, the way the games were developed to play in the first place. I do admit that there are advantages to both.

If you are a purist like me, who likes the challenge of beating the games without save states and that sort of thing as well as the feel of using the original controller, then you will like the consoles better. Especially if you are a collector.

If you think that retro games are too hard, then you can use emulation to make it a lot easier, because you can save state and load state whenever you want. Then there's the added bonus of being able to easily capture game footage and screenshots directly from the emulator. So that's a huge bonus.

It depends on the game and if I can afford to buy the original hardware. If we are talking the first 4 Phoenix Wright games, I'd prefer to emulate them if I didn't have enough money to buy them in the first place. But now that they have games coming out on newer systems I'll have to use actual money to buy them, heh.

I have always played the console. I started playing PC games when I was bored at work and then came across this site when looking to play old school games without having to spend so much money buying the console then the games. It just got too expensive so I came across this site and honestly it is much better in my opinion. Getting the PC controllers can be as cheap as $10 and you get to play so many video games for so many different consoles without much difficulty at all. So in my opinion PC rocks.

I would say I prefer to play the games online with the RGR plugin. The emulation is better on this website than any other I have seen, and you have so many different retro games (which are mostly what I play) to choose from. However, there are problems with doing this. You can't always depend on your computer or internet connection to work 100% of the time. If you have the money it is always better to try buying the original consoles just in case your computer or internet crashes. The consoles aren't as good because you can't use saves states or other features, but it is better to have another copy of the game in case of computer problems.

I prefer the real thing, because even if I can use a controller, it still wont bt eht same because a lot of the aspects will be different when running it on a PC and when you play it on the original, its usually way smoother. I'd much rather play PSX games on a real PlayStation than emulate them, though emulating them still works and is great.

TristanTehGamer1 : To be honest, the actual gameplay isn't nearly as affected as the mindset you go into a game with.

You have a different mindset, or just simply a different feeling when sitting in front a TV playing Ocarina of Time on an original N64 than when you boot up an emulator at your desk ( or even more so your phone/tablet).  Even if your playing with an N64 controller on your PC, it'll feel different.

     You can call it nostalgia maybe, but it's going to feel different. Even to new players. Playing Pokemon on your Phone will not be the same as on a Gameboy, or even on a 3DS.

    When Pokemon's 20th anniversary rolls around, I have to wonder if they'll be able to capture the same feeling with the old games on 3DS, that they had on the original gameboy.

     In a technical sense, it won't change much aside from your slight differences in processing power. But it will FEEL different.

I honestly don't care. Since I mostly play RPGs a keyboard does just fine when playing. Plus old-gen systems (except the Genesis) had such small controllers for my large hands.

Original hardware, definitely. The controls are better, and it just feels better. Get what I mean? Sometimes, though, it is fun to have more of a challenge control wise.

Original hardware, hands down. I actually recently quit emulating, but before that I only did so because I couldn't afford the games and systems, but it never felt the same as playing the real deal. In fact I don't even like playing backwards compatible consoles as much as the original (so I prefer PSX games on a PSX, not on a PS2). The difference is mostly in our minds, but I can never get into gaming via emulator for long, and again even with backwards compatibility, it isn't the same.

And following along with something Jordan said, there's something to be said for playing with the original controller too.

There's good and bad points to both. Emulation provides an easy way to play a massive library of games without spending a lot of money, and a PC controller can give you the same kind of control you'd get on actual hardware. There's also saving and loading states, the ease of capturing screenshots and videos, and many other reasons.

In the end, nothing can beat playing the game on its original hardware. There's something much better about playing a Game Boy game on a Game Boy rather than on an emulator. Some systems don't have perfect or near-perfect emulators yet, which means you'll have to use actual hardware to play the game, if you want the true experience of the game.

Emulation is only good if you don't have certain games/consoles or if you want to hack or TAS. Emulators, even if you have a super good PC, don't have as good performance as the original consoles. For example, N64 should be easy to run, but no N64 emulator has perfect coding so you can often get small fps spikes.

Also input lag is a factor for older consoles. Unless you have an ancient CRT computer monitor, you're going to get a couple frames of delay when you input button presses. Original hardware can hook up to CRT television sets, though, and you don't have to worry about that.

Playing on the original hardware guarantees that the game will run with 100% accuracy with full speed, but may experience slowdowns, sprite flickering, or framedrops. That and you won't get all the fancy features that come with emulation like rewinds, fast forwarding, save states, netplay, custom textures, etc.

Emulators of older systems are for the most part extremely accurate having insane compatibility and features and it's streamlined so that anybody can use it easily. Now when you move up to more modern systems like the PS2 there's far more compatibility issues, glitches, and it's just a whole lot less user friendly (In the case of PCSX2). Even consoles like the N64 are still rather imperfect in the emulation aspect and Xbox emulation is practically nonexistent as far as I know.

Me being a collector myself I personally want to make use of the numberous consoles and games I have, but I have no issue using emulators. I also want to preserve my games and eliminate the amount of times I take in and out the cartridge and disc to preserve the pins and laser on the console so I just usually use a flashcart like an Everdrive or load my games a hard drive or SD card through homebrew.

I grew up on the Nintendo Entertainment System and on.  I like both original consoles and emulated games.  Some emulations you just can't find anymore, or they are insanely expensive to purchase, like Valkyrie Profile for the Playstation.  It is a bit hard to play some of the newer games with only a keyboard as your controller, like all of the Nintendo 64 games, but I love the save state feature, and the fast forward feature.  I like console games for the controller, and being able to play with other people when they come over for a drink or just to hang out.  That, and I can be like "yeah I have a working Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis."

I only use emulators if I have absolutely no way to acquire a certain game, or if I already own a game on a console I can't carry around. However, I think that the original hardware is best because, unless you have a lot of money to spend on computer parts, your emulations of gamecube, ps2, etc. will run like a constipated man who overdosed on anti-diarrheals and ate loads of fiber-rich foods.

When it comes to playing console games I honestly prefer the original hardware. Its harder for me to appreciate these games when using an emulator because I always know that I can jump to something else in seconds. Whereas with original hardware, you have to stick the media in the console and as such you are making some kind of commitment.

The story is a bit different with PC stuff.

Getting original PC hardware for MS-DOS games is EXPENSIVE. So I honestly don't mind using DOSbox for MS-DOS games. Of course being someone who owns an older machine for MS-DOS games (and windows 9x games) its a much cooler experience to use the original hardware, but its rather impractical as it takes up a lot of space.

Emulation for me. It has many things that I can take advantage of like using cheats codes or saveing without having to use the in game save location just to name a few.

If I already have the consoles, I go for playing with the hardware they have. Even then, if I have access to emulators, I might as well do that. I can make TAS recordings, save state about, change speed at my will, set and enable game modifying codes to do useful or weird behaviors, and sometimes just fool about with what it gives.

Makes no odds for me. Playing the original is great but trying to get used to previous controllers is sometimes annoying or stop working over time so I use both depending on the circumstances.