Bleem and Connectix have started a new market and it is likely that computer games will soon come bundled with emulator software, borrowed or perhaps reverse engineered emulation software, that breathes this “new life” into games that were shelved or scrapped for good reason.

We’re still talking tiny market share here, and for intents and purposes a retro, has-been niche market at any rate, almost a non-issue save for the fact that the new righteous way for consumers to play with PlayStation product has also opened the door for unbridled trans-platform playing. While we can cheer for the beer leaguers, the inadvertent underdog heroes of this story, we need also prepare for the deluge of not only crap-quality retro games to flood the market, but the viable eventuality that will have even the superconsoles emulated and the quality of these super-emulators, when they come – or rather, when they become more prominent; they’re already champing at the bit from deep-cyberspace pirate sites – they’ll perhaps enhance but more likely further crapify the video game market. Like there’s not enough cheap crap wrapped in shrink wrap pap permeating the video game industry, next comes the unsanctioned, unregulated permissible-pirate beer-leaguers in for a quick yank on the spigot.

Now that the emulator industry is recognized as legitimate business, Sony and Nintendo stand to lose their stranglehold on the console market. Sega, on the other hand, may have circumvented the emulator threat, for the short term, at least, with their hardware-specific GD ROM drive. However, both PSX2 and Nintendo’s forthcoming “Dolphin” will utilize DVD technology – the preferred ROM drive format of new computers - which, while replete with proprietary and no doubt patented encryption software are, nonetheless, open to hacks with a good team of lawyers.

Bleem CEO David Herpolsheimer thinks it unlikely that they will pursue emulation of other formats, choosing instead to refine and polish bleem! to it’s full potential, stating that other console emulators ‘may’ be made but only “at the request of the console manufacturer.” He explains: “We thought we were doing Sony a favor by helping them sell more games, but apparently not. One lawsuit is enough.”

Connectix, on the other hand, seem more open to the idea yet don’t presently see super-emulators as viable, considering the current state of the art. “The issue mainly
revolves around the relative processing power of common personal computers
versus the consoles,” explains Cipriano. “CVGS works well because PlayStation I is an old platform and personal computers have gotten fast enough that they can take the
performance hit associated with emulation and keep up. That's probably not true, for example, on today's computers for PlayStation II.”

Yet now that it is open season on all consoles, superconsoles included by association, it is likely that somebody will spend the time and money perfecting and releasing a stable trans-platform emulators of some sort, perhaps all sorts, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday, soon.

This is the real threat faced by Sony and friends, not that emulators of obsolete formats are nibbling at a piece of the PlayStation pie, but that they are lawfully available.

Now because emulators are on the up and up but because super-consoles are much more demanding than the status quo computer, we would seem to be at an impasses, a merely moot point regarding a threat to Sony’s empire. Consider, however, how much money stands to be made on drinking from the keg that bleem and Connectix paid for and brought, uninvited, to Sony’s party.

Then think some more and think who could both afford to emulate and fight forever the likes of Sony and Nintendo and Sega. Think Bill.

Bill Gates could single handedly send those beer leaguers packing while leaving the market wide open to the wash of product they’re unleashing on the world.… Bill Gates is game. With the recent announcement from Microsoft that Bill and friends want in on the home console market, the industry is poised to flip sideways on the ear. While the celebrity of the forthcoming X-Box already has many avid gamers squirming with anticipation and delight, those same gamers that clamber for emulators and all things video gamely, the actual capabilities of Bill’s box is still an unknown- and Bill’s keeping most of his team sequester in the locker room until the big day – but it is known to have gobs of dedicated performance hardware that could not only take the heat a super-emulator theoretically generates, it’ll probably run better hot. It’s to be a superconsole in it’s own right, after all, and then some.

Of course, if Bill’s in on it, and there’s no reason he wouldn’t want in, Bleem and Connectix already having established that trans-platform game manipulation is a protected industry practice, then there are those that would want to compete at Bill’s level. Connectix even alluded to it. “If Connectix were to release an open-API Linux version of CVGS,” speculate Cipriano, “that could spark an open-source movement for PSX-format games, but we haven't committed to doing that yet.”

It’s only rumor at this point, but it is by no means a stretch to assume that the X-Box will not only play X-Box games but everyone else’s games as well (“right after it cures cancer and turns doggie-doo into gold,” remarks Herpolsheimer wryly). Likewise, it is foreseeable that publishers will release accelerated and enhanced PlayStation games for the Mac and PC that will be playable on the X-Box. Then, therefore, it is also possible that lawyers stand to make the millions as licensing, proprietary and protected trade secrets get tossed around the courts as games stroll through Dog Crap Colosseum.

Bleem has one more game of hard beer ball with Sony this April. The Sony suits are talking to the suits of the hacks and some sort of “can’t we all just get along?” arrangement might be made, but don’t count on it. Even Connectix reverse engineered injunction is tentative, though, thankfully, everyone can own and/or sell an emulator without fear of Sony goons with baseball bats convincing you otherwise, but the battle is far from over.

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