Emulation - The Legalities, Ethics, Benefits and Drawbacks

[Pemalite]

Cerebralbore101 said:

Both are tools that can be used for theft, and in the case of BotW, and Persona 5, they are overwhelmingly being used for theft. A PC comes along somewhere in the process. The code for custom firmware to crack a modern console is written on a PC. Same thing goes for mod chips. 

False. Emulation itself doesn't allow for the procurement of copyrighted material that say... A torrent provides.
In the case of Breath of the Wild and Persona 5, the emulator was bundled with the game, the emulator was not used to get said game.
It would be wise for you to see them as two distinct entities rather than a singular one.

As for the writing of firmware, you can actually do such tasks on a chromebook or an Android/iOS device... It is not strictly tied to a PC.
And is also not always a requirement in circumventing the copy protection on a console anyway, some consoles just require the soldering of a resistor... Or the addition of a mod chip or nothing at all.

Fact of the matter is... In most forward thinking nations... Emulation is perfectly legal... And piracy is piracy and has nothing to do with emulation itself.