What are emulators and ROMs?
Emulators enable a system to recognize a program on different platforms. There are two kinds of emulators being produced today – software and hardware emulators. Software emulators, which is more common than the two, allows a game system (or ROM), to be played in other platform from which it was originally made for. For example, Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) developed an emulator that will allow many NES games to be played on Xbox 360. Another emulator by Nintendo allows various games for Nintendo 64, SNES, Sega Genesis, and other Nintendo games to be played on Xbox 360. Unlike the Sony Playstation 2 which does not have the capability to run its predecessor’s games, Xbox 360 contains a hardware emulator which allows it to play older Xbox games.