On the surface it sounds like it could be a good idea. The idea is that you pay a every month to get access to a collection of back-catalogue games from the companies previous systems to play as much as you want, good deal right? Well no. The initial problem with all this stuff is that you're only getting a very small amount of the back catalogue and usually only the best sellers. This means that any hidden gems or good games that were less popular just get ignored and fall to the wayside which means that despite these services if there's an obscure game you really love you'll probably never get to play it on your modern hardware no matter how much of your hard earned money you give them. If Shadow Hearts, for example ever turns up on PSN premium I will literally eat an entire shoe store
Money is the other problem because these companies are essentially ripping you off at every turn. Nintendo released the expansion to Switch Online where you have to pay fifty bucks a month for a smattering of N64 games. What's worse is that a lot of these games aren't very well presented with the Switch version of Ocarina of Time being somewhat famous for how shit it was compared to regular emulation on PC. I've heard it has since become a bit better but the fact it was released in the condition that it was in for that price point AT ALL is really stupid. Sony are even worse wanting $120 per year just for the ability to play some of the PS1/2/3s best sellers which is INSANE to me. Maybe if it was a one time payment of 120 to play all those games forever, sort of like a giant greatest hits collection, then I wouldn't be moaning but these payments have to be constant. If you stop playing for Switch online, no more SNES for you. Stop paying for PSN Premium? Kiss your games goodbye until you cough up more cash.
All of this, when emulation exists which can be done for free and usually at a higher quality than anything Sony or Nintendo will give you. Now I'm not going to argue the legality of emulation. If you download some SNES ROMS or some PS2 ISOs and Nintendo or Sony come after you, they are well within their legal rights to do so but just because it's legal doesn't mean it's right.
Let's think about Emulation for a second, who is it hurting? For this example let's take someone downloading an ISO of Shadow Hearts on the PS2. You could argue that they should be paying money to play it to support Sony or the developer, Sacnoth. Well that argument doesn't stand because 1) Sacnoth ain't around no more, 2) The game isn't being sold anywhere no more and 3) The game isn't avaliable on the back catalogue subscription service. "So go and buy a disc copy instead of pirating then!" I hear you cry through a wave of drool.
Shadow Hearts on disc is about $130-300 depending on where you buy it. Now let's say you go this route, where does that money go? Does it go to Sony to support their production of future games? No it doesn't. Does it go to Sacnoth or their parent company Aruze to maybe fund another Shadow Hearts game? No it doesn't. So where does the money go then? It goes to some fat, middle aged neckbeard who hasn't showered in 2 weeks so he can go scoop up more retro games from garage sales and used book stores to over price in online marketplaces. I know it feels "morally correct" to buy a disc version of a retro game but you're supporting an absolutely disgusting marketplace that's really bad for players.
So tell these subscriptions to go fuck themselves and go fire yourself up and emulator. I'm sure the multi-billion dollar corporations won't go under because you decided to fire up Yakiniku Bugyou on ePSXe, you don't need to worry your damaged little brain about it
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