someguy said:
I think the whole "emulation hurts development" argument is garbage. I don't believe it for a second:
...
If emulators for the Vectrex (and to a lesser extent the others I mention) hadn't been released, many of today's video game players would never have heard of it. Yet precisely because of emulation, we've seen several new games released for the Vectrex - and more on the way.
Emulation >ROCKS<

I like emulation and emulators in general, but the trouble here is that it takes MUCH less work to develop a 2600, 5200, or Vectrex, etc. game than it does to make a Jaguar game. No offense to anyone, but it is much harder to make something on the Jag.
I suppose one could argue that I could make PONG or Breakout on the Jag easier than on the 2600, etc. But that's not what I meant. I meant a quality title worthy of production.
Now, there's a LOT more 2600 fans out there I believe than Jaguar fans. The 2600 community has a cool method of distribution where the same ROM that is uploaded to Atari Age is produced on limited edition carts that sell for a little money to pay for the materials, etc. and a little profit goes to the designer. There are enough serious 2600 Collectors out there who will buy a cart just to have a boxed cart and manual for the collection, while the binary is freely available and emulatable. A 2600 game might take a month or two of evenings to make. Plus, a lot of unreleased and unfinished 2600 games are still floating around and surfacing, plus the ability to hack an existing 2600 game and make something new or improved out of it is a lot easier on the 2600 architecture.
The Jag would take at least a year of evenings to make an adequate game, and who knows if there are enough serious collectors out there who would pay the higher price (because Jag carts cost about 5x as much as 2600 carts to build) for a cart when they could download and emulate the cart for free. The Jag developer has no monetary incentive to develop a game because he might be stuck with boxes of unsold carts because of emulation... and spending a year of work on something that's just for giving away is probably not something many people would do, so it might not ever happen for the Jag.
So, while your point is true for some platforms, it might hurt the Jag's chances of attracting new developers.