I first have to start off with the legal stuff. Please keep the law in mind when emulating games. You are not supposed to run an emulation of a game if you don't own the original legally. I do not condone piracy or stealing of licensed software / hardware. With that out of the way, lets get into it.
Emulating classic games is something that's been around since the turn of this latest century. Yes, it existed before that, but it was in it's infancy, and what you would have been emulating (and badly) weren't even that old yet.
The first levels of emulation were pretty basic. You could only really emulate things like the NES and Gameboy, and a little later, SNES and same era consoles like the Genesis. In the early days of emulation, the biggest con would have to be controls. Most emulators only would register input controls from the keyboards. And for those that would input joysticks, USB joypads were both young, expensive and crap. But we emulated our games none the less. Using keyboards awkwardly, and stuck to our PC's as there were no portable devices capable of emulation yet, apart from top tier laptops of the day.
But there were 2 things that kept us coming back. The first was stability and reliability. Many of the early consoles were unreliable, prone to glitch, and saves would oft times erase when the game cart wasn't played for a certain amount of time. The second, which leads from the first, is save states. Save states have existed since the beginning and are an amazing tool for emulation. It made it so you can put down any game, for any amount of time, and pick it up and start playing from exactly where you left off. Alternatively, it also opened the door for cheating your way through games that you might not have been able to beat previously; allowing you to save and load your way through hard sections of a game that you would normally game over on.
It was really in the mid 2000's that emulation started to pick up speed. Around this time, emulators for the N64, and PSX came out, allowing us to play these on the PC. At the same time, peripheral support was much stronger, allowing you to pick up a decent USB game pad for under $20. This not only opened the world up for better emulation and controls, but very real multiplayer games. Before this, you might have had to share a keyboard, which is hardly practical, but having a couple of USB controllers worked perfectly. In these early days, emulating the later consoles, especially the PlayStation was weak at best, but it worked well enough to keep us trying. Support kept on, and computers got better and better, making emulation work better and better.
As hardware evolved in computers, so did the emulators. Better hardware and better code writing made it possible to play more advance games reliably and without fault. But the direction that emulators took surprised everyone. Emulation on mobile devices like tablets and phones allowed for us to play our classic games on the move. This was a huge step and is still going strong today.
When mobile devices like android phones started with emulation, it was rough. They were only capable of playing with touch screen controls, which were difficult, lacked a level of feel, and were commonly unresponsive. I started with this pretty early in Androids life, around build 2.5. I will admit it did get better, and fast. First was allowing support for bluetooth controllers. Unfortunately, this started with only androids that were rooted. Eventually a pretty smart individual came up with a code to link the android with a Wii remote, and was the first real link to actual game controls on a phone. Around this time, there were a few developers coming up with add-ons, buttons and joysticks that you stuck to your screen, Think Geek even came up with a mini arcade console for iPhones. None of these were really viable solutions however.
Around this time, there were some gaming tablets that were starting to be release. Mostly from China, many of these had problems. Most had issues with reliability, buttons and joysticks breaking, and versions of android that were glitchy and had a LOT of problems. I've owned a number of these devices, and in short, there were definitely BIG problems. But it was a step in the right direction. And gladly, many developers have continued to pursue this. Not only have gaming tablets become quite good, they're still relatively cheap in comparison to most devices you can buy in the states. But this still requires purchasing a second device, and more often than not, not up to our devices top specifications.
The real advancement came in 2013, with the Nvidia Sheild Portable. They had a Bluetooth controller that held in place a proprietary tablet. This was (and still is) extremely expensive in comparison to other devices, and was all proprietary. But this was the match that sparked the flame. It's now common place to find Bluetooth controllers with clips, spring holders, whatever is needed to hold phones or tablets in place. And with companies like iPega producing well built and reliable joypads, you can now play emulated games on whatever device you own, easily, practically and affordably. Some of these controllers are getting pretty advance as well. A good example is the iPega 9028. A Bluetooth controler that is designed for smartphones, and has a built in touch sensor. They also have the iPega 9023, a device that can expand
What keeps emulation going is our desire to play games from our childhood. Be it from wanting to relive our past, or in my case, the belief that old games are just better, emulation is going strong and shows no signs of slowing down. It's so popular in fact, Nintendo is re-releasing a version of the original NES, and is constantly having classic games pop up on their Wii and 3DS virtual console titles. Sony, Microsoft and Steam and joined the fray with classic titles on their respective stores as well.
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