So a lot of people have jumped on the modern console generation “emulation” bandwagon to spread fakes and scams everywhere you look.
One that caught my eye was PCSX4… a Emulator with a TERMS OF SERVICE, USER LOGINS, and personal info collection.
They claim this is to control piracy, because they can ban accounts that attempt to circumvent Sony’s encryption on THEIR platform, which is using Sony’s encryption methods locked behind a user login… They made a emulator DRM scheme.
This sounds so shady and might even be fake. But if people are willing to go as far as locking access behind giving up personal info, scammers have hit a new low.
Remember, MakeMKV doesn’t willingly give away it’s AACS decryption methods and lock prolonged use of the program behind a product key, but they don’t lock it behind user logins.
The only current open source PS4 emulator is based on QEMU and is only source code. Don’t let anything else fool you. PS4 emulation is still 10 years away.
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there are some emulators which requires logins for different things, i know there at least used to be a N64 emulator on macos which required a subscription for you to save at all.
As for PS4 and vita there is a couple which says it emulates both and even gives 60 fps in ALL games.
With emulation (and piracy) i think it is best to be cautious and wait until it has gained traction in the emulation scene or test it and assume it is all fake
Best word of advice. Because if you can’t see all the source code, who knows if that was actually mining personal data… like NZXT CAM currently is…
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I would personally stay away as the risk might not be worth the risk though its up to you. Could easily be a phishing site or just plain scam.
If evidence supports that its legit than might be worth it
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Why would I emulate a current gen console?
The same reason you would emulate any console. You want to play the game without the console
Or I could buy a used PS4 for 100 bucks and not deal with dodgy BS.
the problem with doing that is that you are more locked down, you can not use the controller of your choice, you can not edit any graphics setting or add “speed hacks” if you want a higher frame rate game. i would love current gen emulators so that i could give game devs money instead of waiting 5 years playing it with no way of supporting them for their work.
I will not waste money on a computer which can do nothing but play video games. I do not have that kind of money
Guys Like CEMU and PCSX4 aren’t good for the emulator community. Leaving software not open source makes it easy via a lawsuit to shut down the project. When open sourced, forking and decentralized development is much harder to squash.
That being said I can understand when in early development that you want detailed logs because you are working in uncharted territory. And being an early adopter or tester comes with that burden.
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Kinda related
Back with 3DS release these did spread emulator with schemes to unlock its contents, I did not follow what happened with Switch, but it’ll probably be cryptolockers with next console release
I have not checked any other emulators for years than Cemu, which works 
Yeah, I played all of BOTW on CEMU, worked great. I did not pay for the software though, I used the free version once they finally released it.
I’m fine with developers charging for their products. Why shouldn’t they make a profit? Emulators built clean-room are completely legal, even if the use to which they’re put by many users is not.
By “finally released it” you probably mean that you were early on checking it?
I did check it later by just random coincidence, I think it was some multithread version, and I understood that patreons get sketchy beta versions, and a bit earlier that latest version
and otherwise its just free
Its version history is interesting and it makes me want to try playing a bit
Yes, the way CEMU works is they release to their Patreon first, then a month or so later they release the same version to everybody. CEMU really does work quite well.