For the first time, emulators have arrived on Valve's storefront, Steam, allowing any Steam account holder to get legitimate emulators that can surely run the games they've wanted to play on their PCs.
Geod Studios' Long-Running NES Emulator is Now on Steam
First to arrive on the storefront is Geod Studios' 3DSen emulator, which fans would most likely be familiar with.
However, for those who don't know, 3DSen is a long-running emulator that allows users to play games from the Nintendo Entertainment System or NES on their PCs--but it comes with a twist: the emulator turns the games into 3D.
According to Rock Paper Shotgun, the emulator works on classic Nintendo games to those modern homemade attempts and turns them into 3D dioramas.
Geod Studios is extremely confident with their emulator that they even say the trailers that demonstrate how 3DSen works do not give it justice, which is why some would rather try the emulator firsthand.
Based on the report, the level of the 3D "upgrade" varies from one game to another.
For example, there are only a few games that support 3D features like lighting and shadows, modeled characters, and full camera controls, but it's still in early access on Steam, and version 1.0 will be released later this year.
By the time the updated version arrives, the developer hopes to have included first-person views.
How Does 3DSen Work?
To clarify, your NES ROMs that work on various NES emulators won't magically turn to 3D.
Instead, 3DSen has a list of 70 games that people at Geod Studios have tweaked to achieve the 3D features, and if you have a ROM of any of the games on the list, it will support the full 3D effect, as noted by PCGamesN.
But it should work like any other NES emulator on the market, only with a little twist that many modern-day gamers would appreciate.
Will it Stay on Steam Forever?
Nevertheless, some fans are still quite unsure until when 3DSen will be available on Steam as a paid product, especially as Nintendo seems to be a little touchy with virtual consoles and emulators, such as the case with the Super Mario 64 PC port that they shut down just this April, according to Business Insider.
However, it seems like emulators will become a lot more common within Steam in the coming days as Libretro's RetroArch has also been listed on Steam.
In context, paid emulation software has been legal according to the US courts since 2000 when Bleem was a thing.
For those who want to get a 3DSen on PC, it is available on Steam for $8.99, with a VR edition that is available for $19.99.
Of course, the prices do not include any game ROMs, so you'll still have to provide for those yourself and find a source online, but if you've been playing with emulators for a long time, you'll likely know a right place or two where you can get those ROMs.
