Nintendo offers the "Virtual Console" on the Wii and 3DS.
Unless my knowledge is out of date, Nintendo's business model revolves around licensing for publishing software for their hardware, so it's in Nintendo's best interest to sell hardware, and not to support emulation on other hardware.
On a related note, when Sony sued 'Bleem!', it argued that running the software on other hardware destroyed Sony's control over the player's experience, and as a result hurt their brand.
I believe Nintendo intends to profit via software licensing and hardware sales. The Wii was profitable at launch[1].
But I wonder how the Virtual Console works on the Wii. Does Nintendo have an SNES hardware-to-software conversion guide? Do their VC releases turn out perfect? I've bought a few, and while they're certainly faithful, I'm not enough of a connoisseur to spot the flaws.
I'm under the impression that each Virtual Console download includes an instance of an emulator. If that's the case, they may tweak the emulator for compatibility with each game (or hack the game itself). If you want to look into it some more, the guys who do 'Virtual Console WAD injection' might have an idea. ROM Hacking and (NES/SNES) console development sites/forums might have some information, too.
I vaguely remember hearing of instances where games weren't emulated accurately (or even as well as on other emulators), particularly with regard to slowdown on PAL consoles.
Yeah, in the one case where I tried the wii virtual console with a game that was big in my childhood (Contra 3), it just doesn't feel quite the same. Noone's gotten an SNES controller quite right, either. So I hang on to a SNES to bring out every now and then.
http://www.retrousb.com/ has adapters to connect the original NES or SNES pads to either USB or a Gamecube/Wii. I've used their SNES-to-USB adapter and it works perfectly.
Unless my knowledge is out of date, Nintendo's business model revolves around licensing for publishing software for their hardware, so it's in Nintendo's best interest to sell hardware, and not to support emulation on other hardware.
On a related note, when Sony sued 'Bleem!', it argued that running the software on other hardware destroyed Sony's control over the player's experience, and as a result hurt their brand.