I'm (mostly) against pirating new games. I don't do it. I want game companies to continue to exist and make more games. I want indie developers to be able to afford food. But NES era? SNES era? PSX era, even? I say pirate at will. Pretty sure it is actually illegal (in the US), but whatever. The law in this case is stupid. I don't believe people should be able to make a thing and then sit on the copyright for the rest of their lives. Thankfully in this case the law seems to be mostly unenforceable.

One big reason emulators are good is to preserve our culture. Once all the NESes break, do we want to lose the ability to experience those games forever? I want them to be preserved.

"No one makes money on old games" is not true. NES/SNES games are for sale in the Wii store. PSX games are for sale on PSP I think. Ones that aren't for sale now could be added later. Maybe the ones that are never re-released for new systems aren't released because they're pirated so much and the company knows it's not worth it. When I emulate an NES or SNES game, I know I'm depriving someone of a sale or a potential sale.

However I don't care. $5 for one game tied to a single Wii bought by fumbling through their terrible store can't compete with free + convenient + playable on any PC + save states + cheat engine + fast-forward + network play etc. If I paid for a game 15 years ago, why do I need to re-buy it for every new system that's released? If Nintendo put every NES game ever made into a bundle and sold it cross-platform DRM-free for $20, I'd probably buy it.