Consider Virtual Console as "Authentic Experience?"

[TomGuycott]

My argument in favor of Virtual Console would be entirely about legitimacy. Emulators aren't a legitimate way to play games, and Virtual Console has given me opportunities to support people who make the games I love to play and otherwise don't have access to. Alien Soldier is an example of a very good VC buy for me.

In terms of "authenticity", neither comes out on top, because neither are truly authentic.

In terms of quality, VS's post sums it up. Emulators are far superior in quality to VC. Even with the addition of features like save states in VC, it is worlds behind emulators that can save multiple slots, slow and speed up gameplay, and cheat features.

Subjectively speaking, I lean further to VC solely for legitimacy and support of the developers (or I guess whoever has the rights to the work, I guess you can't guarantee the original Devs even own rights to it anymore in the long run).