Emulation is NOT "console game disc playable on your PC."

OK, so I saw this on Did You Know Gaming yesterday.




"The disc has a windows .EXE file that can be play on a computer." By the language of the image, it sounds like you'd be able to pop the disc into your PC and play Pikmin, or something, on your PC. Well, as a fan of gaming, I decided to try it out. I have computers that have disc trays that can hold mini-discs. I have a Vista computer and a Windows 7 computer. Given the time the game was released and how technology advances, I figured that one or the other would work.

So I dig out my copy of Pikmin and plop it into my Windows 7 computer. My computer had some trouble reading the disc, as is to be expected, but then it didn't recognize it as "being there" and said "please insert a disc." Well, my computer was running a little hot since it was on for a while, so I decided I'll try it the next day when it cooled down.

I try it again today, it didn't work. "Please insert disc." I thought, "OK, maybe 7 is to advanced, I'll try Vista." I turn on the Vista computer and put the Pikmin disc into the disc tray. I opened up my computer, and same thing, "Please insert a disc." I'm thinking, "what gives, do I need to use XP? Well the XP computer is so screwed up we use it as a night stand, it can't even run Solitare let alone an actual game like Pikmin."

So I looked into the source of the DYKG post. Read it for yourself and see what you make of it.
"Source" that tell you about it.
"Notes" that give the how to.

Now I'm not going to act like I know everything there is to know about game programing, computers, and emulation, but reading how to do it sounds a lot like running the rom in an emulator. OK, it's not an emulator by traditional definitions, but you basically need to take the data from the disc, get a program to run the data, and then make some changes to the data so you can run it. To me, that sounds an awful lot like an emulator. This is not what I took away from the post; I interpreted it to mean "pop your copy of Pikmin into your computer and run the debug menu," not "rip the data for a copy of Pikmin, get a program that will play the data, and then make some changes to the data." Ug.

Well this has been Happy Gamer signing off, and DYKG, if you're reading this, do not include rom hacks of a game rom that needs an emulator as a bit of gaming trivia. The .EXE file thing might be good bit of trivia, but don't word it in a way that sounds like "put the disc in a computer and it'll run." Phase it like "if you look into the Pikmin rom, you'll find a windows .EXE file of a  debug mode."