What emulators do game developers use?

[serioussam909]

I'm wondering what emulators do console game developers use to test their game...
Do they use some custom hardware (pc + console) or what?

[TchuBacha]

I think they have a development kit which is made up of the actual hardware with modifications. Such as a PS2 that can play burnt games or load them from an image from a server etc. These are generally bigger, noisier and uglyer than the final version. They most likely code the game using a high spec computer with all the trimmings (high spec graphics card, tons of RAM, massive hard etc..) then load the game on their PS2 dev kit to test it out.

I think with other consoles particulary handhelds they use an emulator on a PC. I remember with a leaked version of a SOCOM game for the PSP it had a file inside it which contained instructions about which keys on the keyboard corrospond to the buttons on a PSP.


Homebrew developers take a similar approach. Code it on a PC and test it out on a modified version of the console they are coding for.

PSP Example-

Code game on PC using the PSP-SDK (Software development kit)
Compile it
Copy it to a homebrew enabled PSP
Test it out