Morality?

I dont exactly know how to ask this and ive had emulators b4 but is it legal? and is it moral? should i be fealing ANY guilt whatsoever over downloading an snes emulator and earthbound and mehbe a couple others?(yes this is noobish but it IS a serius question)

Emulators are not illegal. Downloading games are illegal.

morality is a thing you have to decide for yourself

By downloading a copy of Earthbound (or any other game off the market) you're not cutting into company profits, but you are technically doing something the company doesn't want you to for legal reasons.

Say down the line humanity went insane and there was a sudden demand for old SNES games and everyone completely stopped buying the next-gen breed like Xbox 360, etc. If that near-impossibility ever occured, then companies like Nintendo would be pissed that their old copyrighted material was being distributed freely over the internet. As it stands now I don't see any reason to feel guilty until you see brand-new copies of Earthbound for sale. :)

As said, it's something you have to decide for yourself. Technically downloading commercial games
is illegal, and if you like to think Nintendo is god, then (assuming you believe them), emulators
are illegal too (though in reality they're not, unless they use copyrighted code like official BIOS's).

Of course with Nintendo games the morality issue get's a bit complicated with the Wii and it's
ability to download and play older games. But it's not out yet, so it's hard to speculate right now
how well this feature works and which games will be available for it (Nintendo has already stated
that not every game will be: probably just a "best of" collection).

I'd say, if there is absolutely NO other way you can play the game other than using an emulator
and downloading the ROM "for free", then go for it. But if it's still possible to buy the system
second hand (or even new: I bought a Xbox just this week because everything is pretty cheap now),
then do that instead. Of course, if you don't have the cash to do that, the choices get more
complicated again...

My motto is: if it's really good, you can afford it and it's still for sale (somehow), then buy it.
That goes for everything: not just games but DVDs as well.