Here's an example that goes back over two decades.
In 1996, Williams Entertainment (a.k.a. Midway) published Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits for several video game consoles. All versions were developed by
Digital Eclipse, who previously did similar compilations of Williams' arcade games for personal computers.
The first version was released for Sony PlayStation. It was notable for being one of the very first uses of arcade game emulation on a video game console, which was a groundbreaking achievement.
Shortly after that, a version was released for Sega Saturn, which also contained emulation.
Later, versions were released for Sega Genesis and Super NES. These systems didn't have enough power to accurately emulate the arcade games at an acceptable speed. So, instead of using emulation, Digital Eclipse actually analyzed the arcade machines' code, and translated them to native code for the Genesis and SNES.
I've got both the PlayStation and Genesis versions of Williams Arcade's Greatest Hits. While the PlayStation version is the better package overall (for numerous reasons), the Genesis version is impressive in its own right. The sound is a little off on a few of the games, but other than that, they are almost indistinguishable from the arcade originals in graphics and gameplay. It was particularly enjoyable to have these games available for portable play on the Nomad.
A similar method of translating the original arcade programming was also used a few years earlier by Shadowsoft in their versions of
Robotron: 2084 and
Joust for the Atari Lynx, which were released on separate cartridges. No one would mistake these games for full-fledged emulation, due to the Lynx's noticeably reduced screen resolution, and altered controls for Robotron: 2084 (which used two joysticks in the arcade--it was the first "twin-stick shooter"). Still, these were also outstanding efforts that successfully retained the feel of the arcade games in portable packages.
