Software Engineering Daily Emulating Retro Games on Modern Consoles with Robin Lavallée and Bill Litshauer
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Jun 19, 2025 
Robin Lavallée, CEO of Implicit Conversions with a rich background in game giants like Ubisoft, and Bill Litshauer, the company's COO who has produced numerous casual games, dive into the exciting world of retro game emulation. They discuss the technical challenges of porting classic PlayStation games to modern consoles, revealing strategies for real-time emulation and performance optimization. The duo also touches on legal hurdles, gameplay enhancements, and the future of multiplayer experiences in retro gaming, all while balancing nostalgia with contemporary gaming standards.
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Robin's Early Coding Journey
- Robin Lavallée started programming at age seven with a TRS-80 using a French manual despite not speaking English.
- His career spans Ubisoft, 2K Games, Twitch, Meta, and culminates in founding Implicit Conversions to bring retro games to modern consoles.
Syrup Emulation Engine Explained
- Implicit Conversions' Syrup Emulation Engine integrates multiple emulators as plugins, allowing feature additions.
- Their unique approach is key to porting PlayStation 1 games to modern consoles like Switch and Xbox.
AOT Compilation for Emulation
- Emulation is done by interpreting the binary game code but removing proprietary SDK code.
- Ahead-of-time (AOT) compilation is used to convert game instructions to target machine code, improving performance without JIT.
