I've heard some of the authors of the Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator (MAME) project say that the main goal of the software is to preserve the old hardware in code form; the ability to play games on it is just a nice side effect. I used to think that this was just a way of sidestepping piracy debates, but having been around the block a time or two now, I see some merit to it. But I suspect they still play games on it ;)