I am sorry but why can't emu just be its own emulator

1. It is the easiest way to get people into the game and its never going to beat xbox anyway so I really don't see the harm. Mario 64 has an emu category and you can say this game does not have a big enough playerbase to justify it, however, I would argue that a lack of an emu category is exactly why the game has such a low playerbase. As much as Shift might spit on my grave for saying this, not everyone wants to buy an xbox for a top 25 run!! "people shouldn't play for WR, they should play to have fun" i am sorry but going for wr is the whole point of speedrunning and it is why many get into it in the first place. A simple fact is that if you know you can never PB below 55:00 or hit WR without spending money than less people are going to speedrun the game period.
2. If emu was to have its own category load times could be cut out completely for the category like rehydrated.
3. Even if you were to go through the WR route perfectly on emu not only would it be slower but it wouldn't even be allowed on the boards for being below 55:00. LIKE WHAT??? If you're not going to let us post PB's than just give us are own category to run pls!! "its so you can't splice" As other users have stated before me splicing this game is super hard to do do to animation cycles and icons being 3d and spinning.
4. This game literally has an all socks flagship category that has NINE submitted runs but we can't get an emu category? That just speaks for itself really. Its like the mod team just doesn't care to expand one of the most untapped parts of the community. Not everyone has an Xbox + cap card + certain hard drive, almost everyone got a pc. If the category ends up being a flop full of cheated runs like mods seem to think is innevitable or something than delete the category but lets just please give it a shot .

There is literally a filter in which you can see the leaderboard of emulator runs you goose.

also if you have the time and passion to grind out a sub 55 minute PB, an xbox with a cheap capture card is a meager investment.

Looking at your profile, you have not submitted a single run so i dont understand why you care so much about this (unless you are waiting for it to be verified or something)

I swear people can never say why an emu category would be bad and they just say we don't need one. What is there to lose from adding this? A new category with cut loading times and easy accessibility, god forbid. Do we need an all purple shiny objects category? or the socks category with nine submissions? No, but there is no harm in it and its fun so the category was made. I run the game purely for fun I didn't even have an account so I made one just for this post. But one of the reasons I have never taken the game seriously is because I am not buying an xbox + cap for one game. I am not saying I'm 100% right and maybe some of my points are invalid or simply meaningless but I believe there is something to gain from this.

What is there to gain? so people can flex their emulator world record? This is solving a problem that doesnt need to be solved. If it one day needs to be solved, there are other means available that are better.

I run the game purely for fun

Cool, WR isn't the only goal.

No offence, but if you think anyone's gonna jump into this game and all of a sudden decide to dump the several thousand hours needed to get good enough to even compete for a WR just because a category gets added for emulator, you probably need to calm down.

Also, if you have enough money to afford a laptop/pc that can run this game on Dolphin at a consistent framerate and the time/motivation to get a sub-55 on emulator...I find it very difficult to believe buying a $100 xbox plus $15-20 of other stuff for HDD installation is outside your reach.

Speedrunning this game is a lot of fun, there's no need to get so hung up on having a separate leaderboard to run this game. The joy of speedrunning can come from breaking your own limits and achieving your goals, not just being faster than everyone else.

Even if a separate category was added, the top spots would likely just get filled by the people who already hold them on Xbox within one weekend of them doing runs anyway.

the only argument being made here is for leaderboard clout lol. if you wanna flex your sub-55 emulator time you can do that on youtube/discord/etc, it just won't be accepted on the leaderboards.

who is going to get a sub 56? the wr on emu currently is a 56:10. In addition, there are only like 3-5 people with sub 1 hour on emu, so unless you are some god, you arent going to get a 55 on emu. You could also use ps2, gcn, or x360 if you dont wanna buy an xbox, and you can get a pretty cheap cap card for like $20. All socks and any category with nine runs are sub categories for a reason. just filter by emu if you really wanna see who has emu runs. Also, the primary reason that a game like Rehydrated has load removers but emu for this game does not is because people have varying load times. Someone with the best computer on Earth will have 1 second loads while someone with a potato probably has 30 second loads. The argument for emu being its own boards is like saying you want the switch version to be its own board seperate from xbox and ps.

The entire top 5 can sub55 on emulator if they so chose to, and easily at that, but it's a pointless endeavor and proves nothing about your skill in the real game. Not having to adjust your timing for lag on any of the CBs is just silly.

Glorifying times on slower platforms, especially emulator, is just copium for people who are afraid to compare themselves to actual good players. Buy an xbox if you're looking for something to prove.

by the time anyone puts in the hours and hours to get sub hour (nonetheless sub 56) normally theyre willing to put the money out there for a xbox and some equipment.

Also, why complain if you dont have a 55 on emu?

There is no point in having separate categories for console and emulator, since the only real difference is load times, which isn't even realistic to put into it's own category. Unless you've put time into the game, and want to submit runs here, which you haven't, then there's not much you can save. Get a 55 on emulator and submit it if you want, or get an xbox and run on HDD, since 55 is that easy to get.