The fact emulators are faster than the real hardware, can you blame them?

This is a problem Nintendo has had a few times before, choosing weaker hardware makes it much easier for other platforms to match and outpace them.

My first time playing Pokemon was emulating Pokemon Red on PC. For some reason they put it in Australian stores around a month after the US release so emulation was the only way.

Similarly GBA was playable on PC very early in its cycle. DS/3DS was a bit less attractive because of it screen layout and inputs but that kind of quirk aside underpowered handheld hardware is just asking for emulator support.