We have made our final decision: for all categories, the leaderboard will be split between official releases and emulator. This will not affect individual level runs.

MyLittleWalrus asked me to post my opinion in this thread, so I've decided to go ahead and do it. Keep in mind that I am mostly involved with the SMB1 and SMB3 communities, not NSMBDS, but I have talked with a variety of runners from this community.

The first issue is emulator accuracy. Desmume is not a very accurate emulator. These emulators are not accurate to the point that they will console verify. Relative to an actual console, Desmume is not as accurate than other emulators such as FCEUX, BizHawk, and lsnes. Times on emulators would appear quicker than times achieved on DS consoles. I am aware this holds true for the Wii Virtual Console, so that also has to be considered.

The next issue is cheating. I think NSMBDS is lucky to not have as many cheaters as other communities such as SMB1 and SMW. With emulators, it is not hard to record movie files using rerecords, frame advance, and slowdown features. I think a simple solution to this is to encourage streaming attempts on Twitch or YouTube. Some communities strongly recommend input displays, but streaming history is important for gaining trust within the speedrunning community.

Do I think emulators should be banned? No, but the DS does not have accurate emulators compared to the NES or SNES. This is a valid reason as to why certain emulators should be disallowed, however, but given that there aren't any better alternative emulators to Desmume, I suppose it's fine to allow it as long as these discrepancies regarding timing are clearly noted. When DS emulation becomes more accurate, the best course of action would be to deprecate older, inaccurate emulators.

Maru