Patent ID: 8888600

Claim:
A wager-based gaming machine for providing game play of legacy wager-based games and native wager-based games, comprising: a plurality of first peripheral devices including: one of a coin acceptor and a bill validator for receiving cash or indicia of credit for wagers on games of chance, a display for presenting the games of chance, and a user input for receiving input from a player of the wager-based gaming machine; a first processor for executing and providing games of chance on the wager-based gaming machine by controlling the first peripheral devices, wherein the native wager-based games are written for native execution by the first processor, and wherein the legacy wager-based games were written for execution by a gaming machine other than the wager-based gaming machine such that the legacy wager-based games include software code that is not natively executable by the first processor; a software emulator for translating the legacy wager-based games to wager game software instructions that are natively executable by the first processor; a hardware abstraction layer (“HAL”) configured to emulate second peripheral devices of a second wager-based gaming machine for which the legacy wager-based games were written; and a logic device configured to enable or disable the software emulator based on a determination of whether or not the game being executed by the first processor is a legacy wager-based game or a native wager based game, and further configured to determine whether additional emulation software should be downloaded to the wager-based gaming machine based upon a comparison of a requirement of the legacy wager based games and a capability of the wager-based gaming machine.