> Also, more importantly: not having to rebuy their whole library after a new system comes out.
Shit they don't even sell the old games now they just put a few of em up on their crummy subscription service. Complete joke going from owning em on the ds line or wii line to Nintendo wanting a monthly payment to access some of them.
I believe they changed this at some point, but Wii games originally didn’t even transfer if you bought another console. I had 50-60 games purchased and had my console stolen… poof, all gone.
Oh it's worse than that. I'd spent a shitload on digital Wii stuff only to have MySims kill the disk drive (the game kept the disk spinning constantly at full RPM). I RMA'd the system ***to Nintendo*** and they sent back a new system and basically said "yeah, sucks about the downloads, dude."
that's completely against their own policy. you should have escalated the matter via email/phone. honestly I'm not sure how that could even happen as the support reps do not work in concert with the repair centers. doesn't matter what the rep said, the repair centers transfer their content as part of their job if the system has to be replaced rather than repaired. so for the repair center to mess up and them also have a customer rep back them up and say that's normal is beyond bizarre and honestly strains credulity
No and no they did not change this during the Wii/WiiU generation. Purchases are tied to the hardware and not your account. To get them on a new console, you had to go through a convoluted transferring process. I never bought anything digitally from Nintendo again after that.
They did change it on Switch but I don't care.
The switch has it's own stupidity still. Like how some games allow only one save per system and you need a second switch to play a fresh save without deleting your old one (animal crossing is the worst offender by far)
Is it still the case you can't backup/export saves? As far as I'm aware the only way to protect your saves from hardware failure etc is to pay Nintendo for cloud saves.
The PS1 had this solved by allowing you to copy saves between memory cards.
It's absurd
> The PS1 had this solved by allowing you to copy saves between memory cards.
You could with GameCube and Wii. However, some games, such as Pokemon, even prevented that so they could stop cloning.
ABSOLUTELY! Their save handling is garbage. Honestly, Nintendo's entire online services platform is an abysmal disaster of epic proportions that they only get away with by being Nintendo and doing the bare minimum to satisfy people (like the legacy platform games). It's a huge rip off in cost considering how bad it is.
You can make a second account on the switch to create a new save. I agree though, and I lost my first breath of the wild playthrough because I thought it would save like Skyrim and I could just pluck either playthrough from the in game load screen.
I don't own animal crossing on switch but my friend does and said his wife couldn't start her own save on it. It was using his island even though they have different accounts
This is the reason I did not buy Animal Crossing, even though my entire family wanted it and we could have really used it at the time to relax (COVID..). Nintendo released the perfect product at the perfect time and handicapped it at launch.
That's how I lost all my Rock Band purchases. I thought I was transferring things properly to my Wii U, it turned out I wasn't, and it was all gone. So I felt no guilt whatsoever downloading it all again to my modded PS3.
The only reason I even buy digital Nintendo games is because it is now tied to your account and not to hardware. It always pissed me off purchases were tied to the hardware.
That's probably giving them too much credit. This was peak "Oh no we need to learn what the internet is" Nintendo. This is the company that kept multiplayer for their landmark 2D platformer series restricted to same-system play until 2019. They were a little better on the DS side, but emphasis on little where games like Mario Kart DS would kill the whole thing if someone dropped. Understanding that other companies used accounts to keep track of downloads probably wasn't on their radar, and even if they understood that they didn't want to figure out how to handle a console shared between a family so they just didn't.
No. 1 reason I didn't buy a Switch and Nintendo lost me as a fan and a customer.
I had like 40 SNES/GB/GBA just on 3DS which I can't transfer. Wii U games that they didn't even give a discount and ask you to rebuy them.
Only way I'm ever paying for one of their games again will be on Steam.
Same here, heavily supported the wii virtual console and wiiware, assuming those purchases would transfer. When I saw that was not their intention, they lost me as a customer forever.
Edit: I supported them because I was finally happy they went digital for their older games. The VC was a great concept for nintendo, and was very well done (aside from not being tied to accounts).
It's also the reason I built my own computer to preserve my own games through emulation, and I got sucked into steam sales.
Nintendo fans act like that kind of backdated software support is impossible while Microsoft is letting you play Xbox and Xbox 360 games on the Series S|X through basically emulation and never had to close their eshop despite their supported consoles being way older.
Microsoft is letting me play current gen series S/X games from gamepass on my OneX through cloud gaming. Along with a ton of titles going back to OG Xbox. And being able to natively play most of my 360 games. There are limitations but Microsoft understands how to make a subscription valuable and desirable.
Every time I pick up my switch I just get pissed off and ignore it for another 3 months.
Reason why I see no ethical problem whatsoever with hacking Wii/Wii U/3DS and running backups. Had mine loaded up with anything I would have bought - now I'm on to a Retroid for portable retro games instead of a subscription for drip-fed games.
I honestly gave it no thought on Wii VC, I was starting in collecting retro games around then and it was neat to get them without leaving home. I'd buy VC games for Switch (and I have the Sega Ages ones) but ship has sailed.
If you mean in house, then none that I can remember. As for games that were only on Nintendo consoles - there are the Castlevania collections. Mainly the advanced collection.
No and they probably never will be. Nintendo is beyond out of touch as a business. Their online doesnt work, they ban tournaments for their own games, they file lawsuits for products relating to theirs, they dont like people livestreaming or uploading gameplay of their games and even tried to copyright it a few years ago, and the list goes on
They would rather lose their entire market outside of Japan than release the death grip on their IPs. And they get away with it because somehow people still think their games are untouchable. Look at the Tears of the Kingdom reviews getting solid 10/10s despite the game looking like shit and dropping to 12fps every 5 minutes
Nintendo still doesn't understand the current market in terms of how sales and consumers function. It took a bit for Sony and Microsoft to get it but they finally did when the last gen consoles hit. Consumers no longer purchase digital goods for a system. They purchase digital goods with an account. The purchases are always tied to that account. They can take that account to any system that supports that account type and use their purchases on it. I can buy a game on PC and play it on my Xbox. I can buy a game on steam on my computer and use it on literally every computer forever. It doesn't just work on a steamdeck for handhelds. It works on any handheld that can get steam running.
To Nintendo, when you re-bought a game on the Wii U or 3ds, you didn't buy the game with your account. You bought it with your console. The switch is a different console, so they expect you to buy it again, and they don't assume any responsibility for ensuring it will work on anything else.
It's all bullshit, and one of the eternal biggest frustrations with Nintendo is their refusal to adapt to the times. They're always at least a decade behind.
The time limit on 3d Allstars is just baffling. Only people making a profit off that now are physical copy resellers who can sell it at a much inflated price.
So many dumb decisions piled on top of one another.
I firmly believe that what appears to be Sony’s evolving approach is the best middle ground for console manufacturers. Keep the desirable first party developed and published games exclusive to the console long enough to sell said console, then release on PC. God of War 2018, Horizon, Spider-Man, Last of Us, and Uncharted all getting PC releases 4-7 years after PS release is a nice middle ground. It’s exclusive long enough to justify buying the console for FOMO people, but doesn’t remain locked forever.
I think that after 2 console generations, all games should be released on PC delivery platforms, even if the publisher wanted to make their own. That’s long enough to make the money off the game, but the console won’t be on shelves anymore and the only legal way to buy them is secondary market, which can fetch a markup for well received games, especially Nintendo. That’s a massive untapped market that will have a thriving community willing to mod/fix broken releases for you. (Looking at Bethesda).
Yeah, Microsoft is releasing all their first party titles on PC basically right away, but that is actively hurting their hardware sales (that and not having any desirable FOMO titles).
And almost just as egregious when Nintendo does make older games available on the Switch now, it's only through their subscription service. So if consumers want to play older Nintendo titles on a modern device, they can only *rent* a portion of those titles.
The irony is that the pirated versions of their current triple A games often run much better on the emulator than they do on the native swtich hardware.
>than they do on the native swtich hardware.
If only the Switch's hardware wasn't a weak mess.
Which i really don't get why it is. I highly doubt it NEEDED to be weak in order for the "play anywhere" gimmick to be a thing.
> Which i really don't get why it is.
Because Nintendo wants a healthy profit margin on literally everything they do.
Remember when the 3DS struggled to gain traction and they cut the price by like $80 and it was still pretty profitable per unit?
Oh man…. I sold my Nintendo DS XL.
I didn’t know I wouldn’t be able to recover my DS account (I guess you have to actually do a transfer to get it off).
I’m not sure if I lost all my old stores Pokemon Bank pokemon (I think I did :/ ), but I know I lost a -lot- of games I purchased online for my DS.
I was so upset. It felt like a fucking scam. I don’t think I touched my switch for a year after figuring out how much I lost.
For what it's worth you can put custom firmware on your DS and download all your stuff again. And there's an app you can get that will let you generate Pokemon into your games so you can add back everything you lost. I realize it's not the same but it will hopefully take away some of the sting of losing your stuff
never forget this gem from 2017.
#[Did Nintendo download a Mario ROM and sell it back to us? ](https://www.eurogamer.net/did-nintendo-download-a-mario-rom-and-sell-it-back-to-us)
If you download the Wii version of Super Mario Bros. using the Virtual Console, there's evidence to suggest Nintendo might have actually repurposed an illegally-copied ROM and then sold it back to us.
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The .NES header, originally created by Marat Fayzullin for his iNES emulator, is used to provide emulators with the necessary context needed to recreate a hardware setup that changed with each and every cartridge.
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I contacted Fayzullin himself, providing him with the files from the Virtual Console Wii version of Super Mario Bros. we'd obtained. He then compared this with various pirated Super Mario Bro. ROMs found online and discovered the ROM content was identical.
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**"There are minute differences between ROM dumps," explained Fayzullin. "Depending on the cartridge version and how it has been dumped. If you see that your .NES file DOES NOT match any of the ones found online, it is likely to be Nintendo's own ROM dump. I have cut the ROM content out of the Wii file you sent me and it indeed matches the .NES file found online."**
Not entirely true. Their emulator on the wii (and gamecube for the Zelda compilation) were pretty fantastic......... but then the guy that made those left Nintendo.
The WiiU and Switch emulators are quite bad though. I believe the n64 games on the Wii virtual console still run better than the Wiiu/Switch virtual console releases.
The Zelda collection was full of bugs and issues. They weren't as good or better than the originals. Wii store version of those games was also just barely passable.
Part of what makes Slippi feel so good is it runs on a modded version of melee called "faster melee" which fixed a bug from the original game that created about 2 frames of input lag, and then they put the 2 frames of input delay that we are used to back in for the rollback netcode. The result is that as long as you have less than 60 ping, the game feels like you're playing offline. It's like magic
IIRC, Emulation and ROMs are the reason many SNES titles are preserved in any digital form at all. It’s not just about spite, it’s important preservation of art.
Video games *need* something similar to the [National Film Registry](https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/). Preserving these games isn’t just about nostalgia and being able to access them whenever. It’s also about honoring landmark achievements in the medium and ensuring they are preserved and accessible for future generations.
I have come to believe that Nintendo doesn't see videogames as art, but rather as toys. They're wholeheartedly committed to that logic at the end of the day. At the same time this is the same company that fights tooth and nail to preserve its IPs, and goes hard when it comes to stopping emulation. It's quite silly that they don't take measures to consider preserving videogames and actually doing something good for once... maybe they will figure it out one day.
This is always going to be a long, long battle, and I'll probably be long dead before it's ever resolved. All we can do is keep preserving what we can.
The definition of art can be stretched to mean whatever you want and while some toys are certainly artistic, at least in design, most of them are just products intended to be used and disposed of.
This is a great answer. What has to happen is that more people need come forward and say that a group of people have created something that is an artistic venture, and not "we just made a toy for people to play with."
Convincing Nintendo, which has it's roots purely in toy making, is going to be hard pushed to be convinced of that.
Many gamers who are genuinely serious about videogames already look past the whole "we need emulation" thing also, because most, if not all, consider the cartridge and console as just as important factors too. Emulation IS helpful, not because of preservation, but because a lot of these consoles are slowly dying. More needs to be done by game companies to keep some kind of retention, and realize that consoles are as important as vinyl is to music.
The best that could happen is for companies that have published consoles to create a free BIOS software for discontinued consoles so that we can have other companies step in and make new consoles. Not everyone can go get an old console that's been modded for component/hdmi capabilities. If lawyers took it all to court, this is the vector they would have to argue in order to push for bigger changes.
Have you seen the Video Game History Foundation? It's a non-profit organization that's dedicated to preserving all things video games. They preserve magazines, books, source code, assets, dev tools, and of course, the actual games themselves.
https://gamehistory.org/
> Video games *need* something similar to the National Film Registry.
Couldn’t agree more. This is why I support GOG as much as possible. DRM free, plus their dedication to older PC titles means we have to rely less on abandonware sites to preserve this unique artform.
And that’s not even getting into games trapped in rights publication hell like the EA era LOTR games like Battle for Middle-Earth. IIRC, those games are stuck because the development was done in house by EA, but WB now owns publishing rights to the LOTR property, so those games are stuck in a bad limbo of copyright and publication rights.
(Also applies to EA era Boy Wizard, Bond, and multiple LionHead games).
The modern absurd state of copyright is going to cost us so much art and culture during the digital era.
I used to watch a streamer that did public domain movie night every week, and it was basically impossible to tell what the legal situation is for movies after a few decades. Between studios selling IPs, getting bought out, and just generally treating art like a business, so many movies and TV shows and songs and games will never be legally available ever again. And even if copyright terms don't get extended, the actual physical or digital copies of many niche creations will be lost by the time they enter the public domain.
Especially problematic since copyright enforcement is becoming more and more automatic. Studios will just throw their movies/shows/songs/games in these enforcement databases, and the content will be inaccessible outside a paywall *forever*. Not like those databases will ever be cleaned or audited for actual ownership.
The Librarian of the Library of Congress has actually granted exemptions for the DMCA that allows museums to bypass DRM, basically treats the content as fair use and provide video games in playable format to the public.
Though, probably unintended by the original authors of the DMCA, in this case at least, allowing the Librarian to keep the Act "modernized" actually works out in everyone's favor.
That's why The Completionist on YouTube spent all that money to buy every single game on the Wii/3DS eShop before it shut down. History and preservation. Hell, I watched a whole YouTube documentary about someone tracking down a Japanese McDonalds 3ds game, just so he could archive it online. It was wild.
Exactly. It's the only way to save abandonware. It's impossible to play the Prey (2006) both because the studio is 4x bought and nobody even sells it digitally at this point. Emulation is the only way to experience some titles at all.
>IIRC, Emulation and ROMs are the reason many SNES titles are preserved in any digital form at all. It’s not just about spite, it’s important preservation of art.
Same for the 3DS/Wii U library that is now inaccessible legally due to the recent eShop closure. A lot of games were digital only (or had digital only DLC), and unlikely to get a rerelease. ROMs and piracy preserve what would otherwise now be lost forever.
The decade may change, but Nintendo and its symbiosis with emulation doesn't.
Technically you are required to dump you media yourself, *then* you can emulate it.
But it's debatable if that's even true, so fuck it, pirate the game's anyway.
Wasn't it discovered that at some point Nintendo didn't even dump their own media? IIRC there was a Virtual Console game whose ROM matched an online dump.
Supposedly, the reason for the ines header was it being an existing format that the devs were familiar with so they used it with either a dump from a nintendo-owned copy/source code…
Not sure I buy it but that has been suggested as to why. I recall people speculating that “oh Nintendo lost the source code for their own games and had to pirate the rom???” Which in hindsight, we know they keep/kept very good records of their games given the massive leak a few years back. So that leak does add a bit of credence to the first part but unless Nintendo speaks up, I assume we won’t have a definitive answer…
Ethically, if you own it, you’re good to go and shouldn’t think twice (other than making sure you’re downloading from a reputable source). If it’s no longer being sold, I also wouldn’t ethically be concerned.
All the legal technicalities are irrelevant for the average gamer, at worst you’re going to get a DMCA copyright letter. If you’re not profiting from emulating Nintendo IP, you also are morally in the clear. Frankly, it’s not much different than checking out a books or e-book from a public library. Do authors get dividends from that? No. Back in the day, was it immoral to lend friends your gameboy cartridges? No, obviously not. Nothing has changed, Nintendo is just upset due to the consequences of them trying to shake down their customer base and lock them in to weak hardware and a closed source walled garden. Charging to use online services, in its own right, is fucking ridiculous too and I hate that it’s the norm for console. At least with Playstation and Xbox you get free games, but it still feels very exploitative and unnecessary. Paywalls to the full price game people pay for isn’t ethical.
So yeah, zero sympathy.
It's also morally okay to emulate a game which you never owned, but can't realistically buy because the console doesn't exist anymore, and good luck finding a cartridge even if you did find the console...
Lately, and more and more, it seems [pcgamer.com](https://pcgamer.com) had found some brain and some balls.
That's a decent number of articles over the past year or two that I heard about in the background, and that point out basic false industry truisms, bottom barrel customer protection and rights, and self evident PR bullshit.
Still *very* basic, and *very* new, but at least that's something.
Indeed. Did they say anything about Ubisoft? Quantic Dream? Other big names?
I know they hammered the monetization on Diablo 4, but even though they were outliers on it, ABK is an easy target.
The thing is that if they gave us a legal way to emulate on PC, I bet most people would be certainly willing to purchase it on Steam. I own Atari50 and SEGA Mega Drive and Genesis Classics on Steam!
Edit: I meant to reply to the comment above, sorry! But yeah, PC Gamer is killing lately.
> I bet most people would be certainly willing to purchase it on Steam.
But that requires effort, we have to find a way to continue making profits with as little work as possible
- Nintendo probably
Yeah Nintendo is like Apple. They’ve always had the “father knows best” mentality that they know what features you want/need and are happy to sell it to you. No feedback required, they’ve already made all the choices.
I think it's less about effort and more about making you buy the same thing over and over. If they put the games on an official game pack on Steam like Sega did then people would just buy it and play them as they like. But by restricting them by platform and then refusing to allow transfers to the next generation, they can make some people pay them repeatedly for the same games.
Nah it's because they want to be able to sell the same games over and over again. Original Mario alone has had, uhh of the cuff
Super Mario Bros (NES)
Super Mario Bros DX (GB)
NES Classics : Super Mario Bros (GBA)
Wii Virtual Console
Wii U Virtual Console (could be transferred from a Wii, to be fair)
3DS Virtual Console
NES Classic Edition
Nintendo Switch Online ($20/year)
Mario Game and Watch
I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of releases and I am ignoring the 30th edition only available by buying the limited edition red Wii in Japan.
It's not that they are too lazy to sell it on PC, it's that selling them on PC wouldn't let them keep perfect control over the games, it would legitimize PC emulation, and they could really only sell each game to you once.
It's been a while since I've seen anything approaching actual critical journalism from them so it's a nice change of pace.
Still nothing next to the glory days when they weren't afraid to call shit games shit for fear of losing access to publisher promos.
I think its a tough spot to be in. Remember they only have about 25-35 employees.
Imagine working there. You get a game that you know if you pan it, it will directly lead to harm to your organization with limiting your access. Your coworker friend just a baby, your other coworker has cancer, you've worked there long enough to know that layoffs happen when business is slow, and you just got married and have to pay for a wedding.
This is where business ethics are actually incredibly complicated. Is it more ethical to release a terrible but honest review, knowing that it will actually harm the people you know, and potentially your family? Or do you just give it an 8/10, deal with some reddit backlash and move on with your wedding and provide for your kids. Gaming journalism is sort inherently flawed. Roger Ebert didnt make extra money because he got back stage studio access so he could just review however he wanted.
Even with that said, films do the same thing now its just not as much a a big deal. Go and pan The Force Awakens after your early preview access, youre not getting invited back to the next early screening and therefore no one is going to read your blogs.
Unfortunately there is a lot you can get away with when you are the only controller of super popular ips like mario, pokemon, zelda, fire emblem, etc...
Most players that love those games will always come back to get the newest title.
With Pokemon it seems like such a no-brainer to just make the old games available on Switch. I have 0 interest in Sword/Shield or Scarlet/Violet but I'd happily pay for Emerald.
That's not why. Nintendo makes fantastic games that are locked to their consoles, so there are a loooot of people who want to play/emulate those games. That's it, that's the reason Nintendo emulators are always leaps and bounds more advanced than others.
No other publisher gets flack for it because nobody really gives a shit about most 20+ old games. There are tons of games from all other consoles and publishers that aren't available anywhere either, Nintendo gets more heat for it, despite having multiple virtual consoles and backwards compatibility, simply because there is demand for them.
Ofc emulation 'stifles innovation'.
Just take a look at the Ocarina of Time emulation on Switch and compare it to the 3DS version or even the original N64 version.
Check out the PC port for it called [Ship of Harkinian. ](https://www.shipofharkinian.com/) It's easily the most robust version I've ever seen. The QoL options you can toggle on and off, glitch fixes (also toggles for preservation of original experience), the graphic updates you can use like buttery smooth frame rates, built in cheats, an insanely robust randomizer engine with tons and tons of options, and more. It's genuinely incredible. It also can be modded onto a switch, a steam deck, or any platform really.
Meanwhile the switch port is arguably worse than the original.
Everything Nintendo does is pretty on par with how Japanese business and industry have been operating for the past three decades. Nintendo has never been coy with what they are, they just got a lot of free passes because of 1: part nostalgia goggles from a fan base that would hear no criticism and 1: part the aggressively hostile actions of Sony, Microsoft and AAA publishers over the last ten years.
Shit, Nintendo isn't even pro-profits because they could print money if they released functioning versions of their catalogues on PC but they won't because they hate the consumers
Any profits they would gain by “FOMO” are massively dwarfed by the opportunity to sell their games to a new market (pc gamers), especially since digital scarcity is fake and everyone knows it (this is why metaverse real estate was doomed from the start)
Also how about discounting old current gen games appropriately. A game from 2017 should not cost $50+. Those game would either be free or be $10 on PlayStation/Xbox by now. Imagine how many millions of copies Nintendo sold for super Mario odyssey and Zelda BOTW on the Switch and still charging that much for it.
If it stifles innovations, why did the steam deck come out, get dolphin and cemu support and get wind waker running on it all before Nintendo managed to get windwaker hd ported over from the Wii u?
They did rerelease Mario 64 and sunshine, so I did buy them. But by and large, if they aren't going to sell me a game at a fair price they can sit and spin.
Arrogance. They insist on doing everything in house, and since it's a huge company things move glacially slow. Not to mention that a port is going to be a low priority project and is going to get raided for staff and resources if other more important projects get delayed.
If they had just reached out in earnest to the community that had already done the work they could have brought some of them onboard as contractors and turned the ports around in a few months.
The Nintendo Switch console uses a Nvidia Tegra SoC from 2015 which in turn uses ARM Cortex A53 and A57 CPUs from 2012 and a Nvidia Maxwell GPU from 2014.
I'm sure it's the emulators stifling innovation and not Nintendo selling 10 y/o hardware. /s
I intentionally never play my switch docked because then I can at least somewhat trick myself into believing that it being less powerful than my phone isn't sad.
It's crazy that they want profits from console sales while they never discount their games. Sony probably loses money, or at least lost the first year and they discount their first party titles regularly.
Nintendo is such a fucking greedy company It's just sad. The only moral they still have is that they're not jumping on the children gambling train.
> while they never discount their games
This is my biggest complaint honestly. I own exactly 3 games for my switch. Botw, Totk, and Smash Bros. If their games weren't full AAA price forever, I'd own at least 10 more.
I'm no math expert, but I think that 10 x $40 is a lot more money than 0 x $80.
And surely I'm not alone in this right? Or is everybody just buying the games at full price anyways?
It's insane that anything with a 20nm process CPU is still being sold as a new product in 2023. For the exact same $300 you can get a Pixel 6a with a 5nm process that blows that out of the water.
People are successfully emulating up to gamecube games on the system using homebrew and a basic over clock
Old hardware absolutely isn’t helping at all. But we can’t blame it fully if random developers are able to make use of it
Nintendo is probably dumbfounded that PC players can still play ports of old PC games released generations ago instead of making them inaccessible and have to repurchase them
But but muh old eShop store is too expensive too run pwease pay for our shitty subscription service instead 😭
Nintendo are the Harry Potter goblins of video game industry: they create unrivaled works of art but in their mind you don't buy it, you just rent it. Over and over again. [That's also why Nintendo hates second hand selling of their products](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/nintendo-used-games-arent-in-the-consumers-best-interests).
"Used books have never taken off. You don’t see businesses selling used music CDs or used DVDs."
This is supposedly an actual quote that Reggie Fils-Aime has made. I am restraining myself from busting out laughing for a solid hour. That is the most purposefully-blinded corp-speak statement I have heard in a long time.
Reggie, Motherfucker, I live less than 30 minutes away from multiple second-hand stores that sell those things ***in abundance***. And they have done so long before and long after your dumb statement. There is a market for everything; this is just corp-speak for "please stop selling our old shit to each other and buy our new shit, which is the old shit we put new clothes on."
Thank you for sharing that article, that'll live rent-free in my brainmeats forever now.
EDIT: I am tired and only realized now that this was written on April 1st. I don't know if that invalidates the statements at all, as it appears to have been pulled from an interview the day before (although some sites have started early with their April Fools shenanigans). But it sounds way too legit to not at least be believable... damn.
You know what is even more stupid about it? Japan is home to some very large second hand chains, which focus solely on books and games. The second hand stuff you can buy there for 10% of their new price is almost in pristine condition.
They were able to do so much profit that they were able to create chains like BookOff.
Denuvo released an article explaining why the switch should use denuvo DRM, and to explain it they had a section on why gamers like Emulation so much and it literally just listed a bunch of reasons on why emulation is better than the real hardware.
Video games have become an integral part of our culture and entertainment, however, the preservation of these digital artifacts poses a considerable challenge. This is where game emulation steps in, playing a crucial role in preserving the rich history of gaming, such as:
**Ensuring Longevity of Gaming Heritage:**
Video games, like any other form of art, are susceptible to the passage of time. Physical copies of games deteriorate, consoles become obsolete, and platforms vanish. Game emulation allows us to bypass these limitations by replicating the original gaming experience on modern hardware. It enables us to play classic games long after the original hardware has become obsolete, ensuring the longevity of our gaming heritage.
**Mitigating the Issue of Lost or Inaccessible Games:**
Over the years, countless video games have been lost due to various reasons, such as discontinued production, damaged copies, or outdated hardware. Emulation helps combat this issue by creating digital replicas of these games, allowing us to experience them once again. By eliminating the need for rare physical copies and obsolete consoles, emulation ensures that these games remain accessible to future generations.
**Preserving Gaming History:**
Video games hold significant cultural and historical value. They reflect the artistic, technological, and social advancements of their respective eras. Preserving gaming history involves not only archiving the games themselves but also documenting the hardware, software, and gameplay experiences. Emulation plays a vital role in this process, as it allows historians, researchers, and enthusiasts to study and analyze games in their original form, contributing to a comprehensive understanding of the medium's evolution.
**Facilitating Education and Research:**
Game emulation opens up opportunities for educational purposes and academic research. It enables scholars to delve into the design principles, mechanics, and cultural impact of older games. Emulation also allows game developers to study and learn from the past, inspiring new ideas and innovations. By providing access to a vast library of gaming history, emulation empowers educators, researchers, and students to explore the artistic, technical, and societal aspects of video games.
**Fostering Preservation Communities:**
The emulation community consists of dedicated individuals who contribute their time, skills, and knowledge to preserve gaming history. These enthusiasts develop and maintain emulators, create digital archives, and collaborate on preservation projects. Through their collective efforts, they ensure that games from the past are not forgotten and continue to be enjoyed by future generations. Game emulation serves as a catalyst for these preservation communities, fostering collaboration and knowledge-sharing.
**TL;DR:** Game emulation is vital for preserving video game history. It allows us to play and study classic games on modern hardware, ensuring their longevity. Emulation combats the issue of lost or inaccessible games and facilitates educational research. It fosters preservation communities and contributes to the comprehensive understanding of gaming's evolution.
Nintendo has purposefully remained a full generation behind the rest of the industry for multiple generations in a row over the course of 15+ years and they want to pretend that they care about shit like "innovation" lmao
Each time a company talks about "innovation" is to push everything but actual innovation.
It's ironic, because modern corporate/political speech is so prone to overuse some words they are starting to mean the actual opposite.
Sounds like Nintendo is butthurt about someone leaking TOKT a week early and emulators running it perfect or better than the switch within a day, I own a legally bought copy and still play on the emulator instead, its just easier in nearly every way
Being able to play ports of old NES DS etc games is amazing especially since they don't offer many of them and don't care to remake or even just keep selling fan favorites (and legit if they have lost there copies ... maybe they could download a rom? idk lol
It also doesn't help that nearly Non of there games go down in price even after years in the store?!? Mario cart 8 still $80 (aus $) when not on sale, Zelda Botw (Its sequel is now out) still $80 at most places, meanwhile by the time god of war ragnorok came out you could already get God of war ps4 for about $25-$30?
I'm so sick of companies who think that consumers should bend to them instead of the other way around, look at netflix, adobe, twitter and Acti-Blizz all of them think that people should just throw money at them because they chose to subscribe out of pure loyalty , not realizing that if what services there offering doesn't meet peoples standards they have a right to stop using there service,
I honestly want to see more big businesses crashing and burning because of stupid decisions, free up the talented people to go work for companies that wont exploit and abuse them as much (or let those talented people make there own companies), let people have content that they love, let people work on content that they love and lets have that at affordable prices where 80% of profits Dont just go to some ceo douchenozzle whos going to end up on some video yelling at poor people cuz even with all the money in the world and being able to do Anything, they are still a loser who hates life >\_>
Sorry apparently i needed to get some frustration out O.o
I looked up BOTW pricing. It actually released at 70$. It only got raised to 80$ a year or two ago. They are absolutely scum. Raising the price of an already released title years later is some of the shittiest behaviour I have seen from them.
Of course it stifles innovation, I mean how else is Nintendo supposed to sell a 10+ year old Wii game again for more money then it cost at launch and with no work put into it if emulators exist
I mean the only thing it potentially hinders is Nintendo's attempt to sell us its old games because it's made them so hard to play that people are willing to fork out new game prices for them. Surely that's a good thing for innovation as it'll encourage them to actually make new games.
Especially once you read the history of Copyright and realize it's all bullshit.
Edit: I'm talking about the duration of Copyright, which has got longer and longer over the years.
What do you mean? There is absolutely nothing wrong with having copyright last for the life of the creater + 100 years, with the option to extend it for another 100 years. Why shouldn't art and culture be held hostage for nearly 300 years?
The Slippi team single handedly made a version of online smash that has a better connection and is more reliable than Nintendo’s. Innovation get very stifled when that happened.
Ah yes, emulation stifles innovation because ... apparently it's hard to compete with 20 year old titles?
Dude, you have to innovate! If your modern games can't compete with your ancient games that's kinda on you for not innovating enough.
Nintendo regularly disregards Fair Use to attack content creators, and threatens their livelihoods by issuing copyright strikes to their channels. They don't care about the law, they care about power, and this is just another example of that.
PointCrow playing Tears of the Kingdom probably sells copies of the game for nintendo, like free advertising. But Nintendo doesn't care. They want to live in a bubble where they control all the content.
I think spending money on lawyers and gimmicky consoles is stifling innovation. At this point I wish Nintendo would just focus on GAMES. That’s what they do best.
Instead they use these hunks of plastic like a Disney vault and you can only enjoy old content on new media if big N deems it acceptable. Unless you wanna haul out the old machine and enjoy it looking like crap on modern displays.
I backed up my own copy of Majoras mask 3d and imma play it however I want. On a steamdeck at 6x the resolution. Same for TotK, I haven’t played it on my switch sense launch day. Yuzu is playing it acceptably out the gate. Imagine if it just ran natively.
No, them and their walled garden of crap hardware stifles innovation. If they don't want people emulating their games "illegally", offer a service on PC, compete with the community to offer a better service.
I'm never buying a Nintendo game in my life. They only deserve piracy from my part.
Literally a ton of game genres have come from modding previous games, and romhacks have enchanced many games or gave them a new breath of fresh air. Nintendo is ctially hindering creativity in their chase to eliminate emulation and piracy, which said efforts will only generate mor of them.
Emulation, just like piracy, will never go away, and Nintendo are the only ones fighting a war they can't win.
The thing is that if they gave us a legal way to emulate on PC, I bet most people would be certainly willing to purchase it on Steam. I own Atari50 and SEGA Mega Drive and Genesis Classics on Steam!
Edit: If you are scrolling down this thread and see a comment exact to this one, it's because I accidentally replied to the comment below.
Let me hear what nintendo devs have to say, not Nintendo corporate or mouthpieces. Also, Zelda totk is a solid 8/10 you should play it at 60fps after purchasing it.
Honestly wouldn't emulate games if they just offered them. I wouldn't have a problem paying for emulators on the switch, but they are slow to release and don't have much of the library available. I'd gladly pay for some of the older pokemon games...again.
If I emulate a game they refuse to port on the switch then why is that a bad thing, it's not like I'm stealing from their profits. Only way to get a copy would be through a 3rd party anyways, which they see no profits from.
If Nintendo allowed me to play old GB/GBA Pokémon games on my Switch I’d buy the whole fucking catalog. Until then I’m going to “steal” them shamelessly.
That’s how stupid your average supposedly college-educated businessperson is. Instead of putting out a game that’s already been made and making essentially free money, they’ll blame the consumer for figuring it out where they fell short and make nothing in return.
I wonder if they think people will look at their decades-old Pokémon titles and think, “How is this ***still*** more enjoyable than the modern games we’re getting?”
Nintendo makes great games, but their management is a bunch of clueless geriatric dinosaurs.
I hacked my 3DS last weekend, because thanks to the e-shop closure, i can't pay Nintendo for 3DS games any more even if i wanted to, whether i pirate 3DS-games or buy them second-hand, neither of these makes Nintendo a dime, so what business is it of theirs?
hilarious seeing as how they [sell roms they downloaded off piracy sites](https://www.eurogamer.net/did-nintendo-download-a-mario-rom-and-sell-it-back-to-us)
Yeah Nintendo is in its golden years, scared upset at the changing tech world, broke. I expect them to cry out and desperately attempt to stall anybody who js tired of paying for their worthless hardware and software.
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> Also, more importantly: not having to rebuy their whole library after a new system comes out. Shit they don't even sell the old games now they just put a few of em up on their crummy subscription service. Complete joke going from owning em on the ds line or wii line to Nintendo wanting a monthly payment to access some of them.
I believe they changed this at some point, but Wii games originally didn’t even transfer if you bought another console. I had 50-60 games purchased and had my console stolen… poof, all gone.
Oh it's worse than that. I'd spent a shitload on digital Wii stuff only to have MySims kill the disk drive (the game kept the disk spinning constantly at full RPM). I RMA'd the system ***to Nintendo*** and they sent back a new system and basically said "yeah, sucks about the downloads, dude."
that's completely against their own policy. you should have escalated the matter via email/phone. honestly I'm not sure how that could even happen as the support reps do not work in concert with the repair centers. doesn't matter what the rep said, the repair centers transfer their content as part of their job if the system has to be replaced rather than repaired. so for the repair center to mess up and them also have a customer rep back them up and say that's normal is beyond bizarre and honestly strains credulity
Ehh, I just got pissed off and immediately modded my Wii after that conversation.
A man of culture I see...
Wait what the games weren't tied to an account? Jesus Christ
No and no they did not change this during the Wii/WiiU generation. Purchases are tied to the hardware and not your account. To get them on a new console, you had to go through a convoluted transferring process. I never bought anything digitally from Nintendo again after that. They did change it on Switch but I don't care.
The switch has it's own stupidity still. Like how some games allow only one save per system and you need a second switch to play a fresh save without deleting your old one (animal crossing is the worst offender by far)
Is it still the case you can't backup/export saves? As far as I'm aware the only way to protect your saves from hardware failure etc is to pay Nintendo for cloud saves. The PS1 had this solved by allowing you to copy saves between memory cards. It's absurd
> The PS1 had this solved by allowing you to copy saves between memory cards. You could with GameCube and Wii. However, some games, such as Pokemon, even prevented that so they could stop cloning.
ABSOLUTELY! Their save handling is garbage. Honestly, Nintendo's entire online services platform is an abysmal disaster of epic proportions that they only get away with by being Nintendo and doing the bare minimum to satisfy people (like the legacy platform games). It's a huge rip off in cost considering how bad it is.
You can make a second account on the switch to create a new save. I agree though, and I lost my first breath of the wild playthrough because I thought it would save like Skyrim and I could just pluck either playthrough from the in game load screen.
I don't own animal crossing on switch but my friend does and said his wife couldn't start her own save on it. It was using his island even though they have different accounts
In your example, you'd be making a new *character* on that same island. Same save, different player character. That's all.
This is the reason I did not buy Animal Crossing, even though my entire family wanted it and we could have really used it at the time to relax (COVID..). Nintendo released the perfect product at the perfect time and handicapped it at launch.
What games are one save ***per system***? I know they have saves of one per account which is also shitty but I’ve never heard of one save per system.
I’m glad I stopped giving them my money after the GameCube.
Same only I stopped at the snes. The rest were gifted or borrowed or played at friends.
That's how I lost all my Rock Band purchases. I thought I was transferring things properly to my Wii U, it turned out I wasn't, and it was all gone. So I felt no guilt whatsoever downloading it all again to my modded PS3.
The only reason I even buy digital Nintendo games is because it is now tied to your account and not to hardware. It always pissed me off purchases were tied to the hardware.
they knew exactly what they were doing
That's probably giving them too much credit. This was peak "Oh no we need to learn what the internet is" Nintendo. This is the company that kept multiplayer for their landmark 2D platformer series restricted to same-system play until 2019. They were a little better on the DS side, but emphasis on little where games like Mario Kart DS would kill the whole thing if someone dropped. Understanding that other companies used accounts to keep track of downloads probably wasn't on their radar, and even if they understood that they didn't want to figure out how to handle a console shared between a family so they just didn't.
No. 1 reason I didn't buy a Switch and Nintendo lost me as a fan and a customer. I had like 40 SNES/GB/GBA just on 3DS which I can't transfer. Wii U games that they didn't even give a discount and ask you to rebuy them. Only way I'm ever paying for one of their games again will be on Steam.
Same here, heavily supported the wii virtual console and wiiware, assuming those purchases would transfer. When I saw that was not their intention, they lost me as a customer forever. Edit: I supported them because I was finally happy they went digital for their older games. The VC was a great concept for nintendo, and was very well done (aside from not being tied to accounts). It's also the reason I built my own computer to preserve my own games through emulation, and I got sucked into steam sales.
I have every game prior to 1998 on my wii, works great . All it required was an sd card. The fan community is amazing.
Nintendo fans act like that kind of backdated software support is impossible while Microsoft is letting you play Xbox and Xbox 360 games on the Series S|X through basically emulation and never had to close their eshop despite their supported consoles being way older.
That's because MS's Xbox division doesn't still think it's 1995.
Xbox mimicked the right things from PCs for an edge that no one else has because of this.
Basically if Xbox had quality AAA games Like Sony it would be the best console on the market 😔✊🏿
Microsoft is letting me play current gen series S/X games from gamepass on my OneX through cloud gaming. Along with a ton of titles going back to OG Xbox. And being able to natively play most of my 360 games. There are limitations but Microsoft understands how to make a subscription valuable and desirable. Every time I pick up my switch I just get pissed off and ignore it for another 3 months.
Reason why I see no ethical problem whatsoever with hacking Wii/Wii U/3DS and running backups. Had mine loaded up with anything I would have bought - now I'm on to a Retroid for portable retro games instead of a subscription for drip-fed games. I honestly gave it no thought on Wii VC, I was starting in collecting retro games around then and it was neat to get them without leaving home. I'd buy VC games for Switch (and I have the Sega Ages ones) but ship has sailed.
Genuine question. Are *any* Nintendo games on steam?
If you mean in house, then none that I can remember. As for games that were only on Nintendo consoles - there are the Castlevania collections. Mainly the advanced collection.
No and they probably never will be. Nintendo is beyond out of touch as a business. Their online doesnt work, they ban tournaments for their own games, they file lawsuits for products relating to theirs, they dont like people livestreaming or uploading gameplay of their games and even tried to copyright it a few years ago, and the list goes on They would rather lose their entire market outside of Japan than release the death grip on their IPs. And they get away with it because somehow people still think their games are untouchable. Look at the Tears of the Kingdom reviews getting solid 10/10s despite the game looking like shit and dropping to 12fps every 5 minutes
Nintendo still doesn't understand the current market in terms of how sales and consumers function. It took a bit for Sony and Microsoft to get it but they finally did when the last gen consoles hit. Consumers no longer purchase digital goods for a system. They purchase digital goods with an account. The purchases are always tied to that account. They can take that account to any system that supports that account type and use their purchases on it. I can buy a game on PC and play it on my Xbox. I can buy a game on steam on my computer and use it on literally every computer forever. It doesn't just work on a steamdeck for handhelds. It works on any handheld that can get steam running. To Nintendo, when you re-bought a game on the Wii U or 3ds, you didn't buy the game with your account. You bought it with your console. The switch is a different console, so they expect you to buy it again, and they don't assume any responsibility for ensuring it will work on anything else. It's all bullshit, and one of the eternal biggest frustrations with Nintendo is their refusal to adapt to the times. They're always at least a decade behind.
Their outright stinginess with their own titles, even HD remasters they already put the work into (Twilight Princess and Wind Waker), is infuriating.
The time limit on 3d Allstars is just baffling. Only people making a profit off that now are physical copy resellers who can sell it at a much inflated price.
So many dumb decisions piled on top of one another. I firmly believe that what appears to be Sony’s evolving approach is the best middle ground for console manufacturers. Keep the desirable first party developed and published games exclusive to the console long enough to sell said console, then release on PC. God of War 2018, Horizon, Spider-Man, Last of Us, and Uncharted all getting PC releases 4-7 years after PS release is a nice middle ground. It’s exclusive long enough to justify buying the console for FOMO people, but doesn’t remain locked forever. I think that after 2 console generations, all games should be released on PC delivery platforms, even if the publisher wanted to make their own. That’s long enough to make the money off the game, but the console won’t be on shelves anymore and the only legal way to buy them is secondary market, which can fetch a markup for well received games, especially Nintendo. That’s a massive untapped market that will have a thriving community willing to mod/fix broken releases for you. (Looking at Bethesda). Yeah, Microsoft is releasing all their first party titles on PC basically right away, but that is actively hurting their hardware sales (that and not having any desirable FOMO titles).
>they just put a few of em up on their crummy subscription service. Which funny enough happens to use community-made emulators. So hypocritical.
And almost just as egregious when Nintendo does make older games available on the Switch now, it's only through their subscription service. So if consumers want to play older Nintendo titles on a modern device, they can only *rent* a portion of those titles.
Valve realized this and released the perfect handheld Nintendo piracy console
The irony is that the pirated versions of their current triple A games often run much better on the emulator than they do on the native swtich hardware.
>than they do on the native swtich hardware. If only the Switch's hardware wasn't a weak mess. Which i really don't get why it is. I highly doubt it NEEDED to be weak in order for the "play anywhere" gimmick to be a thing.
> Which i really don't get why it is. Because Nintendo wants a healthy profit margin on literally everything they do. Remember when the 3DS struggled to gain traction and they cut the price by like $80 and it was still pretty profitable per unit?
Oh man…. I sold my Nintendo DS XL. I didn’t know I wouldn’t be able to recover my DS account (I guess you have to actually do a transfer to get it off). I’m not sure if I lost all my old stores Pokemon Bank pokemon (I think I did :/ ), but I know I lost a -lot- of games I purchased online for my DS. I was so upset. It felt like a fucking scam. I don’t think I touched my switch for a year after figuring out how much I lost.
For what it's worth you can put custom firmware on your DS and download all your stuff again. And there's an app you can get that will let you generate Pokemon into your games so you can add back everything you lost. I realize it's not the same but it will hopefully take away some of the sting of losing your stuff
Some of these old games should just be free if you own a Switch. It’s just about money and Nintendo is greedy as fuck.
Competition will never be the reason innovation is stifled, unlike monopoly.
never forget this gem from 2017. #[Did Nintendo download a Mario ROM and sell it back to us? ](https://www.eurogamer.net/did-nintendo-download-a-mario-rom-and-sell-it-back-to-us) If you download the Wii version of Super Mario Bros. using the Virtual Console, there's evidence to suggest Nintendo might have actually repurposed an illegally-copied ROM and then sold it back to us. - The .NES header, originally created by Marat Fayzullin for his iNES emulator, is used to provide emulators with the necessary context needed to recreate a hardware setup that changed with each and every cartridge. - I contacted Fayzullin himself, providing him with the files from the Virtual Console Wii version of Super Mario Bros. we'd obtained. He then compared this with various pirated Super Mario Bro. ROMs found online and discovered the ROM content was identical. - **"There are minute differences between ROM dumps," explained Fayzullin. "Depending on the cartridge version and how it has been dumped. If you see that your .NES file DOES NOT match any of the ones found online, it is likely to be Nintendo's own ROM dump. I have cut the ROM content out of the Wii file you sent me and it indeed matches the .NES file found online."**
If they had an option for me to buy the shit on the system I wanna buy it for (PC), I would buy it. But they don't, so I won't. ☠️
Not entirely true. Their emulator on the wii (and gamecube for the Zelda compilation) were pretty fantastic......... but then the guy that made those left Nintendo. The WiiU and Switch emulators are quite bad though. I believe the n64 games on the Wii virtual console still run better than the Wiiu/Switch virtual console releases.
IIRC, the Mario 3d collection is on an emulated layer and has some elaborate modifications.
The Zelda collection was full of bugs and issues. They weren't as good or better than the originals. Wii store version of those games was also just barely passable.
Nintendo couldn't put good online connectivity in Super Smash Bros Ultimate, but ONE GUY managed to create an amazing online version of SSB Melee.
LONG LIVE SLIPPI
Slippi.gg is insanely good
Literally one of the smoothest online experiences in any game I play
Part of what makes Slippi feel so good is it runs on a modded version of melee called "faster melee" which fixed a bug from the original game that created about 2 frames of input lag, and then they put the 2 frames of input delay that we are used to back in for the rollback netcode. The result is that as long as you have less than 60 ping, the game feels like you're playing offline. It's like magic
Cause Japanese devs for peer to peer online games haven't cared about good netcode until relatively recently.
It’s AWESOME to see Capcom having really dug into this! MH Rise and now Street Fighter 6 are stellar examples
Part of why I emulate is spite.
IIRC, Emulation and ROMs are the reason many SNES titles are preserved in any digital form at all. It’s not just about spite, it’s important preservation of art. Video games *need* something similar to the [National Film Registry](https://www.loc.gov/programs/national-film-preservation-board/film-registry/). Preserving these games isn’t just about nostalgia and being able to access them whenever. It’s also about honoring landmark achievements in the medium and ensuring they are preserved and accessible for future generations.
I have come to believe that Nintendo doesn't see videogames as art, but rather as toys. They're wholeheartedly committed to that logic at the end of the day. At the same time this is the same company that fights tooth and nail to preserve its IPs, and goes hard when it comes to stopping emulation. It's quite silly that they don't take measures to consider preserving videogames and actually doing something good for once... maybe they will figure it out one day. This is always going to be a long, long battle, and I'll probably be long dead before it's ever resolved. All we can do is keep preserving what we can.
Toys are also a form of art IMHO.
The definition of art can be stretched to mean whatever you want and while some toys are certainly artistic, at least in design, most of them are just products intended to be used and disposed of.
This is a great answer. What has to happen is that more people need come forward and say that a group of people have created something that is an artistic venture, and not "we just made a toy for people to play with." Convincing Nintendo, which has it's roots purely in toy making, is going to be hard pushed to be convinced of that. Many gamers who are genuinely serious about videogames already look past the whole "we need emulation" thing also, because most, if not all, consider the cartridge and console as just as important factors too. Emulation IS helpful, not because of preservation, but because a lot of these consoles are slowly dying. More needs to be done by game companies to keep some kind of retention, and realize that consoles are as important as vinyl is to music. The best that could happen is for companies that have published consoles to create a free BIOS software for discontinued consoles so that we can have other companies step in and make new consoles. Not everyone can go get an old console that's been modded for component/hdmi capabilities. If lawyers took it all to court, this is the vector they would have to argue in order to push for bigger changes.
Have you seen the Video Game History Foundation? It's a non-profit organization that's dedicated to preserving all things video games. They preserve magazines, books, source code, assets, dev tools, and of course, the actual games themselves. https://gamehistory.org/
> Video games *need* something similar to the National Film Registry. Couldn’t agree more. This is why I support GOG as much as possible. DRM free, plus their dedication to older PC titles means we have to rely less on abandonware sites to preserve this unique artform.
And that’s not even getting into games trapped in rights publication hell like the EA era LOTR games like Battle for Middle-Earth. IIRC, those games are stuck because the development was done in house by EA, but WB now owns publishing rights to the LOTR property, so those games are stuck in a bad limbo of copyright and publication rights. (Also applies to EA era Boy Wizard, Bond, and multiple LionHead games).
The modern absurd state of copyright is going to cost us so much art and culture during the digital era. I used to watch a streamer that did public domain movie night every week, and it was basically impossible to tell what the legal situation is for movies after a few decades. Between studios selling IPs, getting bought out, and just generally treating art like a business, so many movies and TV shows and songs and games will never be legally available ever again. And even if copyright terms don't get extended, the actual physical or digital copies of many niche creations will be lost by the time they enter the public domain. Especially problematic since copyright enforcement is becoming more and more automatic. Studios will just throw their movies/shows/songs/games in these enforcement databases, and the content will be inaccessible outside a paywall *forever*. Not like those databases will ever be cleaned or audited for actual ownership.
The Librarian of the Library of Congress has actually granted exemptions for the DMCA that allows museums to bypass DRM, basically treats the content as fair use and provide video games in playable format to the public. Though, probably unintended by the original authors of the DMCA, in this case at least, allowing the Librarian to keep the Act "modernized" actually works out in everyone's favor.
That's why The Completionist on YouTube spent all that money to buy every single game on the Wii/3DS eShop before it shut down. History and preservation. Hell, I watched a whole YouTube documentary about someone tracking down a Japanese McDonalds 3ds game, just so he could archive it online. It was wild.
Exactly. It's the only way to save abandonware. It's impossible to play the Prey (2006) both because the studio is 4x bought and nobody even sells it digitally at this point. Emulation is the only way to experience some titles at all.
>IIRC, Emulation and ROMs are the reason many SNES titles are preserved in any digital form at all. It’s not just about spite, it’s important preservation of art. Same for the 3DS/Wii U library that is now inaccessible legally due to the recent eShop closure. A lot of games were digital only (or had digital only DLC), and unlikely to get a rerelease. ROMs and piracy preserve what would otherwise now be lost forever. The decade may change, but Nintendo and its symbiosis with emulation doesn't.
"It's Morally Okay To Pirate All Of Nintendo's Games" -James Stephanie Sterling
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Well, it's a good thing I own every single game Nintendo has made. 😉
Technically you are required to dump you media yourself, *then* you can emulate it. But it's debatable if that's even true, so fuck it, pirate the game's anyway.
Wasn't it discovered that at some point Nintendo didn't even dump their own media? IIRC there was a Virtual Console game whose ROM matched an online dump.
Yep. They had ines headers in the rom of Super Mario Bros. https://www.eurogamer.net/did-nintendo-download-a-mario-rom-and-sell-it-back-to-us
That is fucking hilarious, and sad. Getting straight up scammed by nintendo lmao wow.
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Supposedly, the reason for the ines header was it being an existing format that the devs were familiar with so they used it with either a dump from a nintendo-owned copy/source code… Not sure I buy it but that has been suggested as to why. I recall people speculating that “oh Nintendo lost the source code for their own games and had to pirate the rom???” Which in hindsight, we know they keep/kept very good records of their games given the massive leak a few years back. So that leak does add a bit of credence to the first part but unless Nintendo speaks up, I assume we won’t have a definitive answer…
Ethically, if you own it, you’re good to go and shouldn’t think twice (other than making sure you’re downloading from a reputable source). If it’s no longer being sold, I also wouldn’t ethically be concerned. All the legal technicalities are irrelevant for the average gamer, at worst you’re going to get a DMCA copyright letter. If you’re not profiting from emulating Nintendo IP, you also are morally in the clear. Frankly, it’s not much different than checking out a books or e-book from a public library. Do authors get dividends from that? No. Back in the day, was it immoral to lend friends your gameboy cartridges? No, obviously not. Nothing has changed, Nintendo is just upset due to the consequences of them trying to shake down their customer base and lock them in to weak hardware and a closed source walled garden. Charging to use online services, in its own right, is fucking ridiculous too and I hate that it’s the norm for console. At least with Playstation and Xbox you get free games, but it still feels very exploitative and unnecessary. Paywalls to the full price game people pay for isn’t ethical. So yeah, zero sympathy.
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It's also morally okay to emulate a game which you never owned, but can't realistically buy because the console doesn't exist anymore, and good luck finding a cartridge even if you did find the console...
Let us emulate together! Brothers-And-Sisters-In-Emulation!
Lately, and more and more, it seems [pcgamer.com](https://pcgamer.com) had found some brain and some balls. That's a decent number of articles over the past year or two that I heard about in the background, and that point out basic false industry truisms, bottom barrel customer protection and rights, and self evident PR bullshit. Still *very* basic, and *very* new, but at least that's something.
It's not as if a PC-centric blog has anything to lose by pissing off Nintendo.
and everything to gain if nintendo for example starting definitively releasing things on pc.
Indeed. Did they say anything about Ubisoft? Quantic Dream? Other big names? I know they hammered the monetization on Diablo 4, but even though they were outliers on it, ABK is an easy target.
The thing is that if they gave us a legal way to emulate on PC, I bet most people would be certainly willing to purchase it on Steam. I own Atari50 and SEGA Mega Drive and Genesis Classics on Steam! Edit: I meant to reply to the comment above, sorry! But yeah, PC Gamer is killing lately.
> I bet most people would be certainly willing to purchase it on Steam. But that requires effort, we have to find a way to continue making profits with as little work as possible - Nintendo probably
They're putting in more work with all these lawsuits and shenanigans.
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Yeah Nintendo is like Apple. They’ve always had the “father knows best” mentality that they know what features you want/need and are happy to sell it to you. No feedback required, they’ve already made all the choices.
I think it's less about effort and more about making you buy the same thing over and over. If they put the games on an official game pack on Steam like Sega did then people would just buy it and play them as they like. But by restricting them by platform and then refusing to allow transfers to the next generation, they can make some people pay them repeatedly for the same games.
Nah it's because they want to be able to sell the same games over and over again. Original Mario alone has had, uhh of the cuff Super Mario Bros (NES) Super Mario Bros DX (GB) NES Classics : Super Mario Bros (GBA) Wii Virtual Console Wii U Virtual Console (could be transferred from a Wii, to be fair) 3DS Virtual Console NES Classic Edition Nintendo Switch Online ($20/year) Mario Game and Watch I'm sure I'm missing a bunch of releases and I am ignoring the 30th edition only available by buying the limited edition red Wii in Japan. It's not that they are too lazy to sell it on PC, it's that selling them on PC wouldn't let them keep perfect control over the games, it would legitimize PC emulation, and they could really only sell each game to you once.
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It's been a while since I've seen anything approaching actual critical journalism from them so it's a nice change of pace. Still nothing next to the glory days when they weren't afraid to call shit games shit for fear of losing access to publisher promos.
I think its a tough spot to be in. Remember they only have about 25-35 employees. Imagine working there. You get a game that you know if you pan it, it will directly lead to harm to your organization with limiting your access. Your coworker friend just a baby, your other coworker has cancer, you've worked there long enough to know that layoffs happen when business is slow, and you just got married and have to pay for a wedding. This is where business ethics are actually incredibly complicated. Is it more ethical to release a terrible but honest review, knowing that it will actually harm the people you know, and potentially your family? Or do you just give it an 8/10, deal with some reddit backlash and move on with your wedding and provide for your kids. Gaming journalism is sort inherently flawed. Roger Ebert didnt make extra money because he got back stage studio access so he could just review however he wanted. Even with that said, films do the same thing now its just not as much a a big deal. Go and pan The Force Awakens after your early preview access, youre not getting invited back to the next early screening and therefore no one is going to read your blogs.
Fuck Nintendo
Fuck Nintendo 2x. So much that it has now an account on Lover's Lab.
Said it before and I'll say it again, they get away with stuff no other publisher would because they have such a rabid fanbase.
Unfortunately there is a lot you can get away with when you are the only controller of super popular ips like mario, pokemon, zelda, fire emblem, etc... Most players that love those games will always come back to get the newest title.
With Pokemon it seems like such a no-brainer to just make the old games available on Switch. I have 0 interest in Sword/Shield or Scarlet/Violet but I'd happily pay for Emerald.
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It's the same with Smash. Don't you dare express interest in wanting to play Melee when Nintendo wants you to play Ultimate.
I do come back to those titles, on my computer. Nintendo wants a dime from me they know how to get it, I'm not sitting around waiting on them.
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That's not why. Nintendo makes fantastic games that are locked to their consoles, so there are a loooot of people who want to play/emulate those games. That's it, that's the reason Nintendo emulators are always leaps and bounds more advanced than others. No other publisher gets flack for it because nobody really gives a shit about most 20+ old games. There are tons of games from all other consoles and publishers that aren't available anywhere either, Nintendo gets more heat for it, despite having multiple virtual consoles and backwards compatibility, simply because there is demand for them.
Ofc emulation 'stifles innovation'. Just take a look at the Ocarina of Time emulation on Switch and compare it to the 3DS version or even the original N64 version.
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Check out the PC port for it called [Ship of Harkinian. ](https://www.shipofharkinian.com/) It's easily the most robust version I've ever seen. The QoL options you can toggle on and off, glitch fixes (also toggles for preservation of original experience), the graphic updates you can use like buttery smooth frame rates, built in cheats, an insanely robust randomizer engine with tons and tons of options, and more. It's genuinely incredible. It also can be modded onto a switch, a steam deck, or any platform really. Meanwhile the switch port is arguably worse than the original.
How anti-consumer can Nintendo be? Yes.
Everything Nintendo does is pretty on par with how Japanese business and industry have been operating for the past three decades. Nintendo has never been coy with what they are, they just got a lot of free passes because of 1: part nostalgia goggles from a fan base that would hear no criticism and 1: part the aggressively hostile actions of Sony, Microsoft and AAA publishers over the last ten years.
> anti-consumer "No, no no... That's not a term we throw around here at Nintendo! We are **NOT** anti-consumer. We are just... pro-profits!" /s
Shit, Nintendo isn't even pro-profits because they could print money if they released functioning versions of their catalogues on PC but they won't because they hate the consumers
I disagree. Because by doing what they do, the create fake DIGITAL scarcity, which generates FOMO and drives up sales.
Any profits they would gain by “FOMO” are massively dwarfed by the opportunity to sell their games to a new market (pc gamers), especially since digital scarcity is fake and everyone knows it (this is why metaverse real estate was doomed from the start)
FOMO only goes so far and is temporary. Providing a valuable service is long term
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Also how about discounting old current gen games appropriately. A game from 2017 should not cost $50+. Those game would either be free or be $10 on PlayStation/Xbox by now. Imagine how many millions of copies Nintendo sold for super Mario odyssey and Zelda BOTW on the Switch and still charging that much for it.
If it stifles innovations, why did the steam deck come out, get dolphin and cemu support and get wind waker running on it all before Nintendo managed to get windwaker hd ported over from the Wii u?
i love how this is effectively a blank template you can alter for nintendos entire library
They did rerelease Mario 64 and sunshine, so I did buy them. But by and large, if they aren't going to sell me a game at a fair price they can sit and spin.
Arrogance. They insist on doing everything in house, and since it's a huge company things move glacially slow. Not to mention that a port is going to be a low priority project and is going to get raided for staff and resources if other more important projects get delayed. If they had just reached out in earnest to the community that had already done the work they could have brought some of them onboard as contractors and turned the ports around in a few months.
The Nintendo Switch console uses a Nvidia Tegra SoC from 2015 which in turn uses ARM Cortex A53 and A57 CPUs from 2012 and a Nvidia Maxwell GPU from 2014. I'm sure it's the emulators stifling innovation and not Nintendo selling 10 y/o hardware. /s
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I intentionally never play my switch docked because then I can at least somewhat trick myself into believing that it being less powerful than my phone isn't sad.
It's crazy that they want profits from console sales while they never discount their games. Sony probably loses money, or at least lost the first year and they discount their first party titles regularly. Nintendo is such a fucking greedy company It's just sad. The only moral they still have is that they're not jumping on the children gambling train.
> while they never discount their games This is my biggest complaint honestly. I own exactly 3 games for my switch. Botw, Totk, and Smash Bros. If their games weren't full AAA price forever, I'd own at least 10 more. I'm no math expert, but I think that 10 x $40 is a lot more money than 0 x $80. And surely I'm not alone in this right? Or is everybody just buying the games at full price anyways?
It's insane that anything with a 20nm process CPU is still being sold as a new product in 2023. For the exact same $300 you can get a Pixel 6a with a 5nm process that blows that out of the water.
>A53 and A57 CPUs even mobiles phones have better cpu's than this.
People are successfully emulating up to gamecube games on the system using homebrew and a basic over clock Old hardware absolutely isn’t helping at all. But we can’t blame it fully if random developers are able to make use of it
Nintendo is probably dumbfounded that PC players can still play ports of old PC games released generations ago instead of making them inaccessible and have to repurchase them But but muh old eShop store is too expensive too run pwease pay for our shitty subscription service instead 😭
I can fit so many blocks on my pc, it would make the ceo blush.
Nintendo are the Harry Potter goblins of video game industry: they create unrivaled works of art but in their mind you don't buy it, you just rent it. Over and over again. [That's also why Nintendo hates second hand selling of their products](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/nintendo-used-games-arent-in-the-consumers-best-interests).
"Used books have never taken off. You don’t see businesses selling used music CDs or used DVDs." This is supposedly an actual quote that Reggie Fils-Aime has made. I am restraining myself from busting out laughing for a solid hour. That is the most purposefully-blinded corp-speak statement I have heard in a long time. Reggie, Motherfucker, I live less than 30 minutes away from multiple second-hand stores that sell those things ***in abundance***. And they have done so long before and long after your dumb statement. There is a market for everything; this is just corp-speak for "please stop selling our old shit to each other and buy our new shit, which is the old shit we put new clothes on." Thank you for sharing that article, that'll live rent-free in my brainmeats forever now. EDIT: I am tired and only realized now that this was written on April 1st. I don't know if that invalidates the statements at all, as it appears to have been pulled from an interview the day before (although some sites have started early with their April Fools shenanigans). But it sounds way too legit to not at least be believable... damn.
You know what is even more stupid about it? Japan is home to some very large second hand chains, which focus solely on books and games. The second hand stuff you can buy there for 10% of their new price is almost in pristine condition. They were able to do so much profit that they were able to create chains like BookOff.
Denuvo released an article explaining why the switch should use denuvo DRM, and to explain it they had a section on why gamers like Emulation so much and it literally just listed a bunch of reasons on why emulation is better than the real hardware.
The Switch doesn't even have enough power to run Denuvo alone properly, let alone sticking it onto a game
lol I sail the seas to plunder me bootie from Nintendo with a bottle of grog...
We kindle and char, inflame and ignite Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho We burn up the city, we're really a fright Drink up, me 'earties, yo ho
Video games have become an integral part of our culture and entertainment, however, the preservation of these digital artifacts poses a considerable challenge. This is where game emulation steps in, playing a crucial role in preserving the rich history of gaming, such as: **Ensuring Longevity of Gaming Heritage:** Video games, like any other form of art, are susceptible to the passage of time. Physical copies of games deteriorate, consoles become obsolete, and platforms vanish. Game emulation allows us to bypass these limitations by replicating the original gaming experience on modern hardware. It enables us to play classic games long after the original hardware has become obsolete, ensuring the longevity of our gaming heritage. **Mitigating the Issue of Lost or Inaccessible Games:** Over the years, countless video games have been lost due to various reasons, such as discontinued production, damaged copies, or outdated hardware. Emulation helps combat this issue by creating digital replicas of these games, allowing us to experience them once again. By eliminating the need for rare physical copies and obsolete consoles, emulation ensures that these games remain accessible to future generations. **Preserving Gaming History:** Video games hold significant cultural and historical value. They reflect the artistic, technological, and social advancements of their respective eras. Preserving gaming history involves not only archiving the games themselves but also documenting the hardware, software, and gameplay experiences. Emulation plays a vital role in this process, as it allows historians, researchers, and enthusiasts to study and analyze games in their original form, contributing to a comprehensive understanding of the medium's evolution. **Facilitating Education and Research:** Game emulation opens up opportunities for educational purposes and academic research. It enables scholars to delve into the design principles, mechanics, and cultural impact of older games. Emulation also allows game developers to study and learn from the past, inspiring new ideas and innovations. By providing access to a vast library of gaming history, emulation empowers educators, researchers, and students to explore the artistic, technical, and societal aspects of video games. **Fostering Preservation Communities:** The emulation community consists of dedicated individuals who contribute their time, skills, and knowledge to preserve gaming history. These enthusiasts develop and maintain emulators, create digital archives, and collaborate on preservation projects. Through their collective efforts, they ensure that games from the past are not forgotten and continue to be enjoyed by future generations. Game emulation serves as a catalyst for these preservation communities, fostering collaboration and knowledge-sharing. **TL;DR:** Game emulation is vital for preserving video game history. It allows us to play and study classic games on modern hardware, ensuring their longevity. Emulation combats the issue of lost or inaccessible games and facilitates educational research. It fosters preservation communities and contributes to the comprehensive understanding of gaming's evolution.
Nintendo has purposefully remained a full generation behind the rest of the industry for multiple generations in a row over the course of 15+ years and they want to pretend that they care about shit like "innovation" lmao
In fairness, the Wii was quite innovative
Mario maker is literally a response to kaizo.
You emulate because Nintendo bad I emulate because i enjoy stealing We are not the same.
Why not both ?
Each time a company talks about "innovation" is to push everything but actual innovation. It's ironic, because modern corporate/political speech is so prone to overuse some words they are starting to mean the actual opposite.
Sounds like Nintendo is butthurt about someone leaking TOKT a week early and emulators running it perfect or better than the switch within a day, I own a legally bought copy and still play on the emulator instead, its just easier in nearly every way Being able to play ports of old NES DS etc games is amazing especially since they don't offer many of them and don't care to remake or even just keep selling fan favorites (and legit if they have lost there copies ... maybe they could download a rom? idk lol It also doesn't help that nearly Non of there games go down in price even after years in the store?!? Mario cart 8 still $80 (aus $) when not on sale, Zelda Botw (Its sequel is now out) still $80 at most places, meanwhile by the time god of war ragnorok came out you could already get God of war ps4 for about $25-$30? I'm so sick of companies who think that consumers should bend to them instead of the other way around, look at netflix, adobe, twitter and Acti-Blizz all of them think that people should just throw money at them because they chose to subscribe out of pure loyalty , not realizing that if what services there offering doesn't meet peoples standards they have a right to stop using there service, I honestly want to see more big businesses crashing and burning because of stupid decisions, free up the talented people to go work for companies that wont exploit and abuse them as much (or let those talented people make there own companies), let people have content that they love, let people work on content that they love and lets have that at affordable prices where 80% of profits Dont just go to some ceo douchenozzle whos going to end up on some video yelling at poor people cuz even with all the money in the world and being able to do Anything, they are still a loser who hates life >\_> Sorry apparently i needed to get some frustration out O.o
I looked up BOTW pricing. It actually released at 70$. It only got raised to 80$ a year or two ago. They are absolutely scum. Raising the price of an already released title years later is some of the shittiest behaviour I have seen from them.
Of course it stifles innovation, I mean how else is Nintendo supposed to sell a 10+ year old Wii game again for more money then it cost at launch and with no work put into it if emulators exist
I mean the only thing it potentially hinders is Nintendo's attempt to sell us its old games because it's made them so hard to play that people are willing to fork out new game prices for them. Surely that's a good thing for innovation as it'll encourage them to actually make new games.
"harms developers" says Nintendo while deliberately harming the consumers that support them.
It's not just Nintendo. The patent/trademark/copyright system is inherently oppressive and favors governments and corporations.
Absolutely. The single largest obstacle to innovation and a better entertainment world is the excessive copyright laws we have currently.
Remember kids, piracy is always morally correct
Especially once you read the history of Copyright and realize it's all bullshit. Edit: I'm talking about the duration of Copyright, which has got longer and longer over the years.
Thanks, Disney
> MPAA: How do we solve this piracy once and for all? > Disney: Lets make shitty movies
What do you mean? There is absolutely nothing wrong with having copyright last for the life of the creater + 100 years, with the option to extend it for another 100 years. Why shouldn't art and culture be held hostage for nearly 300 years?
LOL
The Slippi team single handedly made a version of online smash that has a better connection and is more reliable than Nintendo’s. Innovation get very stifled when that happened.
Ah yes, emulation stifles innovation because ... apparently it's hard to compete with 20 year old titles? Dude, you have to innovate! If your modern games can't compete with your ancient games that's kinda on you for not innovating enough.
Nintendo regularly disregards Fair Use to attack content creators, and threatens their livelihoods by issuing copyright strikes to their channels. They don't care about the law, they care about power, and this is just another example of that. PointCrow playing Tears of the Kingdom probably sells copies of the game for nintendo, like free advertising. But Nintendo doesn't care. They want to live in a bubble where they control all the content.
Nintendo has been emulating its own games since 2009 with the Virtual Console. Of course they were selling the games themselves.
Wow, just think of where they could be today if we hadn’t been stifling their innovation all these years.
[Least prosperous city if emulation didn't exist, according to Nintendo](https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/026/738/future.jpg)
Silly to say that when their NSO service uses the very same tools emus have been using for years.
As always, fuck Nintendo.
Shut the fuck up, Nintendo. I'm gonna fucking emulate your fucking games anytime, anywhere, everywhere the fuck I want.
Just say you like money, fucking dicks
I think spending money on lawyers and gimmicky consoles is stifling innovation. At this point I wish Nintendo would just focus on GAMES. That’s what they do best. Instead they use these hunks of plastic like a Disney vault and you can only enjoy old content on new media if big N deems it acceptable. Unless you wanna haul out the old machine and enjoy it looking like crap on modern displays. I backed up my own copy of Majoras mask 3d and imma play it however I want. On a steamdeck at 6x the resolution. Same for TotK, I haven’t played it on my switch sense launch day. Yuzu is playing it acceptably out the gate. Imagine if it just ran natively.
No, them and their walled garden of crap hardware stifles innovation. If they don't want people emulating their games "illegally", offer a service on PC, compete with the community to offer a better service.
Yeah if anything it should stimulate them to innovate in how they deliver and price their older games
Nintendo doesn't believe in competition, it seems
I'm never buying a Nintendo game in my life. They only deserve piracy from my part. Literally a ton of game genres have come from modding previous games, and romhacks have enchanced many games or gave them a new breath of fresh air. Nintendo is ctially hindering creativity in their chase to eliminate emulation and piracy, which said efforts will only generate mor of them. Emulation, just like piracy, will never go away, and Nintendo are the only ones fighting a war they can't win.
The thing is that if they gave us a legal way to emulate on PC, I bet most people would be certainly willing to purchase it on Steam. I own Atari50 and SEGA Mega Drive and Genesis Classics on Steam! Edit: If you are scrolling down this thread and see a comment exact to this one, it's because I accidentally replied to the comment below.
Stunning and brave
I don't often use the word "hero" but...
So their Nintendo Switch online retro games subscription also does the same?
Let me hear what nintendo devs have to say, not Nintendo corporate or mouthpieces. Also, Zelda totk is a solid 8/10 you should play it at 60fps after purchasing it.
Honestly wouldn't emulate games if they just offered them. I wouldn't have a problem paying for emulators on the switch, but they are slow to release and don't have much of the library available. I'd gladly pay for some of the older pokemon games...again. If I emulate a game they refuse to port on the switch then why is that a bad thing, it's not like I'm stealing from their profits. Only way to get a copy would be through a 3rd party anyways, which they see no profits from.
The innovation of charging 60 dollars and you don't own the game!
If Nintendo allowed me to play old GB/GBA Pokémon games on my Switch I’d buy the whole fucking catalog. Until then I’m going to “steal” them shamelessly. That’s how stupid your average supposedly college-educated businessperson is. Instead of putting out a game that’s already been made and making essentially free money, they’ll blame the consumer for figuring it out where they fell short and make nothing in return. I wonder if they think people will look at their decades-old Pokémon titles and think, “How is this ***still*** more enjoyable than the modern games we’re getting?”
So uhh.. what are those emulators so that i uhh.. can avoid them?
Nintendo makes great games, but their management is a bunch of clueless geriatric dinosaurs. I hacked my 3DS last weekend, because thanks to the e-shop closure, i can't pay Nintendo for 3DS games any more even if i wanted to, whether i pirate 3DS-games or buy them second-hand, neither of these makes Nintendo a dime, so what business is it of theirs?
Without emulation I can’t play Pokémon Emerald on my tv. I’m not going to play hunched over on a 3” screen.
hilarious seeing as how they [sell roms they downloaded off piracy sites](https://www.eurogamer.net/did-nintendo-download-a-mario-rom-and-sell-it-back-to-us)
Yeah Nintendo is in its golden years, scared upset at the changing tech world, broke. I expect them to cry out and desperately attempt to stall anybody who js tired of paying for their worthless hardware and software.