6 ms·

So do "Virtual Consoles" which are releasing more and more past games on different platforms and charging for it. I'm guessing if emulators weren't so rampant

by watty 10y ago

So do "Virtual Consoles" which are releasing more and more past games on different platforms and charging for it. I'm guessing if emulators weren't so rampant on the PC then companies like Nintendo would have or would think about creating a Virtual Console on PC for NES/SNES/N64, etc.

throwaway2048 10y ago
Commerically released emulations of older games almost always just package up whatever open source emulator, usually some old, broken version, with limited rom selection. No thanks, ill stick to the latest versions I can actually get games im interested in for.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
…why would Nintendo port their old games to the PC? They develop almost exclusively for their own platforms.
- throwaway2048 10y ago
  This logic works in the fantasy land that many gamers occupy where its pirates and hackers that cause all gamings ills. Nintendo is a badly managed company that refuses to do or release things differently, its about the pirates you see. Activision has aggressively anti consumer practices that including spying on users, and disallowing private servers, must be because of the hackers you see. Many fanboys have a pathological inability to recognise that the objects of their devotion make stupid decisions, it always must be because of some other evil force.
- watty 10y ago
  ...why not? I'm not saying it's the correct business decision and there are pros and cons. But if Nintendo released an official Virtual Console for PC, Android, iOS, etc. (not their own platform) it'd sell like hotcakes if implemented and priced correctly. One of the reasons they wouldn't do it is because emulators and ROMs are already rampant on PC and mobile (less so). So the idea of all of a sudden releasing a bunch of classic games in your pocket is heavily diminished.
  - TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
    > One of the reasons they wouldn't do it is because emulators and ROMs are already rampant on PC and mobile Then why do many other game developers and publish make PC ports of their old titles which use emulators? Why is Nintendo different? That you can emulate old titles for free isn't stopping people paying for them, clearly.
    - watty 10y ago
      Your logic doesn't make sense. I never said it was the onyl reason they don't or even that it was a BIG reason, just that it's one possible reason that may be a small percentage of the entire reason why it wouldn't make business sense. So to answer your question - because those businesses have looked at the financials and decided that the lost potential sales due to people who use emulators are worth the effort do develop games. Nintendo has decided differently. It's possible that the other publishers weren't simultaneously pushing a hardware platform which also comes into play. I never said emulation prevents all people from paying for virtual consoles. I simply was pointing out that it diminishes the value. For example, if Nintendo released virtual console on PC today, I wouldn't buy it when I've already got emulators and raspberry pi's running arcades. If there was no way for me to technically play emulated games and VC was released on PC - I'd buy it immediately. So there ya go. One lost potential sale, how many more?
norea-armozel 10y ago
Yet emulators have been a niche before virtual consoles for better on two decades. Only a handful of people I knew ever used them (myself included). Most folks that play games today rarely knew of the older consoles nor are they even that curious. So to blame a few dorks like myself for not abstaining from ripping our ROMs to play on our crappy college laptops back in the early 2000s is nonsensical. It's up to the firm to find out if a market is viable, not the consumer.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
jasonkostempski 10y ago
"Virtual Consoles" do not preserve all games of eras past, they have licensing issues to deal with. Luckily the Microsoft /App/Play/Game Store will never be the only options for software distribution.
izacus 10y ago
Having to rebuy the license to pay the same game over and over and over again so you can play it on a slightly updated and still working hardware is downright Kafkaesque. Nintendo and other copyright holders want to act like you're licensing software (so they don't have to be beholden to first-sale doctrine, laws concerning the ability to make local backups and other consumer protections), but they also want to prevent you from using that licensed software on newer hardware and want you to pay for 35 year old game over and over and over and over again. It's downright absurd, how many times do you want us to pay for the same piece of Super Mario code?!
- gdulli 10y ago
  Well, I've misplaced my receipt for The Legend of Zelda that I bought 30 years ago. Ideally they'd have had an infrastructure in 1986 to manage my ownership of the product in perpetuity across media and distribution channels. But they didn't, so I can either hold on to my feeling of entitlement that Nintendo owes me the virtual console version for free or I can pay $5 to play it on there.
  - jnky 10y ago
    Or you can download an emulator and a rar with all 721 SNES games for free.
    - gdulli 10y ago
      I could also sneak into movie theaters to see all my movies for free. It's not stealing, right? I haven't deprived them of a physical product? There's no marginal cost to them to show the movie to one extra person, right? They lose no revenue because I wasn't going to pay to see the movie anyway, right? And movies are terrible right now, aren't they? Everything's a sequel or reboot, there are no more original ideas, right? And the way they show ads before movies now, they have no right to do that after I've already paid for a ticket, do they? And people are always talking in theaters and they never do anything about it, right? And they turn up the air conditioning too high... I'd really have to be a sucker to pay for movie tickets given all those reasons not to, right? I think I'll still do it, though.
Fej 10y ago
Not to mention that Nintendo took the iNES header for their own use, despite it being a product of the emulation community they espouse to hate.

by watty 10y ago

throwaway2048 10y ago

Commerically released emulations of older games almost always just package up whatever open source emulator, usually some old, broken version, with limited rom selection. No thanks, ill stick to the latest versions I can actually get games im interested in for.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago

…why would Nintendo port their old games to the PC? They develop almost exclusively for their own platforms.

throwaway2048 10y ago
This logic works in the fantasy land that many gamers occupy where its pirates and hackers that cause all gamings ills. Nintendo is a badly managed company that refuses to do or release things differently, its about the pirates you see. Activision has aggressively anti consumer practices that including spying on users, and disallowing private servers, must be because of the hackers you see. Many fanboys have a pathological inability to recognise that the objects of their devotion make stupid decisions, it always must be because of some other evil force.
watty 10y ago
...why not? I'm not saying it's the correct business decision and there are pros and cons. But if Nintendo released an official Virtual Console for PC, Android, iOS, etc. (not their own platform) it'd sell like hotcakes if implemented and priced correctly. One of the reasons they wouldn't do it is because emulators and ROMs are already rampant on PC and mobile (less so). So the idea of all of a sudden releasing a bunch of classic games in your pocket is heavily diminished.
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
  > One of the reasons they wouldn't do it is because emulators and ROMs are already rampant on PC and mobile Then why do many other game developers and publish make PC ports of their old titles which use emulators? Why is Nintendo different? That you can emulate old titles for free isn't stopping people paying for them, clearly.
  - watty 10y ago
    Your logic doesn't make sense. I never said it was the onyl reason they don't or even that it was a BIG reason, just that it's one possible reason that may be a small percentage of the entire reason why it wouldn't make business sense. So to answer your question - because those businesses have looked at the financials and decided that the lost potential sales due to people who use emulators are worth the effort do develop games. Nintendo has decided differently. It's possible that the other publishers weren't simultaneously pushing a hardware platform which also comes into play. I never said emulation prevents all people from paying for virtual consoles. I simply was pointing out that it diminishes the value. For example, if Nintendo released virtual console on PC today, I wouldn't buy it when I've already got emulators and raspberry pi's running arcades. If there was no way for me to technically play emulated games and VC was released on PC - I'd buy it immediately. So there ya go. One lost potential sale, how many more?

norea-armozel 10y ago

Yet emulators have been a niche before virtual consoles for better on two decades. Only a handful of people I knew ever used them (myself included). Most folks that play games today rarely knew of the older consoles nor are they even that curious. So to blame a few dorks like myself for not abstaining from ripping our ROMs to play on our crappy college laptops back in the early 2000s is nonsensical. It's up to the firm to find out if a market is viable, not the consumer.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

jasonkostempski 10y ago

"Virtual Consoles" do not preserve all games of eras past, they have licensing issues to deal with. Luckily the Microsoft /App/Play/Game Store will never be the only options for software distribution.

izacus 10y ago

Having to rebuy the license to pay the same game over and over and over again so you can play it on a slightly updated and still working hardware is downright Kafkaesque. Nintendo and other copyright holders want to act like you're licensing software (so they don't have to be beholden to first-sale doctrine, laws concerning the ability to make local backups and other consumer protections), but they also want to prevent you from using that licensed software on newer hardware and want you to pay for 35 year old game over and over and over and over again. It's downright absurd, how many times do you want us to pay for the same piece of Super Mario code?!

gdulli 10y ago
Well, I've misplaced my receipt for The Legend of Zelda that I bought 30 years ago. Ideally they'd have had an infrastructure in 1986 to manage my ownership of the product in perpetuity across media and distribution channels. But they didn't, so I can either hold on to my feeling of entitlement that Nintendo owes me the virtual console version for free or I can pay $5 to play it on there.
- jnky 10y ago
  Or you can download an emulator and a rar with all 721 SNES games for free.
  - gdulli 10y ago
    I could also sneak into movie theaters to see all my movies for free. It's not stealing, right? I haven't deprived them of a physical product? There's no marginal cost to them to show the movie to one extra person, right? They lose no revenue because I wasn't going to pay to see the movie anyway, right? And movies are terrible right now, aren't they? Everything's a sequel or reboot, there are no more original ideas, right? And the way they show ads before movies now, they have no right to do that after I've already paid for a ticket, do they? And people are always talking in theaters and they never do anything about it, right? And they turn up the air conditioning too high... I'd really have to be a sucker to pay for movie tickets given all those reasons not to, right? I think I'll still do it, though.

Fej 10y ago

Not to mention that Nintendo took the iNES header for their own use, despite it being a product of the emulation community they espouse to hate.