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Nintendo is still actively selling SNES games via Nintendo Switch Online, and as far as I know rolls their own emulator(s) for this rather than using existing o

Nintendo is still actively selling SNES games via Nintendo Switch Online, and as far as I know rolls their own emulator(s) for this rather than using existing open source ones as Sony did for the PS Classic, so I doubt this will happen any time soon.

0x00000000 7y ago
> using existing open source ones as Sony did for the PS Classic That’s interesting, I wonder if that is the case the for the PS1 emulator on the PS3/Vita used for the PlayStation Classics titles
- rossy 7y ago
  I think that's a proprietary in-house emulator known as POPS. The fact that Sony already had an in-house PlayStation emulator for the ARM-based Vita makes their decision to use something else for the PS Classic a bit strange.
  - monocasa 7y ago
    I imagine some third party approached Sony with a "we'll do the work, take the risk, etc. You just give your blessing, tell us who do we need to contact for final approval to make sure the brand is being well represented, and where to send the royalty checks" kind of deal.
  - danhor 7y ago
    Whilst the vita was an arm based system, it also included almost all of the psp hardware for backwards compatability. They simply reused pops from the psp, with no major changes, so it still ran on a mips system.
    - LeonidasXIV 7y ago
      This is also how the PSP runs PS1 games - by essentially being a PS1 and loading the game data from UMD or Memorystick.
scrooched_moose 7y ago
Tangentially related, there's some evidence the ROMs Nintendo was selling a couple years ago were ones they downloaded. Not bulletproof, but more likely than not. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-01-18-did-nintendo-download-a-mario-rom-and-sell-it-back-to-us https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-01-18-did-nintendo-d...
- aikinai 7y ago
  I can almost guarantee Nintendo did not use a downloaded ROM. I don’t have direct experience with how the ROMs are sourced, so it’s not 100%, but I worked on a team handling emulation at Nintendo and can say the processes are incredibly careful and strict. The company is extremely micromanaged and pedantic, and this is not the kind of thing that could possibly be overlooked at Nintendo.
  - monocasa 7y ago
    It's just weird then that they put a header originally defined by pirates, and now otherwise only used by third party emulators. Including matching the even more informal parts of the header byte for byte with the most common dump of the ROM on the high seas.
    - derefr 7y ago
      I mean, you'd want to use a file format that would allow you to cross-test your emulator's behavior on the same ROM files against existing emulators' behavior on those ROM files. So you'd format your ROMs (which you dumped yourself) the way that existing emulators would expect them to be formatted.
      - monocasa 7y ago
        Sorry, I was being a bit coy when I said the "more informal parts of the header". It literally still has the dumper's signature in the unused portion of the header. Traceability as to who gets props for the first good dump drives a lot of decisions in that scene.
nullc 7y ago
The level of perfection being sought in this article is essentially irrelevant to competition with emulators + illicit copying. The existing emulators are more than good enough to be replacements to the commercial offerings (and in most cases, a lot better... e.g. the lookahead rendering). While what you suggest might be a factor in their actions, I don't think it's an especially good one. As far as rolling their own emulators, I don't doubt that they do. But I do doubt that they're doing so without researching the existing open source emulators.
87zuhjkas 7y ago
"Nintendo ... rolls their own emulator(s) ... rather than using existing open source ones" Wouldn't it be possible to reverse engineer these emulators? Maybe the official Nintendo SNES emulator has all the right S-PPU1/2 values in it.
- LocalH 7y ago
  Doubtful. Byuu’s emulator is already much more accurate than Nintendo’s own.

0x00000000 7y ago

> using existing open source ones as Sony did for the PS Classic That’s interesting, I wonder if that is the case the for the PS1 emulator on the PS3/Vita used for the PlayStation Classics titles

rossy 7y ago
I think that's a proprietary in-house emulator known as POPS. The fact that Sony already had an in-house PlayStation emulator for the ARM-based Vita makes their decision to use something else for the PS Classic a bit strange.
- monocasa 7y ago
  I imagine some third party approached Sony with a "we'll do the work, take the risk, etc. You just give your blessing, tell us who do we need to contact for final approval to make sure the brand is being well represented, and where to send the royalty checks" kind of deal.
- danhor 7y ago
  Whilst the vita was an arm based system, it also included almost all of the psp hardware for backwards compatability. They simply reused pops from the psp, with no major changes, so it still ran on a mips system.
  - LeonidasXIV 7y ago
    This is also how the PSP runs PS1 games - by essentially being a PS1 and loading the game data from UMD or Memorystick.

scrooched_moose 7y ago

Tangentially related, there's some evidence the ROMs Nintendo was selling a couple years ago were ones they downloaded. Not bulletproof, but more likely than not. https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-01-18-did-nintendo-download-a-mario-rom-and-sell-it-back-to-us https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2017-01-18-did-nintendo-d...

aikinai 7y ago
I can almost guarantee Nintendo did not use a downloaded ROM. I don’t have direct experience with how the ROMs are sourced, so it’s not 100%, but I worked on a team handling emulation at Nintendo and can say the processes are incredibly careful and strict. The company is extremely micromanaged and pedantic, and this is not the kind of thing that could possibly be overlooked at Nintendo.
- monocasa 7y ago
  It's just weird then that they put a header originally defined by pirates, and now otherwise only used by third party emulators. Including matching the even more informal parts of the header byte for byte with the most common dump of the ROM on the high seas.
  - derefr 7y ago
    I mean, you'd want to use a file format that would allow you to cross-test your emulator's behavior on the same ROM files against existing emulators' behavior on those ROM files. So you'd format your ROMs (which you dumped yourself) the way that existing emulators would expect them to be formatted.
    - monocasa 7y ago
      Sorry, I was being a bit coy when I said the "more informal parts of the header". It literally still has the dumper's signature in the unused portion of the header. Traceability as to who gets props for the first good dump drives a lot of decisions in that scene.

nullc 7y ago

The level of perfection being sought in this article is essentially irrelevant to competition with emulators + illicit copying. The existing emulators are more than good enough to be replacements to the commercial offerings (and in most cases, a lot better... e.g. the lookahead rendering). While what you suggest might be a factor in their actions, I don't think it's an especially good one. As far as rolling their own emulators, I don't doubt that they do. But I do doubt that they're doing so without researching the existing open source emulators.

87zuhjkas 7y ago

"Nintendo ... rolls their own emulator(s) ... rather than using existing open source ones" Wouldn't it be possible to reverse engineer these emulators? Maybe the official Nintendo SNES emulator has all the right S-PPU1/2 values in it.

LocalH 7y ago
Doubtful. Byuu’s emulator is already much more accurate than Nintendo’s own.