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Hi all, thank you for sharing this article here! It is technically a "laymen's" version of https://byuu.org/articles/edge-of-emulation https://byuu.org/articles

by byuu 7y ago

Hi all, thank you for sharing this article here! It is technically a "laymen's" version of https://byuu.org/articles/edge-of-emulation https://byuu.org/articles/edge-of-emulation (submitted here earlier), meant for a wider audience, but it does elaborate on some new discoveries such as the digital video output testing mode. In the off chance anyone is able to help with this, I've set up a Discord channel (#ars) for coordination here: https://discord.gg/Fx7TfKh https://discord.gg/Fx7TfKh Every member of the bsnes-emu project is on said server. Thanks so much!

greggh 7y ago
I'm sure the answer is no, but I emailed a few people at NERD (Nintendo European Research & Development). Asked the obvious question about the documentation even existing anymore, and if there were any possibilities of it ever being made public. You've probably done that already, but I figured it was worth a shot. I'll update if I actually get a response.
- NobodyNada 7y ago
  Nintendo's official development manual is available at archive.org [0]. However, AFAICT it is rather low-quality and incomplete, and it pales in comparison to the wealth of documentation created by years of reverse-engineering effort from hobbyists like byuu. I imagine that the official documentation was leaked rather than publicly released. Nintendo wants to make money selling re-releases of classic games, so they are extremely unfriendly towards emulator developers. Just look at the all the propaganda on their corporate website: "The introduction of emulators created to play illegally copied Nintendo software represents the greatest threat to date to the intellectual property rights of video game developers [...] Such emulators have the potential to significantly damage a worldwide entertainment software industry which generates over $15 billion annually, and tens of thousands of jobs." [1] [0]: https://archive.org/details/SNESDevManual/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/SNESDevManual/mode/2up [1]: https://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp https://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
    I would assume that from a practical standpoint, the SNES emulation 'war' is lost for all practical definitions of it - pirates can run everything they want in more than sufficient quality using any of multiple options. So Nintendo doesn't have much to lose by letting the few geeks that want perfection for perfection's sake have it.
    - praptak 7y ago
      That's not how corporations work though. The default decision is "no" and an individual employee has no benefit from getting through all the red tape to get a "yes".
      - sparcraft 6y ago
        It is also about consistency. Let’s say for argument’s sake they decided to sue the creators of the emulators. If even one time Nintendo cooperated with and assisted the emulator developers, it is easy for the defense to argue that Nintendo implicitly endorsed the work and therefore why are they suing them.
    - naniwaduni 7y ago
      Third-party SNES emulator are more accurate than Virtual Console.
      - lostgame 7y ago
        Wasn't Sony caught using an open-source PS1 emulator for their recently-released(ish) Playstation Mini?
        HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
        Yes
        DCKing 7y ago
        I don't think "caught" really is the proper word to use, when they credited the PCSX-Rearmed project in the menu of the Playstation Classic. It might be considered somewhat embarrassing they didn't make their own better emulator (I guess?), but it's not as if they were actively hiding it either.
- greggh 7y ago
  The response was as expected. Nice people, but it wasn't confirmed if they have documentation or not, and I was told that if they do or don't the policy is not to make any of that public.
armitron 7y ago
Please don't use discord if you can avoid it, it's spyware.
- cdelsolar 7y ago
  please elaborate.
ryanmcbride 7y ago
thanks for all the work you do byuu!

by byuu 7y ago

greggh 7y ago

I'm sure the answer is no, but I emailed a few people at NERD (Nintendo European Research & Development). Asked the obvious question about the documentation even existing anymore, and if there were any possibilities of it ever being made public. You've probably done that already, but I figured it was worth a shot. I'll update if I actually get a response.

NobodyNada 7y ago
Nintendo's official development manual is available at archive.org [0]. However, AFAICT it is rather low-quality and incomplete, and it pales in comparison to the wealth of documentation created by years of reverse-engineering effort from hobbyists like byuu. I imagine that the official documentation was leaked rather than publicly released. Nintendo wants to make money selling re-releases of classic games, so they are extremely unfriendly towards emulator developers. Just look at the all the propaganda on their corporate website: "The introduction of emulators created to play illegally copied Nintendo software represents the greatest threat to date to the intellectual property rights of video game developers [...] Such emulators have the potential to significantly damage a worldwide entertainment software industry which generates over $15 billion annually, and tens of thousands of jobs." [1] [0]: https://archive.org/details/SNESDevManual/mode/2up https://archive.org/details/SNESDevManual/mode/2up [1]: https://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp https://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp
- tgsovlerkhgsel 7y ago
  I would assume that from a practical standpoint, the SNES emulation 'war' is lost for all practical definitions of it - pirates can run everything they want in more than sufficient quality using any of multiple options. So Nintendo doesn't have much to lose by letting the few geeks that want perfection for perfection's sake have it.
  - praptak 7y ago
    That's not how corporations work though. The default decision is "no" and an individual employee has no benefit from getting through all the red tape to get a "yes".
    - sparcraft 6y ago
      It is also about consistency. Let’s say for argument’s sake they decided to sue the creators of the emulators. If even one time Nintendo cooperated with and assisted the emulator developers, it is easy for the defense to argue that Nintendo implicitly endorsed the work and therefore why are they suing them.
  - naniwaduni 7y ago
    Third-party SNES emulator are more accurate than Virtual Console.
    - lostgame 7y ago
      Wasn't Sony caught using an open-source PS1 emulator for their recently-released(ish) Playstation Mini?
      - HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
        Yes
      - DCKing 7y ago
        I don't think "caught" really is the proper word to use, when they credited the PCSX-Rearmed project in the menu of the Playstation Classic. It might be considered somewhat embarrassing they didn't make their own better emulator (I guess?), but it's not as if they were actively hiding it either.
greggh 7y ago
The response was as expected. Nice people, but it wasn't confirmed if they have documentation or not, and I was told that if they do or don't the policy is not to make any of that public.

armitron 7y ago

Please don't use discord if you can avoid it, it's spyware.

cdelsolar 7y ago
please elaborate.

ryanmcbride 7y ago

thanks for all the work you do byuu!