5 ms·

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 eve

by 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 7y 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.
        lostgame 7y ago
        Yeah, I meant 'caught' as in they were caught in that they couldn't do better.
        rcfox 7y ago
        Shouldn't this fact be celebrated rather than shamed? PCSX-Rearmed gets immense validation, and Sony doesn't waste years of engineering time reinventing the wheel.
        K0SM0S 7y ago
        As I said right above, (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22759876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22759876) I think it's not that easy. Not that corporations like Sony are necessarily lacking, but the greatest emulators are works of art, some masterpieces of reverse-engineering.
        7y ago
  - fiblye 7y ago
    If ever there's a law passed that allows Nintendo to get non-licensed emulators banned entirely, I have no doubts they'd do everything in their power to have them wiped from existence by the next day. If they give up and give assistance to emulator devs, there's no going back on it.
    - SSLy 7y ago
      Luckily laws are limited to countries.
      - MaxBarraclough 7y ago
        Nintendo have successfully killed fan projects before, with cease-and-desist letters. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:B094-PrO-qwJ:https://www.engadget.com/2009-05-12-square-enix-pulls-the-trigger-on-chrono-trigger-fan-projects.html https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:B094-P...
        kop316 7y ago
        You do know that Square Enix is not Nintendo right?
      - ragona 7y ago
        Oh? See: lobbyists.
  - shatnersbassoon 7y ago
    IANAL but my understanding is that while practically speaking the war is lost for SNES, corporations have to be seen to be defending their IP (particularly game characters in Nintendo's case) otherwise they run the risk of it becoming public domain in the long term. An example of this is brand names becoming generic names (e.g. dumpster, chapstick, escalator...). The corporations that owned these terms lost control of them because they weren't able to do enough to defend their IP. Since many of their modern titles are reliant on old IP it is vitally important that they retain a grip on it from a legal standpoint.
    - Retric 7y ago
      That’s specific to trademarks which don’t automatically expire. Copyright and patents are mostly enforced via lawsuits, but in theory are in full effect until the clock runs out.
- dr-detroit 7y ago
  dont copy that floppy
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.

by greggh 7y ago

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 7y 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.
      - lostgame 7y ago
        Yeah, I meant 'caught' as in they were caught in that they couldn't do better.
        rcfox 7y ago
        Shouldn't this fact be celebrated rather than shamed? PCSX-Rearmed gets immense validation, and Sony doesn't waste years of engineering time reinventing the wheel.
        K0SM0S 7y ago
        As I said right above, (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22759876 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22759876) I think it's not that easy. Not that corporations like Sony are necessarily lacking, but the greatest emulators are works of art, some masterpieces of reverse-engineering.
      - 7y ago
- fiblye 7y ago
  If ever there's a law passed that allows Nintendo to get non-licensed emulators banned entirely, I have no doubts they'd do everything in their power to have them wiped from existence by the next day. If they give up and give assistance to emulator devs, there's no going back on it.
  - SSLy 7y ago
    Luckily laws are limited to countries.
    - MaxBarraclough 7y ago
      Nintendo have successfully killed fan projects before, with cease-and-desist letters. https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:B094-PrO-qwJ:https://www.engadget.com/2009-05-12-square-enix-pulls-the-trigger-on-chrono-trigger-fan-projects.html https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:B094-P...
      - kop316 7y ago
        You do know that Square Enix is not Nintendo right?
    - ragona 7y ago
      Oh? See: lobbyists.
- shatnersbassoon 7y ago
  IANAL but my understanding is that while practically speaking the war is lost for SNES, corporations have to be seen to be defending their IP (particularly game characters in Nintendo's case) otherwise they run the risk of it becoming public domain in the long term. An example of this is brand names becoming generic names (e.g. dumpster, chapstick, escalator...). The corporations that owned these terms lost control of them because they weren't able to do enough to defend their IP. Since many of their modern titles are reliant on old IP it is vitally important that they retain a grip on it from a legal standpoint.
  - Retric 7y ago
    That’s specific to trademarks which don’t automatically expire. Copyright and patents are mostly enforced via lawsuits, but in theory are in full effect until the clock runs out.
dr-detroit 7y ago
dont copy that floppy

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.