3 ms·

Long ago I had been told that you had to be an "official partner" -type relationship with Nintendo in order to be able to market games on their hardware. I assu

Long ago I had been told that you had to be an "official partner" -type relationship with Nintendo in order to be able to market games on their hardware. I assumed that meant there was some kind of hardware key or other secret you needed to have given to you or you just couldn't make things work. This must be different now, is it just that Nintendo doesn't care and all of the secret stuff you needed to know is in the public domain? Really cool to see people doing this. Anyplace especially good to find more info on the hardware issues?

vikingerik 5y ago
On the original Game Boy, the lockout is enforced by the "Nintendo" logo that you see on bootup. There is a bootup ROM in the hardware, which checks that this image exists in the cartridge ROM before issuing a jump instruction to any cartridge code. The image is copyrighted, so Nintendo's defense is to legally go after anyone who includes that copyrighted image in their ROM. It's a legal protection, not really a hardware protection; the hardware part has no secret and is easily defeated. "Nintendo doesn't care" is an approximation. They would, but hobbyists are too small for them to bother with legal action, since any recovered damages would be infinitesimal on Nintendo's scale.
- hcs 5y ago
  I wonder if that would have held up given Sega failing with something similar in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade
- spfzero 5y ago
  I see. Especially if the games were given away free, or at cost of hardware, there shouldn't be any lost revenue for Nintendo as long as they are no longer making games themselves. But you can loose copyright if you don't defend it right? And the copyright to their logo seems like something they would want to strongly protect.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - dtech 5y ago
    > you can loose copyright if you don't defend it right No, that's trademarks. The Nintendo name is also trademarked though, so you can't use it without permission.
    - gambiting 5y ago
      That particular protection has been broken though. Hackers found another combination of bits that successfully allows the Gameboy to boot without being the Nintendo logo.
- userbinator 5y ago
  Besides Sega vs Accolade mentioned in a sibling comment, there's also this attempt --- which was similarly defeated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_International,_Inc._v._Static_Control_Components,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_International,_Inc._v.....
anjbe 5y ago
Nintendo used, or attempted to use, various hardware/software, legal, and economic techniques to force publishers to use their cartridges, for which they took a significant cut of sales. The hardware‐enforced logo mentioned in another comment was one technique, that was an attempt at abusing trademark (not copyright) law to limit third‐party cartridge manufacturers. However, the courts decisively struck that strategy down in Sega v. Accolade. As for economic techniques, there’s a fun story about a third‐party developer named Color Dreams. They released several games, including Crystal Mines, without Nintendo approval, and made their own cartridges. As the story goes, Nintendo threatened to pull their stock from any toy store that sold unlicensed games, and all the stores naturally caved since Nintendo had the most popular titles. Color Dreams saw the writing on the wall, and came up with a strategy to target one market that Nintendo had no hold over: Christian bookstores. Color Dreams rebranded as “Wisdom Tree,” gave all their games a thin Biblical veneer, and started marketing their games heavily to the religious demographic. By all accounts it was a huge success (relatively speaking, for a completely independent publisher). For an example of the results, check out their conversion of Wolfenstein, Super 3D Noah’s Ark (originally for SNES, now on Steam!): https://store.steampowered.com/app/371180/Super_3D_Noahs_Ark/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/371180/Super_3D_Noahs_Ark...
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  > their conversion of Wolfenstein, Super 3D Noah’s Ark Thank you for sharing the wildest rebranding I have ever seen.
  - duskwuff 5y ago
    How about Ultimate Doom -> Chex Quest? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chex_Quest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chex_Quest
- tasha0663 5y ago
  > Super 3D Noah’s Ark Hopefully it ends before Noah discovers wine and things get ugly.
- jamesfinlayson 5y ago

vikingerik 5y ago

On the original Game Boy, the lockout is enforced by the "Nintendo" logo that you see on bootup. There is a bootup ROM in the hardware, which checks that this image exists in the cartridge ROM before issuing a jump instruction to any cartridge code. The image is copyrighted, so Nintendo's defense is to legally go after anyone who includes that copyrighted image in their ROM. It's a legal protection, not really a hardware protection; the hardware part has no secret and is easily defeated. "Nintendo doesn't care" is an approximation. They would, but hobbyists are too small for them to bother with legal action, since any recovered damages would be infinitesimal on Nintendo's scale.

hcs 5y ago
I wonder if that would have held up given Sega failing with something similar in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_v._Accolade
spfzero 5y ago
I see. Especially if the games were given away free, or at cost of hardware, there shouldn't be any lost revenue for Nintendo as long as they are no longer making games themselves. But you can loose copyright if you don't defend it right? And the copyright to their logo seems like something they would want to strongly protect.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- dtech 5y ago
  > you can loose copyright if you don't defend it right No, that's trademarks. The Nintendo name is also trademarked though, so you can't use it without permission.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    That particular protection has been broken though. Hackers found another combination of bits that successfully allows the Gameboy to boot without being the Nintendo logo.
userbinator 5y ago
Besides Sega vs Accolade mentioned in a sibling comment, there's also this attempt --- which was similarly defeated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_International,_Inc._v._Static_Control_Components,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_International,_Inc._v.....

anjbe 5y ago

Nintendo used, or attempted to use, various hardware/software, legal, and economic techniques to force publishers to use their cartridges, for which they took a significant cut of sales. The hardware‐enforced logo mentioned in another comment was one technique, that was an attempt at abusing trademark (not copyright) law to limit third‐party cartridge manufacturers. However, the courts decisively struck that strategy down in Sega v. Accolade. As for economic techniques, there’s a fun story about a third‐party developer named Color Dreams. They released several games, including Crystal Mines, without Nintendo approval, and made their own cartridges. As the story goes, Nintendo threatened to pull their stock from any toy store that sold unlicensed games, and all the stores naturally caved since Nintendo had the most popular titles. Color Dreams saw the writing on the wall, and came up with a strategy to target one market that Nintendo had no hold over: Christian bookstores. Color Dreams rebranded as “Wisdom Tree,” gave all their games a thin Biblical veneer, and started marketing their games heavily to the religious demographic. By all accounts it was a huge success (relatively speaking, for a completely independent publisher). For an example of the results, check out their conversion of Wolfenstein, Super 3D Noah’s Ark (originally for SNES, now on Steam!): https://store.steampowered.com/app/371180/Super_3D_Noahs_Ark/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/371180/Super_3D_Noahs_Ark...

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
> their conversion of Wolfenstein, Super 3D Noah’s Ark Thank you for sharing the wildest rebranding I have ever seen.
- duskwuff 5y ago
  How about Ultimate Doom -> Chex Quest? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chex_Quest https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chex_Quest
tasha0663 5y ago
> Super 3D Noah’s Ark Hopefully it ends before Noah discovers wine and things get ugly.
jamesfinlayson 5y ago