Topic: The Ethics of Emulation and ROMs (edited)

Personally, if the console is discontinued, and the game is not being sold because of the console being discontinued, or you're trying to play a ROM hack/mod, emulation is fine by me.

@RupeeClock see, that’s the part where you buy the entire 3DS with the content downloaded. 😉

Me when the ultimate drag and drop 3DS flashcards are released:

@Zuljaras
Nobody will create a 3DS flashcart because there's no money to be made there, due to the whole custom firmware thing.

@RupeeClock I guess I will be sticking to my cartridges and someday ... maybe a custom software:

Don't modern consoles today use emulation to play older games officially? Like the Nintendo Switch Online SNES app as an example?

@IceDomino That is correct, same with Sega's stuff (NSO or the various Genesis collections), even PC re-releases use DOSBox for classic games. Official emulated versions of games do exist.

I really like what Sega did. They give you the actual ROM with the PC version of the Sega Genesis Classics so you can use it in any standalone Genesis emulator. Plus on Steam, they actually allow ROM hacks to be used as mods, officially.

@Cotillion
Thank you. Is it straight forward? I've started looking for another "new 3dsxl" to acquire as I want to preserve mine. But it'd be nice to play some more of the games I missed. I was able to get a bunch before the eshop shutdown, but I'm sure there's more hidden gems out there.

Hey everyone! Just a little reminder that while we can chat about this topic, it goes against our Community Rules to provide any links/tutorials on how to mod

Thanks

"Do not link to illegal content; Linking to any illegal download sites, torrents or other resources that allow users to gain access to illegal content such as copyrighted ROMs, games, movies, music, TV shows, software or related activities is strictly prohibited."

"Do not discuss current gen emulators/homebrew/piracy; It is permitted to constructively discuss the use of flash carts, emulators and homebrew software when in the context of emulating previous generation(s) hardware. We ask that you do not link to any resources for illegal copyrighted content such as where to download ROMs and we reserve the right to lock, edit or delete any threads or comments we feel stray too far into an illegal or legal grey area, especially related to current gen products."

@Tott Yes, it was straightforward, every step explained in clear language. The guide even outlined how to back up your original 3DS files if you want to restore it later, which I have saved on my laptop.
It went good enough that I even did another one for a friend of mine

I'm not terribly sympathetic if the games are no longer available for purchase (and/or no longer available in more-or-less their original form), but that's as much as I'll say regarding the "ethics" of the matter.

I do hope to grab a handheld console for the purposes of emulation (without grabbing something expensive like a Steam Deck), but I want it to able to, at the very least, handle GameCube/PSP without frame drops, and the games that I mostly intend to play, I would buy in a heartbeat if they were made available again on modern hardware, but I'm not willing to hunt down expensive and/or used consoles/games in order to do so.

I also recently grabbed a Super Pocket for playing Evercade cartridges thanks to the recent Duke Nukem Collections, which I couldn't resist, but I'm not terribly interested in the rest of the library so far.

Pokemon isn't on NSO, the Donkey Kong Land games aren't on NSO, stuff like The Lost Vikings, Unirally, Blazing Skies, Bubsy, NBA Give n Go, Super International Cricket will never be on NSO. Also Nintendo seems to have no interest in putting Master System on NSO at all. Also all the DOS freeware stuff like One Must Fall and Captain Comic

I have all these games on cartridge and they're all a large part of my childhood. So I have no ethical qualms having a portable emulation device to play them. Even one that stretches slightly into the DS era

@Cotillion
Awesome, I appreciate your input! Thank you.

For what it is worth, the SteamDeck is an excellent unit for emulation - and handles Nintendo well up until Gamecube. I have a ton of N64, SNES, GameBoy, Gamecube titles and even a few Wii.

In terms of ethics, this is a really interesting topic.... especially as the narrative of 'game preservation' is so broad. If one is unable to physically or digitally purchase an old N64 game for example - and there is no means of obtaining it legally - where does the hammer fall in terms of emulation?

Of course I think the 'golden rule' seems to be that emulation via download of ROMs is "OK" providing you own the game in question on another platform.... but surely this in itself would deter an individual from emulating that given game if they already owned?

Either way, Steamdeck is a class act for emulation

Hardware ages, consoles break and get lost, cartridges and discs wear down and begin to fail.

As for downloading them, I don’t really trust any sites that provide roms. I only play the ones that came out of my own cartridges…

If I want to play something I'll take the easiest route to play it. Often that means buying it. Emulating current consoles is shoddy and beyond the capabilities of any of my systems. Some more recent consoles are iffy too. Pirating recent games also feels like I'm opening myself up to malware. So I buy if the price is reasonable. If not, I tend not to buy at all. I can wait. If I can buy a previous gen game that I want to play on Switch or Steam for a decent price, I'll do that. That's really easy to do.

But there are often games I want to play that aren't available, aren't reasonably priced, or are part of subscription service, which is a hassle to deal with and a concept I object to. And there's also the element of digital purchases being locked on the console. That changes my idea of what I consider reasonably priced.

Emulating old games is really easy.

When it comes to morality, what's immoral about it? I don't believe that theft in and of itself is immoral and I'm iffy on the concept of intellectual property. I'm more inclined to support it if we're talking about individual creators. If we're talking about corporations, or worse yet, publicly traded corporations, there is no morality involved. Morality is about how we treat others. How our community thrives and what we own each other. Corporations are not people. We don't owe them anything. The concept of morality simply does not apply.

Stealing is immoral period but emulating games you already have to systems you already own isn’t stealing

Also even if your old hardware and all your old games are in perfect working order we're talking tech here. A lot of these classic systems are pretty dated in terms of what signal you can get out of them

Sure, there are ways around it on original hardware. IPS screen upgrades for old GameBoys, HDMI mods, high quality video upscalers. But all of those options generally aren't cheap, even remotely, and they often involve some risk in physically damaging your original hardware

The main reason I picked up my little Anbernic portable emulator thing was because I was looking at NSO and being slightly annoyed that stuff like Donkey Kong Land and Pokemon weren't on it. Which I thought was a bit silly because.... I have those games on cartridge. So I dug out my old GBC and then immediately started to look at screen mods. $90AU for a screen mod kit, $50AU for a rechargeable battery mod kit. And I'd have to do the mod myself on my still in great condition GBC

....... or I could get a portable emulator that can do not just GB/GBC but also NES, SNES, Master System, GBA, N64 and even stuff like Cave Story, old DOS games etc

@skywake it’s nice the little emulator devices are having a moment and there’s some decent pickings as far as quality goes.

I was watching Gaming Historian’s piece on a portable NES inventor that Nintendo declined to work with. And really it wasn’t until years and years later that Nintendo itself put out a half-decent spread of NES titles for portable play with the 3DS Virtual Console (The GBA NES Classics weren’t much of a scratch at the library). But I was unimpressed when their Mario Game and Watch didn’t include all the Mario Games, a few extra kb’s of data at most. Today their Switch NSO service isn’t really going much beyond the 3DS’s offerings. So while the want for portable NES has been around since the NES, there’s never been a better time to get that library in portable play via accessible DIY. No inventors needing Nintendo’s blessing these days.