Ouya Heralds Emulation By Tweeting Image of Super Mario Bros.

I don't think the Ouya team should advertise the emulation part of the console too much, that could get their console banned.

I really don't see the point of an Ouya. And from what I hear, the build quality isn't great.

If it's illegal, why are they even allowed to sell the darn thing? It needs to be deposed of.

I don't see the point either...

The device isn't illegal. Pirating ROMS is but the device is yours to do with as you see fit just like any PC or other computing device. There's not much Nintendo can do as far as stopping what people will do with Ouya once it's in their homes.

There's so many ways to do what this thing does, without having it. Not only that, but it relies on illegal activity to attract potential revenue.

"Filled with free games that will cost you thousands"

That could end in a lawsuit...
Or at least a cease and desist order...

Ouya is ridiculous though..

Ever since I heard of it, I've thought it was a pointless device and pirate haven. It'll never have a feasible business model because no one with any kind of technical know-how will ever buy a legit game on it. Financially, unless they are making bank on the hardware itself, it's doomed.

OUYA should remove emulators, Nintendo should ask them to remove Nintendo emulators. It's clear piracy!!! WE Nintendo users PAY for those games unlike those people who want them "for free"

It may be illegal to emulate, but the Ouya itself is not illegal, at least in principal. Emulating Mario on an Ouya would be the same as playing illegally obtained music on your iPod. Plenty of people do it, but the company that owns the hardware would be well advised not to market their product as a device for playing/listening to "free" games and music. You may recall the original iTunes ads with the "Rip. Mix. Burn." tagline. The difference is that Apple never sent out tweets saying, "Hey, go and find your favorite songs online for free and play them on our device!" Not a smart move by the Ouya folks. Just plain dumb actually.

As far as I can tell from what I've heard is the legal stuff isn't worth the $99 price tag- is the emulator which is the selling point. By using Mario screenshots, the makers are admitting that you can do this sort of thing, and actually encouraging it. By doing this they've given Nintendo a watertight case.

Ok, this is just plain stupid. Emulators themselves are not illegal, and there's nothing Nintendo could have done to Ouya as long as they did not build them using Nintendo's patents or showed off copyright protected games.

Offering an emulator alone would not be enough to get Ouya in trouble, and they could have always played the "We never put the emulator into our console to play copyrighted material" argument if the matter ever came out. Basically, had Ouya just had an emulator and did not promote the playing of copyrighted roms, Nintendo would have been incapable of touching them since they could always claim that the emulators were included for homebrew games.

But this just opens up the doors for Nintendo to take them out. Now, Nintendo can claim that Ouya themselves support emulation of their games, and can run them out of business by suing them.

They just burned their own bridges if Nintendo decides to take them out. Do they think Nintendo can't find these posts?

Ouya just made a really stupid move.

It'll die sooner or later anyway.

roms are 100% wrong just because its old or you have the nes/snes/n64 game does not mean you can emulate it its like saying i have a iphone and you have a iphone you dont use so i can just take it.

@Joshers744 Well, it runs Android, where emulators already exist, if you install something on there, that's your doing, it doesn't ship with emulators on board I don't think...there are plenty of fringe devices that can emulate things, doesn't mean they're perfect though

@feline2 Actually, you are allowed to emulate a game if you own an original copy.

This thing is still around?

@SanderEvers Good to be European According to Dutch laws I can even legally play games I don't own as long as it's for personal use. The law is weird some times.

I smell a lawsuit...incoming

@Fazermint Actually, if by "emulate a game" you mean to download and play a ROM, that is illegal, at least in the US. However, if by "emulate a game" you mean to make a copy of a game you own, the legality is unclear, at least in the US.

This is from a page from the Electronic Frontier Foundation's website http://w2.eff.org/IP/eff_fair_use_faq.php:

"Although the legal basis is not completely settled, many lawyers believe that the following (and many other uses) are also fair uses:
Space-shifting or format-shifting - that is, taking content you own in one format and putting it into another format, for personal, non-commercial use. For instance, "ripping" an audio CD (that is, making an MP3-format version of an audio CD that you already own) is considered fair use by many lawyers, based on the 1984 Betamax decision and the 1999 Rio MP3 player decision (RIAA v. Diamond Multimedia, 180 F. 3d 1072, 1079, 9th Circ. 1999.)
Making a personal back-up copy of content you own - for instance, burning a copy of an audio CD you own."

And the following is from Nintendo's legal page: http://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#download_rom

"Can I Download a Nintendo ROM from the Internet if I Already Own the Authentic Game?

There is a good deal of misinformation on the Internet regarding the backup/archival copy exception. It is not a "second copy" rule and is often mistakenly cited for the proposition that if you have one lawful copy of a copyrighted work, you are entitled to have a second copy of the copyrighted work even if that second copy is an infringing copy. The backup/archival copy exception is a very narrow limitation relating to a copy being made by the rightful owner of an authentic game to ensure he or she has one in the event of damage or destruction of the authentic. Therefore, whether you have an authentic game or not, or whether you have possession of a Nintendo ROM for a limited amount of time, i.e. 24 hours, it is illegal to download and play a Nintendo ROM from the Internet."

If you want to run an emulator with games on a device, go ahead. You're breaking the law, but I honestly couldn't care less. But when you start to advertise emulators and illegal downloads as a, if not the, major selling point for your console, you're just asking for trouble.

But to be honest, unless you're a developer and want to mess around with the Homebrew and development side the Ouya offers, if you own a Android tablet with HDMI out, you own a Ouya already.

You lost me at android ouya! Oh and leave our Mario alone.

@SanderEvers 't seems I'm misinformed, then. Ah well. runs

Get rid of emulators on the device "and it's good".

This has the potential to destroy Nintendos Virtual Console, its a shame as Nintendo cannot really do anything about it.

As far as I now, emulation is legal, but owning the ROMs is not, so it's fine to advertise this.

I disagree @ potentially destroy those that want to pirate they still can even now but one is most people aren't really that savvy to go out on the internet to find roms.
I used to see at the market people selling those R4 cards but they had to pay them extra to get new games because they simply didn't know.

People will buy the system to pirate old games, and the sellers know that. Putting it on an official tweet as a selling point though? They really don't know what they're doing..

Hey... you know what would be great? What if they sold a USB NES/SNES/N64 cartridge reader for the Ouya, so emulators could (legally) play games off the cartridges directly? That would be AWESOME! Someone do this please!

OUYA is a niche market device anyways. The open nature of the device and Android in general, wouldn't have stopped people with the know how to run emulators and ROMs anymore than those who run emulators on their PCs and other devices. With that said, they totally shouldn't have advertised running illegal ROMs as a selling point. That's just stupid.

Ouya wont mean there will be any more piracy than there already is, also emulators themselves aren't illegal, the main site for ouya games page shows the emulators but the only links to roms where for homebrew stuff as far as I could see, not to roms for commercial games, will that be what most people use them for, probably not but I don't see how nintendo or any one else can remove the actual emulators.

Never had much interest in Ouya. The awful name doesn't help.

this is going to cost them dearly. never mind the legality of emulation; the image of Mario is protected IP and you can't just use somebody else's property to promote your own product without permission.

I am personally looking forward to getting a OUYA but I will not be getting it to play Mario on. I will be getting it to play games made for Android that would be much better with a controller. Also before you say well why don't they just get those games on Wii U/3DS they would cost a lot more to port onto those consoles. OUYA is a great idea and I don't agree with emulators but I do think that Nintendo and other big gaming companies are being a little greedy making me pay for a game that I have so many times before. A least with OUYA if you have an Android account you can play the games you have already bought on your phone. Honestly PS3 and Vita are doing a very similar concept and it is very disappointing that if I want Scribblenauts or MH3 on the go I have to buy them twice. So though I don't agree with OUYA's way of going about this I do agree that some things should change at Nintendo so that they are better for the consumer.

Kinda funny when one of your main selling point is emulator.

I rather support the "open pandora" project. Its a linux based "micro laptop", maybe not as powerful, but it can do a lot more than just "play illegal roms from other consoles"
Also, let them advertise their emulation stuff. That gets their "free console dream" banned quicker than they can say mama mia.
I really dont like that "console". Android is fine for phones, but that stuff thats on their marketplace barely qualifies as "games" in my opinion. They are cell phone time wasters for when you are waiting for the train or siomething, nothing to hook up on your main TV. And emulation...get a PC that connects via HDMI and plug it into your telly. Best emulation you can get...or just get the damn consoles and play the originals for crying out lound (and i count the VC as originals too for convinience)

Playing Super Mario Bros on the Ouya is completely legal, as long as you dump the rom from your own cartridge, as per section 117 of the US Copyright Act of 1976.
http://www.bitlaw.com/source/17usc/117.html

Are you people really upset about this? Sorry but not like Nintendo is banking on these ridiculously old games to begin with so you can quit acting like this will pirate every WiiU and 3DS game. I'm not sorry.

Okay be ignorant fan boys the OUYA can do more than play emulators.

@ One-Winged-Pit Don't be sorry most these people don't know what they are talking about and I'm glad to see a Nintendo fan besides myself think.

I am extremely disappointed in this sites fan base right now.

Nintendo should get Lunar Magic on eshop as an app if they really want to put Ouya in its place. Just imagine being able to share ROM hacks of SMW on Miiverse! Of course, only for those who bought the game.

Coming Soon: Nintendo sueing Ouya people

@Pierceton Of course it can do more, the problem that I have is that the people behind the Ouya are advertising something which is illegal as the major selling point of the console. Almost any device can play illegally downloaded games if the right software and hacking is used. Through advertising this, they are effectively taking away support from the game developers which are making fully legal games for the system.

I've had Ouya for well over a month now and enjoy the system quite a bit. Emulation is not illegal if you own the hard copy of the games, so there is nothing wrong with the Ouya team tweeting what they did.

So if you own a hard copy of Mario Kart on the Nintendo 64 and you emulate it on your Ouya - wouldn't you technically be "freeing" your game from its hard shell?

@Hyperstar96 But they are demonstrating this with the fact that THEY pirated. you know your device has nothing new/innovative where the biggest games are ports of FF3 without the DS bottom screen goodness, and illegal downloads of games that are already cheap as hell to download.

@Fazermint you cant if you did not know you cant just emulate a game just because you have it check nintendo.com the emulation rules if you want.

@PinkSpider
People have been able to do this on PCs (and so many other platforms) for years, and Nintendo's virtual console hasn't disappeared. That isn't the problem.

The problem is that the tweet makes the OUYA look unprofessional. They've already made a mockery of E3 (and themselves) by putting a fake booth at a parking lot across from E3. Now they are saying that we support emulation. What message are they giving to developers who look to make a living on android-based games?

I love the idea of the OUYA--and I hope it succeeds. I'd like to buy one in the future because I think the established developers have gone too far with yearly iterations of games, DRM, and just a lack of all-around creativity. But they need to remove emulation, not support it. To me, it looks like a desperate cry for attention.

Don't see the problem, if Nintendo put more of their titles onto the eShop then people wouldn't need to pirate them. The market is there and people want to buy these titles but Nintendo doesn't listen and puts out more mahjong picross titles.

I got my OUYA, and honestly the only thing I was looking forward to was the controller and the N64 emulator. My N64 controllers have long since kicked the bucket and I still can't play a lot of my favorites. The controller is very much crap, made out of tacky plastic and pointless metal bits, an unclear touch screen and held together by magnets, and the N64 emulator is actually terrible. I feel like a tool for buying into the hype.

But yes, the advertising the fact that it comes with emulators is a terrible thing to do. Especially if they don't make it completely clear that it is in fact illegal to emulate if you don't own an original copy of the game. Nintendo should definitely retaliate against this.

...and release more games on 3DS and WiiU VC.

Ashens pointed out that there is a "official" unlicensed N64 emulator being sold in the OUYA shop.

How exactly are they getting away with this?

if its just an emulator machine im not sure that i see the point, emulators for old games have been available forever on every platform from PC to every handheld device of every type to XB360. so unless it can emulate newer consoles then it doesnt do anything special.

and i dont know, but if it encourages and supports open-source programming then it might end up being an interesting console. it would be about time that a console would come with open arms to indie developers and homebrew creators instead of eternally quashing the unlimited potential that such people have demonstrated on every system despite having to go against the wishes of the major companies in order to do so.

Nothing wrong with Ouya really. For $99 it's a pretty compelling system. As we Nintendo gamers know, it's not all about performance.

Advertising someone else's licensed game playing on your system illegally is a boneheaded move, however.

It feels good to be one of the few and the proud gamers that actually PAYS for his games no matter how old or "retro" they are.

@Slapshot: You (and the Ouya team) are not telling the entire story on that — ROMs are legal only if you've ripped them from your very own cartridges and/or discs, thus the idea of a personal 'backup copy'. I don't see the Ouya team doing anything to attempt to educate people on this very important point.

that said, if this is a major selling point of the system, everyone using a base-model PC to lay down their Kickstarter funds have officially been made fools of by these guys. If I were them, I'd be absolutely ashamed to have emulators as a selling point for a system I was putting out on offer. Someone else's games shouldn't be the best thing they have to show prospective customers.

I hope Nintendo takes them to town over this stupidity :/

@Bulby read my first comment.

Most people that want to play "retro" games are already doing it. Which makes this device seem even more worthless. If ripping roms is their main selling point, then they are in a lot of trouble.

The Ouya marketing has been really obnoxious, imho. Has really made me lose interest in the console. :/

Maybe they should reach an agreement with Nintendo to sell those old NES titles. Picture this: Balloon FIght. For 5 euros. A pop.

Now in all seriousness, it is ethically wrong to advertise a product in such way, however offering emulators (albeit practically condemning piracy) isn't in itself an illegal act. The code behind such emulators is (at least in these cases) written by the creators of the software and it doesn't contain any copyrighted material from Nintendo.
TL;DR if they don't pack BIOS &/or ROMs with it, they're fine

@Joshers744 I suggest you get off your computer ASAP and dispose of it properly then.

You see. I feel that art should be free. I hate money. I hate greed. I hate anything to do with currency. My morals are above society.

@Tomires

I'm surprised at the amount of uninformed posts calling emulation illegal because it isn't. As long as the emulator itself is not used with stolen copyrighted information (ie; NES tech docs for instance from Nintendo) they're legit. Many court cases going back decades now prove that point. Ouya was stupid referring to that post with the SMB game running, but stupidity isn't a crime. SMB itself depending on how you acquired it, the ROM itself isn't illegal either as that cart you bought got you one 'license' for the data.

If anyone feels someone should be punished for making an emulator, and then running a Mario game on it needs to attack the emulator developer and see how far you get with that witch hunt. Ouya is an open system that runs Android and if a developer of apps for that format wants to make something they're liable for it. If someone wants to throw one or one thousand illegal ROMS to games they don't own on the device, again that's their problem, not Ouya's. They just provided a platform, it's the user(owners) responsibility to keep it legal.

@BrightBeing they only make money off of hardware sales they are not a game development company. Do you know how the gaming industry works?

@tanookisuit wow somebody that knows what they are talking about! Considering the over all feel of the comments on this article you sir are a breath of fresh air.

Not a good idea to promote emulation on your system via twitter.

@tanookisuit You are misinformed about copyright laws. Buying a copy of a game does not give you a license to download ROMs and emulate it whenever you want. ROMs are only legal if you obtain them from a direct dump of your own legally purchased copy. Almost no one does this, so the number of ROMs being used legally out there is very small indeed.

Honestly, with classic games on every platform getting digital releases for low prices, the number of justifications for emulation (or "abandonware" on PC) has grown pretty thin. Maybe you could argue that rare games with no digital release or localization are okay because there's no other way to play it (I'm not sure though - my thinking has shifted). But it's still illegal regardless.

That doesn't mean Nintendo has handled its VC service well, but that's a separate issue from the legality of ROMs.

What idiots.

Last time I checked Windows 8, iOS and Android devices can run emulators along with most PC operating systems (Windows 7, Vista, XP & OSX). So if you're going to stop the sales of the Ouya over emulators then you also need to stop the sale of every "Smart Phone", "Tablet" and "PC" in existence. Hey, it would only be fair.

I see 2 possible outcomes...

1. The console gets bombarded with piracy lawsuits on day one.
2. The console somehow manages to outlast a year and dies due to crappy quality, underpowered hardware and lack of true advertizing because of potential lawsuits.

@yttrium13

Well, in recent revisions of the DMCA it is now illegal to make copies of your own games regardless of the interned purpose (such as your own backup). So you're wrong. Go read up on the recent revisions.

Well, these guys have a death wish. I hope Nintendo drops an unholy bag of doody on their heads for this, because they deserve it.

@Tomires You do realize that not every person on the planet who uses a computer and games is a software pirate, right? Some of us have a bit of decency left.

@Joshers744 Nintendo didn't give a damn when I informed them of a fake hundred in one type console with Super Mario Bros on it that was running Super Mario Bros all the time in a shopping centre.

Emulators are not illegal. In most countries its not against the law to copy the NES-SNES cartridges you legally own. I didn't know that the policy changed but if you already made copies for your own use for your games, they can't force you to destroy them or not use them on Ouya.

@thepitt: There is no copy protection on old nes/snes carts you can dump them without circumventing any digital locks. Not that it matters to me what the DMCA says as at least up to these point US laws have only in fairly limited cases been shown to be acceptable to my country. (Still erratic though which is troubling).

Nintendo are not going to do anything about this. They haven't even done anything places selling - reproduction carts (Basically selling a rom put back onto a cart at something like the original RRP).

I think if the copyright for the old Super Mario Bros / World games expired then they might actually make one to the same standards in terms of level design. (Maybe just wishful thinking).

14 years copyright (Maybe with the 14 year optional extension) seems long enough to me. The money is not the thing but the fact there is less incentive to bother creating (Which is the purpose of copyright in the first place).

ouya is the most pointless thing i've ever seen. I dont know a single person foolish enough to want one. Online media websites love it... no-one else gives a crap.
Stop posting about it.

Nindi should sue them for $8.6 million.

@yojo technically they didn't pirate anything they are a hardware manufacturer. I don't think I need to explain further of I do I'm sorry.... I'm not sorry.

@mikeyman64 $99 hardware isn't that bad.

@Koto it's not there emulator it's on android market so it's on all android phones. There isn't much to be done beside sue the people "stealing" the ROMs because an emulator isn't really illegal.

@asbel I will agree with that but they are just a hardware manufacturer so it's kinda a weird opinion to take at all. Now if they actually get into the software business then they might understand how disrespectful they came across. That being said I still believe Nintendo needs to work on their VC so I don't have to buy the same games every time new hardware comes out.

@Pierceton I think most of us understand that these people don't make the emulation software. What is going to be very hard for them is to advertise without blatantly stating that this device can (and is meant to) be used for illegal activity.

I think most of the downvotes here come from those who have seen things like the GP2X go down the same road and get thrown by the wayside.

Now that I've officially downloaded the emulators, I can keep them if Nintendo decides to pull some legal strings and have them blocked. It would be a sad day for Emuya, however, since they are aiming to promote homebrew games by selling them in their shop.

We have Super Mario Bros for 3DS... they should have displayed Super Mario World (that isn't in the 3DS eShop) so Nintendo considers releasing it...

The odds I will get an Ouya just decreased by a fair margin. It was bad enough that Nintendo was going to have to compete with a console that people could pirate Nintendo games on, but Ouya definitely had no right to use an image of Mario to market their device.

LOAD JESUS CHRIST Nintendo should sue ouya

If Nintendo sues Ouya, they should try working towards getting rights on whatever tech is inside it.
Add the rights to use said tech in their own devices in the future.
Two birds one stone; good tech for Nintendo and an ethics book to the face for Ouya.

Some times emulators are the only way to play retro game like Atari 400,800 and ST game as well as Commodore 64, Amiga games but I do not like games game which you can still buy and easily get on the new consoles.

I wandered into the Bullring branch of Game yesterday and was surprised to see Mario running on the demo Ouya setup. I was surprised that Game were doing this, but I'm not exactly outraged - I believe copyright terms should be brought down to around 25 years anyway.

@SteveBosman I like that 20-25 years copyright would be cool

@mikeyman64 You do realize I've been replying to one person in particular, right?

It's a dead-on-arrival console, just read news that it's just sitting there in US stores.

@Caryslan The NES/SNES patents are expired they only last 15 years. (That is why clone SNES/NES systems like the Retro Duo are perfectly legal). I don't really mind emulation. (No nostalgia of 50hz I only ever played the games in the arcades). (Thought Ironclad was a 60hz one when it first came out but I was ripped off in that case). The VC SNES emulation is only just about ok.

@DreamDrop I read that it was sold out yesterday. Anyway Square Enix is supporting it not that I think they do anything worthwhile now.

(If DreamDrop is referring to the 3DS Kingdom Hearts it is the worst game I have ever paid full price for in this millennium).

@ErnisDy Yeah the only thing companies care about is money and how much it costs them to get it. Nintendo has some quality control but far less than it used to (Its own games are generally good) but anyone else I just won't buy it unless I can be fairly sure it will be half decent. (Online reviews are pretty useless really - the average score is 70% for all games on this site. Anything I like probably will have at least a few places who review it as being too hard. (And probably didn't even play it to completion) which kills the score and puts it into the we want to keep getting free game codes so we cannot review this that badly category.)

Stupid - I bought Rondo of Blood (TG16 VC played it properly never played a Castlevania properly before (Didn't like the SNES one). 9/10 Here - Finished it and liked it. (Got 100% not by wasting tons of time).
So then I got Castlevania the Adventure Rebirth reviewed same score on this site and it is awful inferior to Rondo in any of the ways that matter I finished it in less than an hour on hard with classic control. You can fudge through the whole thing without actually ever getting better at playing it. Complete waste of money. (Reviewed on this site same score).

There is a fair amount of 3DS games I would not have bought at all if I hadn't tested a previous entry in the series for 5 minutes on an emulator (Normally the GBA version as it is usually easiest if it was on the VC I would probably buy it risking £5-10 is not the same as risking £40). If every game had a demo I wouldn't bother (Oh that is what Ouya is trying to do).

Someone buying many games at full RRP off the eshop is a more desirable customer than someone who only buys at 50% of RRP regardless of what else they do. (I buy every accessory when I buy a console because the later you leave it the more pita it gets finding the stuff).

All so it is possible sega might sell legit roms for this. (Megadrive DRM free stuff is everywhere for £2 a piece and 60hz). As far as I know Sega licensed an existing emulator at one point. Also the Neo Geo X is just an embedded system with the wrong aspect ratio running fb alpha.

Kirby's Adventure (3D Classic) is a great example of what should be done before things are put on the VC.

no need for emulation thanks to Nintendo's amazing VC service ;p

If you like swearing at your controller because it lags all the time then the OUYA is for you

@theblackdragon Some of the gaming media is taking this way out of proportion. Emulation is only but one part of what the open source console can do. If its such a major part of the console - why doesn't it have its own menu? And why would the Ouya Store have hundreds of games available that you have to pay for to unlock the full game?

If Nintendo goes after Ouya, they have to go after all Android devices that offer emulators. I don't think it's in a position right now to open up that box.

Small time losers need to GO AWAY!!! we dont need people using this rubbish to defend DRM.

Ouya looks like a fun, lightweight, affordable multimedia solution right now. 100 euro's for a gaming, xbmc playing, low cost quick game station underneath your receiver?

Trust me, this could hurt eshop a lot once it gains momentum. I do think, however, they need to go more professional if they ever want to stay successful and this is a blunder that could really kill them. You won't see me play it while I have a wii U anyways - but let's stop denying everything in existence as a potential player within the gaming spectrum and start to realise this stuff can hurt nintendo a great deal.

Remember when I told everyone here the iphone and ipad later on were going to hit nintendo in one way or another and most of you guys kept telling me off? This could be the same thing in a different way - I don't believe in it as much as a product as I did in the launch of the ios devices, but there's certainly market potential.

It's android based. Emulators are all over the market, and aren't illegal. As they are on pc. What's curious to me is the choice of Mario, which would obviously bring backlash. They could easily get a pic of a non Nintendo game, even from PSX, maybe even from a defunct studio. Obviously we can't prove that they didn't dump their own backup (however unlikely), or that "free the games" doesn't mean "from aging and likely nonfunctional hardware." Personally, my PSX won't close and PS2s lens is burned out, so I made isos of my discs and run them on my (android) phone. And anything that came to psn of mine i purchased. But even allowing that, Mario 1 is a bad choice. That's available on like 80% of Nintendo's consoles!

And yeah on Sega- they've been selling roms on mobile, Steam, and in "collections" for years now. Heck, they've even recent,y started putting effort into them! Sonic 1 and CD are fantastic.

Are people really, legally ripping their NES, SNES and N64 cartridge ROMS? Or just illegally downloading them and playing them on their Ouya?

@mikeyman64 okay sorry but android right now is much bigger than Linux based gaming also gp2x only came out in North Korea. Ouya is a worldwide project and is selling very well. Plus there are a lot of developers working on android just because there are emulators available does not mean it will go the way gp2x. Also I honestly don't know how many of these people understand that the Ouya doesn't make software.

@yuwarite yeah because people haven't been doing the same thing on their phones and pcs for years.

@Slapshot: Last i checked, i was pretty sure Android phones and tablets don't need to use emulators and retro games they don't have permission or licensing to show in order to advertise their products. They seem to sell just fine on their own.

@theblackdragon they aren't doing it for advertisement they are trying to make point. Free the game.

@Tomires yeah, if I was a pirate, then I'd have a problem with it, but considering I don't pirate games (or movies or whatever for that matter), I think I'm keeping my computer right where it is.

I've never heard ot this ouya thing and if they are actually trying to sell the thing by advertising somethign that is completely illegal, and harmful towards the gaming market, I have a problem with it.

@One-Winged-Pit Nintndo owns these game and IPs completely. Nobody has the right steal and pirate them even Nintnedo isn't planning to make that much more money with then. It's wrong regardless of much money Nintendo is going to make off them. A lot of people here are getting upset over the morality of it.

So, remind me again why anyone would buy this thing? If I want to do things illegally, I can very easily download ROMs and an emulator and play old games on my PC. And why on Earth would I want to play Android games on a console when most of the time they're not even worth playing on their native smartphone and tablet environments?

@Pierceton Free the game? That sounds a bit... piratey. Do we have some sort of "right" to use someone else's intellectual property? Of course they're doing it for advertisement. 'Buy our thing, play all of these games!' It's like the old PowerJoy, only using android to keep from releasing hardware with actual pirated data installed on it. They just advertise the potential.

The idea of the Ouya is very cool. I just don't think the thing has a market because the only reason you would play it is to either play phone games with a controller (pointless?) or download emulators and roms, which, we can all agree, is less-than-legal.

@Pierceton: if that's truly their point, then i hope Nintendo takes them down with a vengeance. The least they could've done was use a game that hadn't made it to the VC yet. For shame.

Ouya will not pick up. It seems to me like a retail gimmick.

@mikeyman64 well there are plenty of games that suck to play on a phone that would be much better with a controller on android market place right now let alone the Ouya and other android consoles will give an opportunity for smaller dev companies to make good console games. Also I'm not talking about piracy games like Mario that I have had to pay for every time new harware comes out should be FTP at this point. That or Nintendo needs to do something about their VC so that I don't have to pay for the same game multiple times Sony is doing it and its a great thing for consumers. This post isn't promoting piracy as much as it is anti greed. Now if they showed off super Mario 3d land I would be pissed beyond belief and do I agree with their approach... Hell no they stated this poorly but I don't disagree with the meaning behind it. Also Ouya sold out on amazon day one and had one of the if not the most successful kickstarters to date I doubt they need advertisement.

@ theblackdragon hahaha I doubt Nintendo is going to care to much tba but yeah they should have used supermariorpg but I don't think it would have gotten the same point across.

you can run an emulator on almost anything these days, from consoles to pcs to smartphones... where theres a will, theres a way, and that really doesnt have anything to do with ouya.

You know I want to pull something back from this away from all the misinformed emulator talk. The Ouya is a hell of a deal for what you get. Currently the most direct competition on the market for it is the existing Roku box which also at a 'gaming' level costs $99 too. Roku and Ouya both game stream media effectively replacing an expensive monthly cable/direct tv type box depending on what you like to watch. They double in streaming online movie/tv on disc services too. Roku can kind of handle some games like Angry Birds but it was never well made for it, nor is it an open device. At the same price the Ouya is an Android box that is open with free tools to make whatever for it, they let you do what you want which is the cause of the emulator whine fest going on.

I really don't get the hate as it seems to step on the toes of Apple TV, Roku and other like devices with a capable controller and piece of hardware that is uniquely open unlike the competitors.

This ouya thing won't last long. It will be more niche than anything.

It even has a bunch of emulators listed in the "Games" section of their website. Allowing emulation on their console is illegal, but they're even advertising it. I'm pretty surprised, although most of its buyers are for the emulation.

@Pierceton: SMRPG is another game currently available via the Wii VC.

@theblackdragon It isn't illegal to advertise an emulator. Emulators themselves are not illegal. Ouya's largest selling point from many I've seen personally is that the console itself is a dev kit. If you have the capable equipment, then you can emulate games to your Ouya legally. Only the emulators are available to download from the Ouya Markepplace - not the ROMs, as many seem to think here. I personally have the console and know this for a fact.

What I'm seeing is a lot of people wanting a new upstart console that doesn't have "Nintendo" stamped on screaming for its demise. I do not condone emulation and haven't even thought about downloading an emulator on my Ouya. All the mobile platforms have emulators on their respective marketplaces, just like Ouya. Ouya, nor the mobile platforms are breaking the law. Is it shady? Yes. But it isn't illegal.

@HeatBombastic No, it isn't. Emulators are not illegal. Downloading ROMs is illegal. Ouya is breaking no laws by having emulators on its marketplace. Apple's iOS Marketplace and the Google Play stores both have emulators on them as well.

@ theblackdragon you just blew my mind I know what I am doing later!

@Pierceton I can understand wanting to play an old game, that is sitting on my shelf, on my new console for free. But let's be honest, it costs companies money to port games. The primary reason Sony can make VC games with cross-platform licenses is because their hardware has very similar software design at the core, something that Nintendo should be and indeed is working on achieving.

I also find it interesting how your early arguments were "it can do more than emulate" and now you are defending illegal emulation in the guise of "anti-greed."

@mikeyman64 I'm not defending illegal ROM usage considering emulators are not illegal I was saying that the people at Ouya seem to recognize that the way VC is being handled is greedy. I am fine paying for a game once or paying for an updated game ( HD remake ) but I see their point of "freeing the games" that people have bought so many times before. It's fine if you want to try and twist my words but try and do a better job next time. Because I don't see how the fact that the Ouya can do more than emulate makes the VC market any less greedy.

@Tasuki Nintendo didn't "go after" Apple. That would have been like going after YouTube because someone illegally uploaded a video to its service. It would be pointless. They would have notified Apple that a developer had an illegal product on their marketplace so they would know to take it down and gone after the developers.

@Slapshot: Forgive me, but are we seeing the same image in the article text? The one proudly displaying an emulated ROM of Super Mario Bros, a game currently available via Nintendo's own digital download service, as a potential use for said available emulators? Have all the emulators on your system you want, but one being shown using a currently available title is a demonstration of Nintendo's infringed rights. The least they could've done was use an image of an unavailable title or original content not available in cartridge form anyway, but instead they use Nintendo's own iconic work in an advertisement for their console. How is this not an actionable infringement upon Nintendo's right to use their property to advertise their own systems and not the Ouya?

For the third and final time, if this is the way Ouya wants to gain a userbase, i do hope Nintendo can and will do something about it.

@Jaz007 Crazy idea here. Maybe someone wants to PLAY those games huh? Pretty hard and expensive to find an old NES cartridge if there is no online distribution for that game but you are right they do not deserve to have fun, only Nintendo deserves money for something they will never get money for.

I think that Nintendo's reaction should be something like this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeXQBHLIPcw

Come on people. It's legal for Nintendo to milk you for the same game on multiple systems which is just EMULATION and could easily be ported between the systems. But playing it for free along with all the games Nintendo will NEVER be able to re-license and distribute again is illegal. I've got 3 Super Mario Bros NES cartridges at home I'll "pirate" it all day on my iPad. I hate rules, and I hate people telling me what I can and can't do. Ouya made a bit of a blunder I'll give you that but Nintendo re-selling old games over and over and over is all the more reason to "emulate". Besides Ouya is nothing new, you can pretty much emulate a NES on any device that has a CPU these days.

This comment thread is ridiculous. It's like if a crowbar company tweeted a picture of the crowbar being used to break into a bank and then we started arguing about whether crowbars themselves were illegal.

Obviously advertising that your console can easily play ROMs of old games was a stupid move but you people who think emulators are illegal are completely ridiculous. Honestly for a pack of fans who purport to be so enthusiastic about these old consoles, you far to readily dismiss an excellent type of software that provides a convenient and easy access to homebrew. And no, I'm not going to wade into the "emulators are only used to play illegal backups" argument. They are tools, nothing more. Without emulation and flash cartridges, there would be tons of great Atari 2600 homebrew that I would never have gotten to play. I'm glad you people don't write the laws.

Well said Algus. Some people would rather live in a fantasy than accept the truth. The old blue pill vs the red pill thing from the Matrix. I'm glad they're not writing them either or we'd all be in a lot of trouble.

The lack of thought let alone logic going into the arguing is pretty funny as you pointed out with a crowbar. Might as well sue every computer maker on the market who has ever supplied a floppy, tape, zip, cdrw, dvdrw, or blu ray burner drive because you know, they're only used to steal movies, audio and games. It doesn't matter you may be a maker of such things, a photographer, a musician, game designer, archiver, etc. If it could be used in a crime, therefore we'll make blanket statements it should all be illegal. Imagine if they banned by association the welding/blow torch because someone could use it to crack a safe? What amazing things this world would be left without following that mindless lack of logic eh?

First wii u now this

@Joshers744 See? I am considering an Ouya mainly for its stellar support of XBMC (multimedia, yo). If they utilize hardware acceleration then this thing will blow Raspberry Pi out of the water in terms of raw performance for movie playback. And hey, it even blows Wii U (no multimedia capabilities outside of streaming services that aren't available outside of US and A) and I am pretty sure PS4/Xbone won't come to this level of comfort + they will suck much more electricity out of the socket.
I might download a game from time to time or try my hand at the SDK but right now this is what I'd like to do with the little bugger.

@theblackdragon Ouya did not create this image and most certainly didn't formulate an advertisement using a Super Mario Bros. image, as you have now stated several times.

What this article here at NL fails to fully disclose is that the "Reasons to Own Ouya" tweets were not from Ouya itself, but instead from an Ouya enthusiast - Ouya's official twitter was retweeting said enthusiast's tweets. Yes, they added the hash tag, and no they shouldn't have done this, but this was not a formal marketing tactic and/or advertidment from the Ouya team.

Could Nintendo possibly fine the company for this? It's definitely possible. Shut this company down though - on what grounds? An informal RT on Twitter? Highly unlikely.

Also, please show me where the Ouua team has made emulation the main selling point of the console to such an extent that the company needs to be shut down. I'd very much like to see this for myself.

Are the emulators a selling point? Yes. Are they the main selling point? Not a chance. I've gotten every single update from this team and the consoles main selling point is indie games.

Also, there is no proof that this image showcases an emulated game. Then again, if it does - do you know that it was emulated illegally?

Ouya's policies state that emulators that contain ROMs can only be available, if the publisher of the emulator has the license for the respective ROM(s). Even with the emulators downloaded on Ouya, you still can't just freely download away - you have to intentionally sideload them onto the console, which is not something that anyone can just unknowingly perform.

Lastly, is Nintendo really that concerned over an Android based console? If it is, it has much bigger problems to worry about.

@Slapshot: by RTing and adding the hashtag, they chose to endorse the statement, image, and the act of piracy. If an official company Twitter or Facebook RTs or shares something, are we to ignore the fact that it's an official Twitter or FB account meant to represent their products or services? I know you're sympathetic toward them, but I do not share your sympathy in the slightest. I'm sorry, but I don't agree with you on that point. They should seriously rethink their advertising strategy (or perhaps just the employee who chose to RT that tweet unaltered) if this is the best they can do to represent themselves to their userbase and prospective buyers.

With regards to the rest of your reply to me, I'm afraid you're too hung up with the legality of emulators when that's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm done with this conversation.

There are lots of cellphones that you can use to play the same games, and not only play them on your phone but also on your tv. There are no games that would make you want to buy this thing. They're advertising the capability of playing retro games because they cannot communicate a better reason to own the system.

@Nintenzo They advertised on Twitter that it could play Super Mario Bros.

@theblackdragon I don't expect, nor care if you reply, but just to clarify, I am most certainly not sympathetic to the Ouya company. In fact, I'm quite shocked that you would use this choice of words, because if it was intentionally, it truly shows just how biased you are towards this console.

Ouya needs to reprimand the employee that made the RT and pay the penalties, if Nintendo desires to press the matter, which I highly doubt that it will. There's really nothing more to the matter.

Nintendo not releasing Goonies 2 on VC anytime soon

some one needs to tell Nintendo this