New Hack Offers A Full Game Library On Your NES Classic Edition

As much of a legal screwjob as this would turn out to be if officially released, it would also turn the NES Classic from a neat "portable NES" to an absolute must-have.

Cool. Even if I had one I wouldn't do it, but I'm not against others meddling with their own stuff.

Cool

You have to be able to own one first. Still waiting on a restock.

I ain't got a clue how people do this lol I find it very clever, but I would never dare do it myself lol can't believe the nes had that many games haha

It might be legally questionable butif somebody wants to use the nes classic to its full potential its the only way.

Ooohh...
Temptalicious!

Honestly, this is what Nintendo should have aimed for instead of limiting the system to just 30 games.

Once again the skilled and dedicated fans doing Nintendo's job.

I am in the mintority here. 30 games is good for me. 700 games ... too many to choose from. I would never be able to choose what to play.

Never actually seen one but I look all the time

No.
Not interested at all.
If I want to play NES games, I will use Original NES machine.
That temptation of playing illegally will not working for me.
I don't want to play modded / hacked / pirated / illegal games anymore.

Just got mine finally today! Don't think I'd care to risk it.

@Yalaa that is a rather silly thing to say. Do you know how many games are on the NES? Not to mention Nintendo only make a portion of them. They would have to liscence every game - and then pay royalties per each console sold.

The console would cost an insane amount of money and nobody would buy it.

I got mine on release and still haven't opened it yet.
I had every intention of playing it straight away but life got in the way.
I could flip it but that goes against my good will as I hate scalpers.

I will open it eventually but for now I'm trying to get through my backlog and adding another 30 games ( Although I have played some of them years ago) on top of my already huge backlog can wait until I have time to actually open it and enjoy it.
Until then, it stays sealed.

I couldn't bring myself to do this anyway.

@KiWiiU_Freek There is no seal So you haven't even sneaked a peak at it? I admire your discipline.

Regarding this new hack: sounds very promising, but seeing too many failures in doing so from other users as of yet. So, while interested, I'll wait a little while.

@Megal0maniac

I know there is no seal, just a figure of speech
And no, I haven't even slightly opened it, it sits on a shelf pleading with me to open it, trust me, I've thought about it.

Legally Questionable is my middle name

eh, most of the nes library is garbage, no point in having everything, I added about 30 extra games to mine and that's it.

Lol, poor baseball and American football games.

The 30 chosen games are fine, for me. Heck, even if it was just SMB and nothing else, I'd still be happy with it.
That's the thing with having so many games. You tend to keep playing SMB and nothing else. Just like Netflix/Amazon Prime, you could spend hours flicking through the collection, only to end up playing your old favourites for the bazillionth time!

Possibly breaking the thing, just to add games that you never bother to play anyway... Nah.. If I want other games, I've got 100s of ways to emulate them. Let this little thing be what it was intended to be. After all, it's just there to make my shelf look a little bit more awesome!

I still don't have it, blame nintendo for that.

... the urge to inject "Ice Hockey" and "Blades of Steel" is ever present, but I will not mess with it... for now...

In Nintendo's defense about 50-65% of the NES library is a licencing hell. Really impressed with what Nintendo was able to do with the NES Mini with near perfect emulation and a very solid 30 game library. Bravo to the fans that figured out how to get the full library on the device, but to say Nintendo failed to not do that in the first place have no idea how much a pain licencing is for some of those games.

I still don't have one.

I wouldn't do it. The quality of the other games compared to the ones that are on the classic NES mini would pale in comparison. If you already own the carts, then just get a raspberry pi.

I wanna know how much memory the NES mini must have inside it. There must be quite a bit if it can store all of those games with save states, box art and the rest.

@KiWiiU_Freek You could flip it at the RRP. It's only scalping if you hike up the price considerably.

Still don't have one, because Nintendo once again refuses to take my money.

So said money has gone to Microsoft and Sony who have no problem taking my money.

@BrizzoUK how is the controller length?

@DonkeyKongBigBoy Short for sure, but I sit about 2 metres from my tv and my TVs hdmi is via a breakout box that also has a USB so the nes sits well on my coffee table. The emulation on my 4K tv it looks beautiful in pixel perfect mode.

If I manage to get one... I'll wait until I can get a second one before I attempt this.

I got one and I was able to put over 700 NES games on there. Cool thing is that the hack also allow you to add box art as well as patch some of the games so you can play English edition of some of them. The hack also allow you to set shortcut which allows you to return to the main menu at anytime without ever touching the reset button. Even better you can play Famicom and Famicom Disk System roms on it with no prob as well.

@BrizzoUK nice! Tempted to get a wireless controller?

If there is so much value still remaining in the legacy game library, why can't Nintendo force the big rom distribution sites to remove their content from distribution? Basic google searches allow you find the sites within 2 minutes and you can download the complete library in about 5 minutes. And Wii and GameCube and other systems as well. Not that I'm against it ( I am not paying $100 for a loose Chronotrigger cart, I am not paying $70 for Xenoblade Chronicles for the Wii, I like everyone much prefer the Japanese Castlevania 3 soundtrack over the US version, etc.) but its so easy now and it's been that way for years to get the roms.

@DonkeyKongBigBoy
Probably not, unless I can get it cheap I kinda just like the novelty of the thing and having it out, whilst awkward, allows me to see the thing properly. It's just really cool having a tiny NES sitting there!

So I've had posts edited my mods for referencing the fact that Dreamcast could play 'legally questionable' games (years after the death of the system). Now we have articles which not only highlight how current hardware can too but also includes video links. Surely, the mods should be moving on this?

Skip. I paid MUCH less money to get an Everdrive B)

Sounds cool for everyone else, though.

I am hoping for a re-stock one day but when? only Nintendo knows!

I'm not really interested in hacking one.

@Mbrogz3000 well the good news is that the superior version of Chronotrigger is on the DS for $20 and Xenoblade Chronicles is on the Wii U eShop for $20, not to mention that Xenoblade Chronicles no longer goes for insane prices for the physical copy anyway. It's around $30-40 now

@retro_player_22 was it easy to do. I might think to do in the future. Not to confident now but there hundreds of things you can emulate on, pc being the easiest

If they could do these things in a way that was REALLY simple, seamless and slick, I'd be all over it—but that's almost never the case with hack stuff like this, sadly. And, I mean for a person that isn't a geek/nerd, as opposed to what geeks/nerds think is "simple", "seamless" and "slick".

@OzHuski Silly? Yes silly on Nintendo's part for not thinking about it. I'm sure more people would be interested in the system had it not been limited to 30 already well known games.

Obviously Nintendo is not going to include the whole NES library but they could have made it possible to add more games to it which would lead to even better sales.

Since this is not the case the fans have to use this hack to illegaly add the games they like on their Nes Mini. It's wasted potential if you ask me.

@Jd12345678 I actually agree that 700 is overkill—much like it is with the amount of Pokemon we have now too—but around 50-100 over the very best games would have been the sweet spot imo. Along with a much longer controller cable and the ability to quickly return to the main menu by pressing both Start and Select together, this would have been basically a near perfect little version of the system imo.

@UK-Nintendo Quite easy, just download the hack file. Then unzip it, load it up with roms, add box art, then connect the miniUSB cable from your NES Classic Mini to your PC. Synchronize the process and it will give you on screen instruction on how to make the transfer. As long as you follow the transfer directions very closely, you won't have no problem. My gripe was that some games such as Batman: The Return of Joker, Rad Racer II, and Kid Dracula doesn't work due to non-support mappers or was just plain glitchy from the NES Mini.

@Rogue76 TMNT 1,2 & 3 say Hello !!

Pretty cool, although I'd only ever want my personal favourites on there rather than all 700-odd games. It is nice though to be able to mix and match games as there are quite a few where I'd prefer to have the Japanese version- usually because they're easier! 😉

@retro_player_22 thanks. 👍🏻

I wouldn't want the entire library on a device either. There are too many NES games that I think are too primitive or just bad. It has tons of great and once-hidden gems too. If I had a mini NES, I'd love to see some of my other all-time favorites like Sunsoft's Batman(a licensing nightmare, I know) and Shatterhand, which I think is better than the majority of the 30 included games. I know it wouldn't do much for sales. I wonder who owns the property now.

If i ever come across a NES Classic at its real retail price, I'd probably pick it up and give this a go. I only had two issues with the NES mini and they've both been adequately addressed to appease me: no eshop for more games, no big deal we can now put the entire NES library on the NES Classic. Very short cords for the controllers, no big deal, there are extension cords and fantastic bluetooth controller options. I'd have to imagine that should they do a SNES mini though, they'd close the possibility for these kinds of hack jobs.

NLife, showing its readers how to pirate ROMs. We have come a long way.

Legally "questionable." Interesting take.

I like mine with the 30 titles that are pre-installed, personaly I thought Nintendo did an excellent job picking out the titles that are on it . Some retailers in my area have been getting restocks which are gone within a couple hours I can't believe this is still such a hot item after Christmas maybe 2017 is the year of "Nintendo come back kid" ., I read an article in AMP and that was the title, in the article they stated the Nintendo Switch was is outselling the PS4s preorder and launch numbers .

I just want Dragon Warrior on it, and my NES will be complete <3

@Adam Just like alternative facts.
It's called theft. While I'm tired of companies selling the same thing over and over, It's their right.

Interesting

@zip
Please, don't do it.
Pirating ROMs = Stealing.
Do you want your hard work in game company taken away by pirates ?
Think again...
You will get Bad karma by doing so.

What happened to the no-piracy-policies Nintendo Life enforced for years?

@SLIGEACH_EIRE Yeah lol, just you watch, in order to distract people from the Switch shortage, they will have the NES Classic in ready supply...X3

@Romeo-75
I'm glad to hear there are some Mini NES stock at your place. Here, in my country, there is only ONE game store that sells Mini NES (PAL) with NES controller but.... still nobody want to buy. You know... Nintendo is not a well known brand in my country Indonesia, sadly.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who get annoyed with him saying NEZ and not n e s.

@Anti-Matter sorry its not stealing kid, its copying and distributing a program. Is it legal? Perhaps not, but is it stealing? Not in a thousand years.

I'll always be amazed how many of the residents here will flinch at the sight of ROMs and hacking, like you were puritans in 1600 being talked openly about sex.

@NintendoAllStars lol is that a reference to how old I am?

@Kmno
Sorry, I don't want to do that.
I keep my faith not to get temptated by such of illegal activities like that.
I would rather buy second-hand Original NES + Original NES Cartridge rather than pirating ROMs.

When I do eventually get one in a few years when you can actually find them in stores, will I still be able to get stability updates? I need my future NES mini to also have 1,819.5% stability

@zip
How is this showing people how to pirate roms?

All it shows is how to use roms on your NES Mini.
For all we know, that guy owns every NES game and dumped every rom himself.

@dAvecaster wow... are you serious?? wtf that's very, very hypocritical.

"Legally questionable" sounds a lot like "alternative facts." LMFAO

Don't need this, although it's very cool, no question! I just got done configuring OpenEmu for my Mac which lets me run every console and handheld emulator and every game rom up through GameCube. Auto retrieves box art and everything. It is pretty incredible.

It's not questionably legal, it's simply illegal period. And providing a video showing people how to do it is completely unethical. You should be ashamed.

@tomjscott booooooooooooo

@tomjscott

Sorry, you're wrong. It's not black or white. It is not illegal to have a rom of a game if you already own a physical copy of that game.

@Rotgut That's true, but let's be honest here. The majority of people that use emulators are simply downloading illegal roms that they don't own physical copies of. If you are someone who doesn't do that then good for you. You are among the few.

@Savino Source?

@dereq Yeah, in case you didn't know the NES Classic includes games NOT developed nor published by Nintendo like Mega Man 2, Contra, Final Fantasy and even Pac-Man.

So just "IP's and licensing rights" should not be an issue unless Nintendo just doesn't want to go through all the trouble.

@MyLegGuy Simple. Most people don't know they can add ROMs to the NES mini. This article informs them that they can, so obviously they will attempt this.

I remember a time at NL where all piracy related talk where prohibited. Nowadays with articles such as this, NL basically encourages its readers to pirate.

You could do this much easier with a raspberry pi 3 and they are easy to buy. Requires a bit of effort but not complicated

Come on, hackers, develop a Mac option.
Still have all my oldies on original carts, but I'd love to add Contra, Tetris, Double Dragon, Mega Man 1 & 3, and Maniac Mansion to this wonderful little device.

As time goes on I see romhackers and modders becoming more and more valiant and creative. I salute them for their work in the gaming community. And I hope we see more of this in the future.

@Ogbert
But then I'd have to get in line when I wanted to play it.
At least I know I've got one if I keep it.😍

@sleepinglion Mac? Just do what I did and get OpenEmu... easiest emu experience I have had in 20 years. Up and running games in 5-10 minutes. I almost slapped myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming. Dead serious.

If I were a genius when it came to mechanics instead of a doofus definitely. Well that and I'd need to own one. Fix the stock please Nintendo.

It saddens me that people are applauding this. No one here has the legal right to get these files, unless I'm misunderstanding the law on this.

@zip
Yes, this article may encourage people to pirate games that they didn't have before and put them on their NES Mini.

However, you said "NLife, showing its readers how to pirate ROMs."
This article does not SHOW people how to go to sites and download roms illegally, it just shows them how to use roms they have on their NES Mini.

@MyLegGuy You obviously must not take this "show people how to pirate ROMs" literally, because that is as basic as using google.

If this gives Nintendo the kick in the pants to put effort into releasing more older games than so be it. Mother 3, for example, has been held over our heads for the past several years and you know what, I played it last year FOR FREE. I got tired of waiting and if Nintendo is going to showcase so little regard for customers wanting to play its classic titles idc how many people pirate games.

Unless you are morally against ROMs there is very little reason to fork over hard earned money if Nintendo won't even bother keeping the mini nes in stock... or even give us a halfway decent controller cable length.

@Anti-Matter
"Do you want your hard work in game company taken away by pirates ?"

It's the NES. Aside from a handful on Nintendo VC (a fair portion of which are on the NES Mini), most aren't being distributed by the developers anymore. Sunsoft isn't losing money if I want to download the ROM for "Batman: The Video Game."

No need -I just got a wii off eBay for $100 with 6,214 games on it which includes the entire NES, snes, Genesis, turbograpx, game boy, color, advance, Atari lynx, and Neo Geo pocket libraries!! Many imports included as well!!
Amazing but not NEARLY AS AMAZING as the Xbox I also just scored on eBay which has 64 different emulators giving you 43,000 games to play!!! 4-5 thousand of them are perfect ARCADE GAMES from the past!! Unbelievable!!

@dizzy_boy

Hard Drive / Flash Drive:

*storage

*gigabytes

*space

Random Access Memory:

*memory

*RAM

I managed to get a nes mini and will get snes mini too but intend to get raspberry pi for the rest as i like my nintendo products in perfect condition.

Restocks end of march for uk apparently...

@shaneoh
Hm...
Even you said so, I don't even want to download illegal ROMs because I know that's wrong. It's about moral norm. And I keep my faith not to do wrong way like that, understand ?

@joey302
Ew....! >_<
Horible...!
Hacked video games much...

@Anti-Matter had to do it! Tired of waiting on Nintendo to pick up the slack with vc games but I'm sure even though I have these units now I will be making vc purchases on the Switch once they get rolling with it. After all the Switch will have the portable aspect with these classics. You must realize as well that hundreds and hundreds of perfect original ARCADE CLASSICS on this Xbox modded console will NEVER EVER appear on a home console due to licensing issues OR the company that made a particular game is long gone out of business! As an owner of more than 7,000 games in my collection going back to the Atari 2600, I've spent a ton of money on this industry so no guilt here. This was driven through my endless passion and love for video games.

@zip
Okay.

@Rogue76 absolutely, were the same age after all !! I just mencioned the turtles games 'cause there's some others excellent titles apart the first parties (and I forgot to mention Yo Noid) for the Nes.

@joey302
Sorry, I don't want.
I would rather having 1 Original game + Genuine video game machines rather than having a modded video game machines with Tons of illegal games inside. I refuse to accept those modded machines. I would rather NOT to play those TONS of games at all than play them in illegal way. I will be happy if I can keep my faith on Right way.

@Anti-Matter I respect your point of view. To each his own. Enjoy the switch hopefully Nintendo will kick butt with it!

@Savino I see that page has absolutely no reference to historical preservation of games... A lot of them would have disappeared into the void, were it not for emulation. Multibillion dollar businesses be damned, complete and thorough records of human cultural achievements are worth preserving throughout the ages. If these companies won't do it because of the industry standard of planned obsolescence, then by God, someone has to do it.

@retro_player_22 Did the same. In fact, I sent the modder new artwork for the folders (NES and Famicom), since the one he's using looks a bit generic.
We'll see if he decides to use it.

@PlywoodStick hear hear!! Well put!! And I still say that 30 games for the mini was a bit cheap on Nintendo's part. Even without licensed games 45-60 games should've been easily achievable out of an NES library of more than 7-800 titles?

@Yalaa That was never going to happen. Licensing issues and some games just not being worthwhile are what will keep much of the library from being released. More games, sure. But we do not need all 700 or so games.

how do you do this for a mac? anyone? please help

@PlywoodStick
Exactly. Even the dismal ET game needs preservation, even if it's just a lesson in how not to make a game. There are a couple of BBC Micro edutainment games from my childhood that appear to be lost to the ravages of time, which is a huge disappointment.

Folks, it's so easy to grab an emulator online and play every game the NES ever had...for FREE! Right on your PC in a matter of minutes. Why even waste your money on a mini NES? It's so simple, check it out.

@joey302 What is this magic that you possess?? This magic that you can read minds??

@schuman9 OpenEmu. Google is your friend.

@Savino Not saying I download and play ROMs, but perhaps I would be more inclined to follow these arbitrary laws if companies made an effort to actually preserve and offer all their retro products and treat them with respect. I remember reading an excerpt from some 2007 Nintendo presentation where they mentioned that within a few years, we'd have the ENTIRE retro library on virtual console. Did that ever happen? You tell me. If you want to make history obsolete, you don't need my money. Earthbound was a perfect example here. I'm not paying THOUSANDS for a legal copy because some stingy eBay seller loves scalping.

Is it so wrong to download if the media is no longer officially available? If the money you pay goes to the big bucks guys instead of the people who actually made the media? If you already own the media, or at some point did? And why do they make old games so freaking expensive? In Australia, NES classic costs $100. For a mere 30 old games. "Legally grey" my butt. The law is sovereign, but it's still a construct that changes and adapts. It handles the ROM situation miserably.

@eaglesfly76 because downloading roms is illegal. Figured that was obvious.

@SebCroc I hear what you are saying but unless you can prove that games have to be preserved your argument for downloading roms for preservation fails.

Nintendo does not owe you, the gamer, a game just because you can't find it. Nor are you entitled one due to scarcity.

When you purchase a game from Nintendo you do not own the game, you merely own the rights to play the copy you posses.

Whether you follow the law or not is another problem entirely but using faulty arguments will not help you.

@Kalmaro "unless you can prove that games have to be preserved"
Why would anyone argue against this? Preserve history. It's almost instinctual. I would hate for a great film or game to become completely unobtainable because some company Big Guys neglected to take care of it, saying "eh, it's not our problem!"

"Nintendo does not owe you"
Well they rely on gamers to make money, so some courtesy for their market would be appreciated (not that I'm much of a gamer anymore). Of course, they don't require it. They're a Big Business, I'm a consumer. But I'd refuse to put up with this kind of antiquated garbage; they don't hold power here.

"you do not own the game, you merely own the rights to play the copy you posses."
A principle many media companies have been exploiting as of late. And it's a stupid power struggle. Why are you even defending this?

"Whether you follow the law or not is another problem entirely but using faulty arguments will not help you."
You haven't given me any reasons to think otherwise. Have you studied the law, or at least understand how it works and where it comes from? It's a system that's meant to maintain the cohesion of society. It changes all the time, people influence it all the time, we have a right to peacefully resist, within the confines of current law, if we're unhappy. This ROM situation isn't likely to change, but I sure am not going to put up with it because "morality" and "law" are on opposite poles in this case.

Playing some great mods of known games with the features the NES mini offers would be nice.

Too bad getting a new mini in the first place is the biggest issue :v

In the way shown in the video of transfering roms to your nes mini, will the games be played in the exact same way like the pre-installed 30 games? that means in the same screen quality with the enhanced perfect-pixel mode etc. and will the nes mini keep offering save-state options to the new added games aswell not losing the ability to the pre-installed 30 games?

@SebCroc
"Why would anyone argue against this?"
Because, at the end of the day, it's just your opinion. No one says we have to preserve anything.

"But I'd refuse to put up with this kind of antiquated garbage; they don't hold power here."

That just sounds like you acting entitled. It's their games and their rules. Your not liking them changes nothing.

"This ROM situation isn't likely to change, but I sure am not going to put up with it because "morality" and "law" are on opposite poles in this case."

Morality and law are in harmony this time. Nintendo has stated their views on how their games are handled and the law is on their side. Morally speaking, you trying to get something that is not yours without paying for it sounds wrong to me.

@Kalmaro
"it's just your opinion."
So it would follow, your opinion is as worthless as mine. There are some things worth saving, and those few with the power to prevent that shouldn't have a final say in it.

"That just sounds like you acting entitled."
And you sound incredibly uncritical of the law. I said that because it IS antiquated and it IS unfriendly because MANY disagree with these practices. Sure, they hold the rights to the games, but that shouldn't exempt them of criticism from withholding them + other questionable rules and saying "nuu u kent du thet1!" if someone tries a different avenue.

"Morality and law are in harmony this time."
Not exactly. Copyright law is kind of a mess to begin with, so there's not much harmony here. Look: I agree, stealing is wrong. What I don't agree with are these baffling control-freak practices. There are elements in this which are like forced jigsaw pieces that don't go together. Take the tyrannical YouTube control and cease-and-desist letters for innocent fan projects as better examples. Clear up the rules and make them rational. Tight restrictions are their call but it's nonsensical stuff like this that keep piracy at an all-time high.

I have begun to think that I might be living in a parallel universe where the nes mini doesn’t actually exist. If I do one day stumble upon one before my death, I won’t be hacking it. I gave up on pc gaming cos pulling bits apart from the machine and tinkering was taking too much of my already sparse gaming time. But I do understand the enjoyment of that sort of thing that some people have.
Edit: on topic, ROMs hurt the gaming industry. how could i ever be ok with that?
double Edit: when i think about it WTF is nintendo life doing covering this story??

The solution is quite simple , they just need to release more VC titles and if some companies have gone out of business then wouldn't their games fall under public domain? So really no big costs to rerelease?

@SebCroc
"So it would follow, your opinion is as worthless as mine"
I never said my opinion on us preserving anything. I only said that no rule exists that we have to preserve anything. So saying that we should doesn't work when you can't prove it.

Everything else you said after that is opinion, the law is pretty clear on if you can copy Nintendo's games or not. I don't think you need anyone to show you that.

@Kalmaro Eat your words. I never said anything about rules? Preserving history is simply something that should be done, and is done by those who want to, no further explanation required. I think one needs to realise the difference between beneficial opinion and superficial opinion. You're going into semantics here.

Guess what: law is built on the majority of views people hold. "Killing is bad!", says everyone. So a law is made that says "killing is bad". Your view is that law is infallible. Mine is that it should undergo constant change, as it has been since conception, meaning it should differentiate between different circumstances of killing, and that this specific area of copyright is incomplete, hurting ALL parties in the long run. But you're too "opinionated" to get this. ;P

For Mac users:

Wine GUI Crossover can locate and try to run the needed .exe file, but it returns with an error message.

@Rotgut thanks for that. but dont i need the hakchi2 program and that doesnt run on mac. do you know how i go about gettting that to run on a mac?

@Rotgut lol I can? How so?? 😜

@SebCroc
"Preserving history is simply something that should be done, and is done by those who want to"

Once again, that is your opinion. There is no universal law saying everything has to be preserved and therefore no way for you to claim this as if it is fact.

Not only that, but these are not your games. In the case with Nintendo it is THEIR responsibility to preserve their own games, what authority do you have to tell them what to do with their own products? This is why I have been saying your arguments are faulty. Your personal feelings does not suddenly give you authority on this issue. This is no better than someone stealing a rare one of a kinda car that is no longer in production all for the sake of 'preservation', right from the lot of the company that owns it.

If you want to try to twist the wordings of the law to fit your agenda I can't stop you, but don't expect the officials in charge of interpreting the law to back you up. You don't need an advance law degree to know that taking something that is not yours is typically illegal.

You can claim I'm opinionated all you want but everything I've stated is fact. You are the one trying to throw opinions around. I've yet to even say what you should or shouldn't do, unless I'm mistaken.

@Kalmaro I know that and I couldn't care less! I've given Nintendo thousands and thousands of dollars over the years and I still will, so is it really terrible if I go play a couple of games that I haven't seen in 30 years and will never be released on the Virtual Console? And has Nintendo made it easy to find an NES Mini? I don't think so. So instead of sitting around and waiting another 30 years....play on!!!

@eaglesfly76 Do you want my opinion or do you want the facts?

At the end of the day, the only people who own these games are Nintendo so none of us have the authority to steal them just so we can play them, especially when we don't even have to play them.

@Kalmaro I know the facts and you already stated your opinion, so I don't want either. And again, I don't care. You do your thing and I'll do mine.

@eaglesfly76 I never really stated my opinion. I just said no one has the authority to steal Nintendo's games. If you think that's an opinion I don't know what else I can say.

@eaglesfly76 It sure sounds like you have an opinion against it. But if you are somehow saying you don't have one, then go download some games for free and form your opinion after that. Don't be afraid!!

@BornInNorway81 We all know Damien emulates anyway. He was posting about Saturn Emulation on Twitter at one point.

@eaglesfly76 no thanks, I don't feel like stealing. I never said I don't have an opinion on this, just that opinions and facts are too different things and the fact is that downloading roms is illegal and saying its for the sake of preservation of games is flawed logic. It is not up to us what Nintendo preserves.

@Damo this doesn't look time-consuming at all. I just skimmed through the video and it looks really easy and effortless, if you ask me.

Still, it's not for me, as I don't need a retro console. But in my opinion, Nintendo should've offered this option (getting the full library or at least all the games you want) from the start.

@NintendoAllStars yeah good point. My point was why hack the NES mini when you could just put them on an emulator on your computer or retro pi.

@NintendoAllStars oh I meant to say graphically the hacked games won't be the same quality as the emulation that Nintendo did with the games on the NES mini. I agree that there are far better 3rd party games than on the mini.

@KidRad oh I meant to say that graphically, the hack games won't look as pretty as the games Nintendo put on the NES mini. From my understanding the emulation for the NES games on the mini look good.

I'm in total agreement that there are far better games that were on the NES.

@Kalmaro It is clear what your opinion is, and mine is different than yours. We can agree to disagree.

This is great news! You can also disable the anti-epilepsy screen darkening effect if you want to

Hackers do what Nintendont

@eaglesfly76 My opinion was never the issue. I was talking about facts. People who download Nintendo roms are stealing them. Whether that is good or bad is another discussion.

@SebCroc "what I don't agree with are these baffling control-freak practices."

I don't think they're baffling . Before Nintendo got their games removed from coolrom, there were over 40 milllion downloads of Pokemon Emerald, a game which sold 7 million.

Then when Nintendo got their games taken off that site Digimon World 3 ballooned to 13 million downloads...a game which never even sold 1 million...in a franchise that hasn't sold 13 million in over 20 years,backups? I think not.

The numbers show by-and-large people use ROMs to rip-off the most popular products of even companies that are still around.

@schuman9 OpenEmu has nothing to do with hakichu or whatever that other thing is called. Google OpenEmu, go to the link, download and you will thank me later, bro

"...graphically, the hack games won't look as pretty as the games Nintendo put on the NES mini."

@Rogue76 < BZZZT! > WRONG!!! They look absolutely perfect in every way. And they play perfectly as well. Emulators like OpenEmu even have filters to make them look old school (scan lines, blur etc). Do the research!

@Kalmaro I am not sure why you insist on telling me the same thing over and over again. I am already aware of the facts. I am already aware that it is illegal. And you and I are already aware that I don't care. No one is going to get caught doing it...the police aren't out there hunting down people who download roms. They don't care either. So relax and do whatever you are comfortable with and I will do the same. As far as I'm concerned there isn't anything else to discuss.

@Rotgut oh cool. I stand corrected. I guess emulators have come a long way since I last played games on one. Thanks for the info.

NES games are years old. Most of the devs have passed away so all ROMS on it are technically freeware.

@Kalmaro
I can see this exchange is going nowhere because you insist on being the righteous naive one, twisting my words, repeating yourself while dismissing what I've said, and claiming I'm some tyrant who's above the law. You DO have an opinion so stop denying it; it would also be helpful is you stopped using the words "fact" and "opinion", because you're not using them correctly. You don't offer "facts", just what the current law is. Why are you so uncritical of anything? What is it about the concept of change that's so difficult to grasp?

"none of us own the games!"
Why do we even own anything? What's the point? The gravity of what you say would be outrageous if it were universally true. Some freedom is warranted.

"If you want to try to twist the wordings of the law to fit your agenda I can't stop you"
My face is in my hands. I think the mistake here was taking you seriously. I'm highly doubtful you have a law degree, in fact I'm pretty much absolutely certain you don't, so please don't try lecturing me.

@Dr_Lugae I'm not claiming piracy is right, but perhaps what I said was a bit of a hyperbole. People like free stuff. It's a huge problem and a contentious area.

There's a whole lot of restriction going on with a lot of media, which makes people inclined to just download for free and well... Continue the practice. Once they taste it they don't want to stop. Nintendo has a right to control the usage of their games, but having restrictions like "no you can't have a backup" or lack of availability is a bit nonsense to orderly people who just want to play games they have on some other device. Region locking, DRM, inordinately higher prices in different regions, lack of availability are unfortunate motives for piracy. I'm mostly talking about downloading that would do little to deprive Nintendo financially.

kinda pointless to buy one of these and do this when you can just buy a rasberry pi and run nes/snes/tg16/genesis/gba games on the cheap. It would be smaller and easier to get.

@eaglesfly76 do what you want. I'm not here to tell everyone what they are doing is right or wrong, but I do get annoyed when people hide what they are doing by trying to sound like they are helping people. Like the argument earlier that games should be preserves so it's okay to steal them.

@SebCroc I've offered nothing other than facts. We don't own the games we buy from Nintendo, we essentially are just purchasing a license to play it, that's why Nintendo is so against you uploading copies of the games in the first place. It's in the agreement of every Nintendo game you purchase. No one ever reads in though. There is some debate over whether that is binding though.

@Kalmaro Have fun getting games when companies go under/defunct.

@Kalmaro You repeat yourself yet again, and remain as stubborn as before. I think it would be best to just end it here. We can agree to disagree, but I do hope at some stage you see merit to views other than your own. Cya.

@Kalmaro You just can't help yourself...you gotta keep on going and going with this, saying the same crap repeatedly. And it's laughable that you say you aren't telling us what's right or wrong when that's exactly what you've been doing on here! Enough already. You haven't told me anything I didn't already know. Get off your high horse Mr. Perfect!

Im sure downloading a ROM of SMB is different from stealing a copy of SMO straight out of Walmart. That is a big difference in revenue loss.

@SebCroc Kalmaro has a serious problem and feels like he needs to be everyone's moral policeman on here. And he just keeps repeating himself incessantly, as if we don't already know the facts, and fails to accept our point of view. Ridiculous isn't it?

@mikegamer You say that like there are no other games out there.
Anyway, I'm done on the matter, I've already made my point so I'm content.

@dAvecaster I was once banned for even casually mentioning piracy, now they practically promote it....

Considering that these aren't easily replaceable, I wouldn't try it on mine. Only game I really dislike out of the set is Ghosts N' Goblins anyway.

@SyFyTy: Emulation isn't piracy.

The only ilegal thing here are the NES rom files (read: the games) ...

I have to admit i'll probably end up doing this, once you can source the things easily at retail. I have one I got as a gift just before (early gift) Christmas. I don't want to tinker with that, but if I got another I'd do it. There's absolutely no way I would do a full set, I'd never use any of it and get all ADD about it and enjoy nothing. I could see sticking to the rules a month ago of no more than about 100 titles. I've no issue with that as I'd keep the 30 it has, then throw the other carts (I own 55) on there that aren't doubles, then round out a few holes like completing trilogies and so on. It's hard enough to make a fantastic top100 list, but loading a good 400 badly aged once good, to day one from then turds on there seems stupid.

@Rotgut I have it . I prefer hardware. Actually have an AVS and it's perfect. I like the NES mini because it is portable. Were I to access its innards, I'd add a few glaring omissions to its roster. You are correct, though, OpenEmu is phenomenal and can be used with an original NES pad via converter. I got the mini to take to friends' homes but it is missing a few titles I'd really love to play with them.

@sleepinglion Sweet. As far as portability goes, have you ever checked out rasp pie? You can fit that inside an NES cartridge housing, LOL!! Not sure what AVS is though...?

This is very tempting... I don't need all those games, I'd probably just add 8 games, 14 at most. But I had to pay three times the list price for mine, so I don't know... Maybe I'll wait until the system becomes more widely available...

Yeah keep telling yourself that fail logic..... Good luck with that.

@liveswired Abandonware, actually. Technically illegal, but it's been so long ago and the system it was for is long obsolete, that there isn't really much the software/hardware company (well, the remnants thereof) can or is willing to do about it.

@eaglesfly76 My point exactly! Really, the worst that might happen is the site you downloaded the ROM from would be shut down, and you'd have to search elsewhere...

@retro_player_22 what's the best place for all the Roms without having to download one by one?i have 550 Roms on mine now but looking for the complete package over 700

@Leftuhangin You know it's been a long time coming since I had being downloading roms so I'm not really sure if there's any website other than torrent sites that could help you with that.

@Rotgut You're right! Pi is a great option. The AVS is an HDMI NES option from the people at retrousb dot com. I seriously love mine.

Hey opeter you should reread the title before making a comment that's what I was responding to and obviously they feel it is questionable as well.