Dolphin Emulator Now Allows Wii Shop Access and Purchases

The Wii Shop Music lives on!

Has science gone too far?

Dolphin is great. Great stuff.

Would it be morally acceptable to those who are usually against emulation if you can pay to download eshop games on PC?

Wait. So you can actually decide to buy WiiWare/Virtual Console games for an EMULATOR?

@Bass_X0 No. When you purchase a Nintendo game you are not buying a game but a license to play it on approved Nintendo hardware... Which your PC isn't.

@Kalmaro But he asked about moral side of it. It will be illegal anyway, but Nintendo will receive their money.

@Kalmaro @Bass_X0 ABSOLUTELY YES!!!
I can't speak to the full legality of it, but I'm one of the few people that refuse to use video game emulators because it feels morally wrong to me. However, I don't feel any moral problems with installing this dolphin emulator (which I had never considered doing until today) and purchasing a few Virtual Console games that I've been wanting.

Can you set this up to have access to the Japanese Wii Shop Channel? They got a bunch of VC games that we never got here.

@iEcho You can't just say that morals aren't important when they are inconvenient. If using an emulator is wrong according to Nintendo then yes, using it to play their games is still wrong. They are supposed to be played on their hardware. If software was all that mattered they wouldn't be in the console business in the first place.

Wow Dolphin is incredible!

Huge respects for the guys at Dolphin it just shows that nothing is impossible. However I fear that Nintendo, being Nintendo, will probably shut this down as soon as they catch up to this news.

Is this why the Wii Shop is currently down? Using my completely unmodified & legit Wii today on the UK shop, I have encountered Japanese and US menus, links going to the completely wrong place and now no access at all. Anyone else have this problem? I've bought a ton of points on there and I'm worried this is being used in a negative way but hoping it's just a coincidence.

@Bass_X0 The only ones who are morally opposed to emulation as a whole, don't understand emulation. I understand being morally opposed to illegally obtaining/distributing roms, which is certainly a large part of the emulation scene for many, but definitely not everyone.

Personally, from a moral standpoint? I would have no issues with this. Then again, I have no issues with playing not so legally obtained roms that I own. Besides - why should it matter if I dumped my own cart of Super Mario World or used someone else's dump, especially since I've purchased the game legally no less than 5 times already anyway... Don't get me wrong, I know why it matters from a legal standpoint, I'm talking about personal morals here =D

Man, dolphin has come a long way in a short period of time. It's getting close to time to start ripping ISOs of all my GC and Wii discs so I can try them out in 4K!

In a technical sense, this is really impressive.

@RedMageLanakyn you'll love it.

@RedMageLanakyn dont forget hd textures for some games

This is weird. It definitely raises fair questions on morality. Obviously Nintendo would not be happy about this because they want you to also purchase their hardware to play it on. But... who's going to buy a Wii these days? It'll be interesting to see if Nintendo step in and decide to take action on this.

C&D from Nintendo Ninjas incoming.

Since most people who use emulators use them to pirate games and not for their intended purpose of archiving video game software, I can see this barely being used.

@Kalmaro yes but Wii is an old console, you don't find new Wii consoles today so even if you buy it Nintendo does not receive anything because it is used. I know that it is not legitimate to play a Nintendo game on emulation even if you bought it but pirated games were already available on Dolphin, the only new thing is that now if you want you can actually buy them. Considering that pirated games already existed I feel like this update is a good thing for gaming as a whole.

how do dolphins play video games?
wow

Hope this doesnt cause Nintendo to close the Store. Still a fair few Wiiware titles I wanna pick up and such....

@Angelic_Lapras_King seems Store is already gone in the UK as of today...

i've quiet enjoy this emulator. i still to this day wish Nintendo would bring NGC games to Switch.

@LuckyLand First off, you can still buy Wii consoles online so that argument doesn't work.

https://www.amazon.com/Wii-Nintendo/dp/B0009VXBAQ
Knock yourself out. They are super cheap now.

Not to mention that the scarcity of a console does not mean its okay to bend rules. That's not how this works. Their rule against not playing games on their hardware does not come with fine-tune that says "only valid until it is too hard to find a console".

@Kalmaro Whether Nintendo say it's against their terms of service has little impact on whether or not it's moral

@Memva Gone or just temporarily down?

@Kalmaro I think a lot of people might find buying a brand new Wii for 600 dollars quite expensive

I am against these kind of things, but I have to admit that what they have done is quite incredible. It almost makes me want to try it.

NOA's status page says this as of 1 hour ago: "We're currently experiencing difficulties with our network services.
Please try again later.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause."

https://www.nintendo.com/consumer/network/en_na/network_status.jsp

I hope that isn't related!

@Memva Offline maybe to resolve this issue and put it back up. They wouldnt close the store without announcing an End Date to buy and spend whatever points we may still have on the Store. They did that for the DSiWare Store and given how many Wiis were sold and still used to this day including access through Wii U systems, I highly doubt they'd shut up shop unannounced.

Lol why would I pay for VC games when I already have them for free on other emulators on my Vita and smartphone

I'm hoping just temporarily down, can't find any information on it being gone for good. Just weird coincidence I have no access and when I try to find out why this is the news article.

Worrying thing is if they can emulate specific consoles to gain access, what can stop people cloning your console? If that happens how would Nintendo resolve it? Hopefully it's a tech thing that's just beyond me.

Oh, Gosh...

@Kalmaro I can't tell if you're arguing the moral logic, or really believe people shouldn't be able to buy games on what is essentially an emulated version of THIER console.

You bought the hardware, you're buying the software. There's no ethical quandary involved.

Either way don't be gross. EULA are unethical.

My actual, real Wii can access it too. If this causes the closure of the Wii Shop, I'll be fuming, as I'm still collecting the games on there!

@NintySnesMan we really are infected with freeloaders, pirates and hackers in 2017.

@olrodlegacy are you collecting digital games

Same here. I'm gradually working my way through buying my favourites (getting a couple every weekend). I'm usually a supporter of emulation but, if this brings about the premature end to the Wii Store, Dolphin can go.

I doubt the Wii shop is going anywhere. There's way more Wii consoles out there than Wii U - I'd expect that to go first.

@leo13 Didn't you know that Nintendo use emulators for Virtual Console?! There's nothing morally wrong with emulators! There's nothing morally wrong with books! There's nothing morally wrong with bread!

@olrodlegacy
Yep Bro. Hackers love a challenge,it won't be long before the switch is hacked. Hacking the switch will drive sales for sure

Thank god for Dolphin Emulator. Though many say it's legality is questionable, it's evolution over the years has been top notch.

While this is pretty awesome, and I believe the author(s) of Dolphin are 100% legit, keep in mind it might not be safe to use a credit card to make purchases this way. A 3rd party could attach a wrapper to capture data or input from the emulator. Dolphin is open source. At least make sure you download from a reputable source and keep that in mind.

@UK-Nintendo yep, pretty much everything Nintendo has ever released.

@Mattiac I don't think you even read what I wrote. I said I love this and now I want the Dolphin Emulator. I only have a problem with the way the vast majority of people use emulators (to download and play games they never paid for)
Maybe you don't misuse them, if that's the case then I can see why you're feeling defensive, but I was just answering someone else's question as they had asked if this makes it morally ok and I said I have no idea if it makes it legal, but as far as I'm concerned it DOES makes it morally ok.

@Kalmaro $600 new, or $100 used... not exactly "cheap" for an old games system.

@Folderoll Considering morality is subjective, it has a huge impact on whether or not someone is morally okay with doing something. One person may not feel right violating Nintendo's terms, while another has absolutely no issue.

@Memva There is absolutely no way this brings about an end to the wii store. People have been stealing Wii games, and in much simpler fashion, since the system launched. Why would one more illicit method of obtaining games (While still paying Nintendo, mind you) be the end of the Wii store? If the Wii store dies, it's because the Wii store is a decade old, and nothing to do with any sort of piracy.

Yeah I hope you're right. Just speculating with the Wii Shop going down at the same time as this announcement. It's still not accessible - will keep trying and report back if can get on.

SD card import / export was already possible when the Wii was still Nintendo's main console. I actually transferred my Skyward Sword save from my Wii to Dolphin before I sold my Wii. Then, when I bought a Wii U, I transferred my save from Dolphin to the Wii U and finished the game there.

Meanwhile, I never accessed the Wii shop when I had my Wii, I'm not even sure if I knew it existed. But whatever, it probably wasn't nearly as lucrative as the eShop anway (I spent so much money on the eShop!).

@leo13 Actually, I'm not even sure that is the case. At least I don't know anyone who uses emulators to play games they don't own (and I haven't heard of people doing that either). In fact, I don't know anyone who uses emulators at all. ^^
I for one only used it for games I already owned but wanted to play in HD. For example, you can play Ocarina of Time in 1080p (or higher) and - get this - with fanmade HD textures! The game is so much more beautiful that way!
Similarly, Skyward Sword in 1080p and with Anti-Aliasing is such a treat! I bought Skyward Sword VC on the eshop but it just looks so ugly I'm actually thinking about downloading Dolphin again after all these years. Of course, not any time soon, because I'm busy playing Breath of the Wild. ^^

Oh you people in comments hating emulation. Just wait, maybe in 50 years Wii will become a rare collector's machine, 1k bucks worthy, and half of them will be broken anyways :Y
Same goes with most of the discs, cartridges etc. All will end broken, or rotten. And obviously the eShops of today will not exist in the future as well - so no redownloads.

Unless someone release an old game on an official VC-like emulator, the only way to show your grandchildren your awesome games will be by playing a downloaded ROM on a unsupported emulator.

@olrodlegacy I'd recommend physical

@Folderoll It's their game so their rules are in effect.

@UK-Nintendo Don't by it for $600 then. Not sure why anyone would, unless they are a collector

@Spiders EULA is there and you basically agree to it when you play the game. This is Nintendo's property we are talking about so they have every right to decide how it is handled.

@roadrunner343 I think you're going to have a hard time proving morality is subjective. In any case, you can find the system for under $100. The point though is that you can still find the system.

This is a gaming website so I'm not really here to debate. I understand you guys don't agree with me and that's fine. I'm going to end this here since we are getting off topic.

@Kalmaro Nintendo don't make any money when I buy used.

I want to know if this will still be up after Nintendo inevitably takes down the Wii Shop Channel.

This is important because some games may be lost forever and this may serve as the only opportunity to put them on emulators.

@UK-Nintendo That's not the point. It is still their game you are playing, so they can decide the rules.

Update - finally able to access the Wii Shop but all my purchases are gone.

Hopefully they just had some server issues and will return in time. Hopefully. I'd best not try buying anything as my Wii Points are still on the system but nothing else.

wii shop in HD! that's all i ever wanted!

@Kalmaro ok so I'm not allowed to backup my games I own.
I don't know man when I buy a game. It's up to me if I wanna burn it or play it or throw it away in the sky.

@UK-Nintendo You're free to do whatever you choose to the medium you are playing the game on. You just don't own the game itself. That's why Nintendo has made a fuss about people altering the game code or using roms, etc.

This is a strange one. I'm trying to think of a good analogy. Maybe like breaking in to Disneyland at night, could have free reign on any/all the attractions but instead waiting until the morning and paying for certain ones. An honest criminal? It's strange too because of all games for the Dolphin to run you'd imagine the eShop games would be the easiest.

@Kalmaro so is the retroN 5 illegal to play nes snes mega drive etc

Am I allowed to backup my games I legally own and play them

@Kalmaro
So would that mean Retron 5 or other retro based consoles are also wrong? they let you play SNES carts, but they are not a SNES. they emulate. Or even that new one that will read straight from the cart, but is still not an actual SNES.

I don't know. really interesting question.

Dolphin is hands down the most amazing, bug-free, feature-rich, near-native quality emulator ever created. There will never be another emulator that equals Dolphin... not for a long, long time.

Ya know, I buy almost every game worth playing, and while I completely understand the need for rules and laws, I understand they're there not to prevent a customer from playing their purchased games in HD, or on the go or in luxury, they're there to prevent loss of profit and piracy. So while I respect the rules, I feel no guilt dumping my purchased 3DS games to digital for convenience sake on a handheld (knowing I'm not going to go sell my physical copies which would then equate to stealing), I have no guilt playing my GameCube and Wii games on PC in 4K with an Xbox One controller. Or on Wii U with a Wii U Pro Controller. I purchased these games and I'm going to enjoy them to the fullest extent. Because I know that if everyone who used emulators or homebrew was like me, there would be no need for anti-piracy laws.

@JaxonH thank you sir

@Petraplexity
Yep mate,already knew that. I keep a very close eye on the hacking scene. The switch hack was a old webkit exploit but it creates a gateway to dig deeper,that's exactly what they are doing right now. Nothing for the enduser at the moment but r once they find a Kernel or usermode it will become rampant like u said, I think switch will be easy to hack and completely jailbreak it,afterall it took less than a week to open the first exploit,can't wait

@UK-Nintendo
Hey dude I down load on to emulators regardless if I own or owned a copy of the games. I don't give two hoots what ppl think,if I want it then I will have it. If ppl want to pay then good luck to them but I don't have to so I don't. Ppl will say it's morally wrong,so what I say. Far worse going on in the world than a bit of piracy, company's have been ripping ppl of since the dark ages I am just taking my share back

@NintySnesMan cool dude

@Kalmaro lol, I love your logic. So what you're saying is that if Nintendo decides to rage quit making video games and terminates the licence that everyone has bought (because you know, it is their property and they make the rules) then if someone didn't return all the games/hardware they have in their possession they would be acting immoral. Open your eyes buddy, my 4yo can accept an EULA, that isn't ever going to be considered a binding contract in court.
I guess it's relieving to think that if Nintendo did quit there would be some moral people left on the planet like kalmaro that would probably go door knocking to get Nintendo their property back, it must be hard to live a noble life with all the evil hacking going on in this world.

@Kalmaro Ignore the haters. We can disagree and still be civil. However, morality absolutely subjective - there's just no way around it. It's not a matter of opinion - it's just how morality works. Sure, many people may agree on a particular set or morals (I.E., we probably all agree it is immoral to kill someone), but even that may not be so clear (War, self defense, for example). Religious beliefs, cultural upbringing, and other personal differences all affect your morals.

I have no moral issues with eating meat, while many vegetarians would think that is immoral. Likewise, I have no moral issues with playing the rom of a game I own and purchased a dozen times, while many other would view that as immoral because it could be breaking the law.

@astarisborn94 I don't think that matters. I'm almost positive I've seen bundles of WiiWare / VC games floating around. I never downloaded them (Looking for more retro stuff) so I can't say if they work for sure, but games should be preserved should Nintendo shut down the Wii store.

@RupeeClock Actually you can get a random NAND generator and you will be fine. I used my WII U Virtual WIi to dump the NAND so the games I already bought can be redownloaded for free. But you can get away with generation a random nand. Just better to use a real one.

Cool now better keep this feature confidential before Nintendo also closed down the Wii Shop.

Nintendo is having a problem with the emulator. I don' t think they would be too concerned about making few extra bucks from it, but thats peanuts for big N. They are looking for the long term bigger picture.

@NintySnesMan Besides, the Wii VC doesn't even emulate the SuperFX lol

But hey, you're still paying Nintendo to get games with Dolphin XD

@roadrunner343 That does not answer my question and yes, it does matter. If even one WiiWare game on the Wii Shop has not been preserved yet, it is high time for someone who has the capability to download the game and preserve it so that it can still be played once the option to buy "Game X" is finally gone.

I don't care what anyone else says this is AWESOME!

Very nice! I wonder if this trick would also work with vWii...

@astarisborn94 Good point. Someday, Nintendo will shut down the Wii Shop Channel, and all of the content which has not left there will sink into the abyss, never to return... Unless someone steps in and takes the responsibility upon themselves to preserve the content, since gaming corporations won't do it!

@SirRandall That answers my question! I'll use my own NAND... Even when my Wii and Wii U die someday, this will help preserve all those games I downloaded over the years... Only the ones I paid for, of course!

@mikegamer The Wii VC doesn't have SuperFX games for sale, but it can emulate Star Fox 1 + 2, Yoshi's Island, etc just fine.

@roadrunner343 The how is also important when it comes to morality.

To use your meat eating example, I think it's too simple to say it's a choice between A or B. There's a big difference between buying the fresh remains of an animal that was raised responsibly and killed locally in small quantities, versus buying the who knows how old remains of an animal that was tortured and maimed and brutalized in the worst ways imaginable, in massive enough quantities that a hell on Earth has been created. Choosing the former, saner option is just as valid in it's own way as foregoing the choice entirely- either of those two ways resists the inhuman acts of the mass produced option.

A little messy to bring that example into gaming, but I guess one could switch out "vegetarian" for "never emulates outside VC, etc," "responsible meat eater" for "emulates inside and outside VC for games that have been purchased or are largely inaccessible otherwise," and "irresponsible meat eater" for "downloads tons of things one doesn't own, which could easily be purchased or owned in some other capacity." (Although there's a caveat there: what defines a responsible or irresponsible "vegetarian"?)

@mikegamer
No I ain't paying Nintendo because I don't have a dolphin emulator.lol. I have Nintendo emulators on the psvita and my Sony smartphone,which I didn't pay for and hundreds of Nintendo ROMS all for free lol. Plus I have psp neogeo psx turbografix, dreamcast arcade emulators with loads of ROMS and yes there all free

Morality is a subject closely tied to religion that has no absolute answer. Toss in the subject of an intangible intellectual property and you're going to get a whole slew of answers addressing morality. Everyone that says they're against emulation undoubtedly have double standards (e.g. buying a used game, borrowing a game, entitlement to download a ROM/ISO just because you own the game, recording TV shows or movies off of tv). If abstaining from emulation helps you sleep at night then that's fine, just don't pretend you're "too good for McDonalds" when you indulge in something ignorantly/knowingly "compromising."

Getting to the point, it comes down to the individual in this situation. There is no right or wrong for emulation, only an individual's opinions and how their decisions will impact their mental well-being.

This is pretty cool. I think it is a great attempt to give people the option to actually pay for a game (no matter if they already own it or not) on an emulator. However I wouldn't use Dolphin. Not because of morals, legality or emulation itself. I just prefer playing "on the go" (and I think if this was for 3DS games, they would look like a crap anyway like DS games look horrible when enlarged in emulator) so I rarely play PC games - the game I played the longest (and legally purchased) was World of Warcraft that I playd for years. But I get bored of PC games easily so even when I buy and install some, I uninstall it quite soon.

@sp_initiate-001 You can't C&D an emulator. The emulator itself doesn't come with the Wii Shopping Channel, etc. so Nintendo can't claim it as their own. Additionally, you need a NAND backup from a real Wii to make this work.

port it to the switch. map wiimotes to the joycons.

So who is still having trouble accessing the Wii Store (at least in UK) using an actual Wii?

I'm able to access the store today but unable to download any games (including ones I've already bought). It keeps returning:

"The software you have selected cannot be purchased or re-downloaded at this time. Due to certain circumstances, this software is no longer available."

This is for every title I have tried.

@astarisborn94 My point was, it doesn't matter if you can purchase via dolphin or not - people have been backing up VC and WiiWare games prior to this development, so I'm certain this has no bearing on whether or not those games are preserved. They would have been preserved either way, since it is apparent the tools to do so already exist.

@PlywoodStick I didn't feel the need to bring that level of detail into the argument because... Well, you clearly get it. The simple point I was making is that morality is not absolute like @Kalmaro suggested. The additional scenarios you added strengthen my point, emphasizing a clear cut right or wrong for every person does not always exist.

now if the only still made wii points cards....

@Kalmaro

"I think you're going to have a hard time proving morality is subjective."

Really? I think it's been well established by thousands of years of philosophy that the burden of proof is on anyone claiming morality to be objective.

Didn't know that the Wii Shop was still working. That's news to me.

(At least for me) Wiis are pretty cheap so I don't see any use for a Wii emulator (or a gamecube one) but like, pretty cool they managed to do it and Nintendo still gets their money from the purchases on the wiishop.

@TreasureFan
whenever I miss the shop music I fire this up:
https://nickyflowers.bandcamp.com/track/wii-shop-channel-remix

Paying for games on an emulator. Things have come full circle indeed! Then again, Virtual Console already pioneered that.