Soapbox: Nintendo's Maddening Stance On Retro Gaming Is Driving Me To Piracy

A subscription service is not acceptable for me. I want to own the games for as long as I can, not just until they discontinue the service or remove selected games without warning.

And as much as I understand your sentiments I’m not sure how wise it is to publish an article online confessing your desire to turn to illegal activity (right in the title, mind you).

the only requirement i need, Is popping that CD or Cartridge into the console/handheld and BAM we got us a classic to play!

By offering such a limited selection, Nintendo is literally begging people to hack their console

See, I don't think we need a virtual-console style service for retro games, at least from a third-party perspective. With companies like Sega, Capcom, and Square Enix bringing massive groups of classic games to Switch via bundles or individual releases, I don't believe that a virtual console is needed. This bundle/re-release approach is much more efficient and practical. After all, I'd much rather pay $30 for 50 Genesis games than $5 for the individual titles as I would on the old Virtual Console.

Unfortunately, it seems like Nintendo themselves are dead set against taking a similar approach. Since they apparently insist upon their online subscription service, they definitely need to step up their game to get all (or at least, the vast majority) of their first party classics on Switch through the service. I definitely agree with the article. If Nintendo's going to take down the ROM sites that provided these games, then they'd best provide an alternate, legal method of attaining them. And three NES games per month just ain't gonna cut it.

I didn't read the whole editorial, however:

"...imagine if tomorrow, Disney launched its much-hyped Netflix rival but only included the black-and-white Mickey Mouse short films on day one? Would you sign up?"

That was an excellent comparison.

They should keep the NES games for free with the Nintendo Online subscription, and 16-bit era and onward could have its own separate subscription for $5 or 10 a month (better be robust af for $10/month tho)

I really agree with most of this.

Ultimately my decision making follows this example:

1. I want to play Golden Sun!

2. Can this be played on 3DS or Switch?

2a. If so, then purchase!

2b. If not, then pirate and play on phone/PC.

Why Nintendo doesn't grasp this concept, and instead punishes those who play roms without being able to buy legit copies from Nintendo, flabbergasts me. If I can buy something, then I will. If I cannot buy something, then obviously what else am I supposed to do except use a rom?

With each platform, Nintendo starts at the beginning with NES stuff. Except this will be the 4th time they start over at the beginning. They refuse to monetize half of their back-library!

@ilikeike Since third parties are releasing Virtual Console games, we don't need a Virtual Console...what?

I just wanna be able to buy my retro games and WHEN IT'S DONE I OWN THE GAMES !

I don't want to pay something that ONLY give me access to games... I want to have the property of these games that I bought.
That means that even in 25 years, I could still play them...

This is what I would like to get !

@foodmetaphors How about No? We should have SNES games with the current subscription.

The writer missed the most important question, as he made up the theory that the NES on Switch is driving people to piracy. But that's most likely just clickbait headline.

The truth is, everyone who is into retro gaming will buy the old hardware or will eventually look into roms, because no-one, not even Nintendo can provide even half a complete catalog for any retro system.

On the upside, at least Nintendo is doing something with NES games, providing more features than the originals or roms have.

They need to bring back Virtual Console but tie it to your Nintendo account so they follow you across console generations. I hate the current iteration of the bonus games thru Nintendo Online. If I could pay less and ignore it, I would.

They would need to severely overhaul it, include consoles that don't already have classic editions out, and majorly bump up the number of games coming before I'd come around.

They really only needed to tweak the virtual console to make it perfect, and instead they gave us a pile of NES games with online features that, while neat, are probably utilized by less than 1% of subscribers. It's depressing.

why is it that before any of this happened, people wanted a netflix style system for the virtual console., once they start a system like that, people are pissed? Yes I understand the games they offer are not the best. Also, for those that say they want to own the games, well, you never own the virtual console games. You are paying for the rights to play the game, so you actually don't own it. For example, you will soon not be able to download any games for the wii, and the same thing will happen to the Wii u, the switch, and so on.

It would be perfect to have a massive catalog of games with a subscription, alongside the ability to buy them separately if you don't want to subscribe.

@link12684 People only want a Netflix style service as an alternative to having to buy the same games repeatedly. I think if Nintendo could tie purchases to your nintendo account so they followed you across console generations that would be the best possible scenario.

I don't want to pirate games, but the idea of using a Raspberry Pi and the Retropie software to play retro games from multiple consoles is enticing. I'd likely make a nice, portable shell for it as well. Games from multiple different consoles anywhere I go? Yes please!

Great comparison
Great points
Great read

though i voted "no" on the have I ever downloaded ROMs, it was not for lack of interest, as my lifestyle became more complicated and compressed with the addition of kids, wife and everyone vaiing for the tv at once, I could no longer keep half a dozen systems hooked up to my tv, so ya, I wanted to put all the games i own on ROM/ISO files on my DS/3DS or a Vita, ect. I saw LOTS of options and vids of awesome set ups, of a dozen systems on one lovely flashcart, and without the ability to replace my games on downloads from Nintendo onto the system of my choice, yah, I wanted to get my games converted or downloaded from sites, but my career puts me in a precarious position, where if my information is stolen or my computers hacked, I could be end up worse than just losing my job, consequences would be far worse for me, and good luck finding anything trustworthy at a flea market,

yes, Nintendo needs to give the people what they want, not tell the people what they want and then actually do it

You're wasting your time, N doesn't listen to any one and think they know best

I’m not going to break the law for video games, believe it or not. Nintendo may not be the best at delivering their classic content, but it is more then satisfactory for me.

I just want to play Fire Emblem. I'm not a huge fan of the old JPN-exclusive titles, but with Switch being region-free I would've loved to have Genealogy or Mystery of the Emblem (not you, Thracia) in a legal format.

Oh well. Guess I'll stick to the version I can read.

@Crono1973 No, what I'm saying is we don't need as much of a dedicated Virtual Console service like we did with the Wii since third parties are making more cost-efficient rerealeses and bundles than they did back then. That doesn't change that Nintendo needs to up their game when it comes to first party rereleases though.

@SKTTR

"The writer missed the most important question, as he made up the theory that the NES on Switch is driving people to piracy. But that's most likely just clickbait headline"

Uh, he said it was driving "me" to piracy. Him. Himself. That's not a theory. You don't get to cry clickbait on anything you disagree with.

nintendo life is a joke.

I just don’t understand how developers can release 100s of hours of video game play each week, and it still isn’t enough for people. It’s as simple as people just wanting something they can’t have. And it’s not like anyone who actually has life responsibilities has enough time to actually play every video game release. I haven’t tried each of the ones on the service yet myself.

@anders190

I'd love the chance to say that to Miyamoto's face.

"Hey man, apparently I want to play your games more than you want me to. Sorry about that."

@ilikeike Third parties are doing it because Nintendo is not doing it. Third parties are proving that a Virtual Console IS needed.

I really can't agree with this attitude to piracy. Game A isn't available on system X therefore I can just pirate it?! How about just not playing that game and playing one of the hundreds of others that are available?

I won’t disagree that Nintendo could do better with its retro library of games. However, I find It highly ridiculous to frame this in such a way as Nintendo is making anyone do anything. There are certainly quite a few older titles I would love to play again without spending an arm and a leg to do it. But on the same token, I’m not about to break the law to do so and the on top of that, try to partly shift responsibility for the behavior. But everyone’s got their own line in the sand when it comes to what is acceptable in questionable practices. You do you, I guess.

A couple generations ago, I had a flashcard for my DS and the Homebrew Channel on my Wii (which was an excellently crafted bit of software I might add). I had no remorse for the emulation of classic games, since I was mostly replaying games I owned but could not play, or Japanese only titles with translation patches like Mother 3 and Bahamut's Lagoon.

For the DS, I actually downloaded quite a few games that had just been released. And that's where my fanboy guilt started to kick in. Hidden gems that were a commercial failure on the DS, I'm certain were impacted by emulation that I was contributing to. By the time I had figured out how to get my USB hard drive to play Wii games, I had already decided that I should probably refrain from doing so.

The music industry is in a very similar place currently, but they're adapting a bit more intuitively. You can stream a song on YouTube as much as you want, with a short ad thrown in here and there, and you can pay about a dollar if you want that song all to yourself. This doesn't translate as well to that he videogame marketplace, but comparisons can still be drawn.

I want the virtual console back, but without the slow trickle of games. Release all the previously released games at once and price them competitively.

Virtual Console was great on the Wii, I got to play tons of games. Then I had to pay on a Wii U to keep playing it. Because it was just a service with a downloaded license in the end. I didn’t even go through the hassle. I’m not doing that again. I like the NES game on NSO, because I’m not paying extra per title again.

I swear

@Not_Soos
Mr. Not_Soos, that was a MASTERFUL analogy, but don't forget to add that not only offering the B&W shorts and only adding three of those once a month, but also not even hinting or suggesting that other types of shows or movies from other eras will come at all
(no hints about any games from any other systems, Nintendo or otherwise)

Can we block articles by specific writers?

So now we have a game journalist advocating for piracy?

I thought Nintendo blew it with the Virtual Console. People seemed really into it and talked about it when the Wii was new. It was exciting. The Nintendo Virtual Console should have been the Steam of retro gaming, the first thing anyone thought of when it came to digital retro gaming. Now Steam is going to be the Steam of retro gaming, except without the same selection Nintendo already had built up with the likes of PC Engine stuff we haven't seen anywhere else. I thought Nintendo should have upgraded their Virtual Console to be multi platform(Nintendo platforms and maybe PC) and account based rather than tied to system. But there's a long history of major game companies not caring much about their back catalog, and Nintendo isn't really different in that regard. That's another reason people went with emulation, it was almost always far superior to what actual companies were offering and charging for. Official solutions have often been plagued with lack of options, bad emulation, broken controls, and lots of other problems. They've treated retro gaming poorly for a long time.

The most frustrating thing about all of this is that Nintendo HAD this figured out more or less. I've still got my 3DS Ambassador games, including all those lovely GBA titles that to this day you can't play on the system without hacking. The fact that they never actually released them for purchase despite that they clearly worked was just asinine. I love playing Sacred Stones and Minish Cap and Metroid Fusion and Kirby on my 3DS, and I'm 100% certain that people would have killed to be able to buy those games. But apparently despite having ten working GBA titles for 3DS, Nintendo decided that they didn't like money instead.

For the average consumer, I think there is easy enough access to the most significant titles in Nintendo's NES and SNES catalogue with the service on the Switch and the two retro consoles that Nintendo has produced.

Personally, I just don't care. I'm not into collecting old games or even wanting to play some of them. There is a plethora of current games that would take more than a lifetime to get through. I have found a couple of VC titles that I had never heard of that I enjoyed on the WiiU VC, but whether or not I was able to play them has no significant impact on my life.

Would it be nice to have the option? I suppose, but I'm not missing it.

... 'k?

I don't care much either way, as I would prefer bundles on physical carts, like other companies are doing. I like to actually own my games, and it would be nice to not have to deal with ROMs.

@nintey_cola With that attitude you should probably change your name to nintey_koolaid

@Anri02 You did read the article right? He's not telling people to pirate at all, he's pointing out the very real issue that Nintendo's own ridiculous handling of retro is making it so that there's no option to play certain games except piracy, when they could just release many of those games and make a fat buck instead, yet refuse to do so.

Is this really an issue anymore. Pretty sure hundreds of thousands have people have full romsets, still easily downloaded today, despite Nintendo's (pathetic and irrelevant) closing of rom distribution on a handful of sites. I have zero qualms about having emulators and roms on every one of my consoles, handheld and home. Nintendo should just create "Official Switch Emulators" for Snes/Nes/GBA etc , dump all their roms (no need for time consuming instructions, explaining remapped controls etc) onto their site and charge $2 a game. Even then i'd still rather stick with Retroarch but i'm sure 1000s wouldnt mind coughing up for old games if the price was consistently low.

No idea why people care about all this crap in the first place. Or have it tied to yet another console that will vanish (with the collection) again.

It is called a PC and a Smartphone. Take an afternoon and get the entire set. You will never loose them again.

I am really considering to buy a Raspberry Pie system board, or a slightly more powerful equivalent, installing Retro Pie and putting all my favorite games on it. I'm really tired of waiting on Nintendo.

"Imagine if you'd had all of this from day one on your Switch. All of Nintendo's classic retro titles there, just a click away. A true Netflix of Nintendo; a wealth of games all emulated perfectly, all accessible in a perfectly legal manner."
Imagine how few indie and 3rd party games would have appeared on the eshop if this was true.

@Benjamin I believe there’s a significant difference between saying that Nintendo’s policies are making it more likely for people to pirate, and saying that they themselves are likely to pirate because of said policies.

A sub service is a nice bandaid and still meets what a certain amount of retro gamers want, also great for the ability to share with other Switch owners.

The ability to download the game outright and own it forever though, that should be the ultimate goal. Gamers want collections, SSB has showed us this in its trophy collection...to the point where we got amiibo. They simply have to do that again, but with their historical software line-up and not simply established characters/mascots.

Nintendo can do it, but the videogame industry is notorious for failing to establish enthusiast-friendly ideas quickly.

I bought all my favorite NES and SNES games time and time over. When I bought a NES and SNES mini I modded it and DL all the games I had bought.

The whole approach of justifying piracy from the author of this article is ridiculous. Piracy is theft. Theft is illegal. Period.

It's hard to feel bad for people Who are retro gamers when there's practically a new game coming out every hour somewhere in an ecosystem not too far out of reach. I think it's weird people would still prefer to play the games they played when they were 10 years younger instead of the games that are out now.

Don't get me wrong, I would really enjoy playing the lufia games again and maybe Scott Pilgrim if Ubisoft could just get off their high horse about it sucking. But besides this I probably wouldn't really care if the old games I remember fondly of are playable ever again. I actually don't understand how people can play retro games knowing that the newer games are essentially the same games they were playing just updated graphics and slightly modern storylines.

Besides first-party games from previous gen systems that I didn't get to play like all of the Fire Emblem games, I really just don't see the point of nostalgia. If Fire Emblem didn't have a Continuing Story and it didn't have replay value I probably wouldn't show interest in it. Doing a digital remaster of all of the Mario Party games would be totally cool idea to. But to play the games in their original form? I don't know if I really care that much.

People who prefer the Virtual Console over the games available for purchase are really neurotic people. Also if you are considering the price of the Nintendo online as a subscription service fee for their NES collection then you are silly; we're just paying for multiplayer and cloud saves.

I own a lot of retro games, but yeah there are several I am not willing to work over $XXX.xx to own. I settle with the fact it's a game I will never own. I fill the need using a retro pi option. I'll have to accept that.

@Cosats

Says the guy who goes over the posted speed limit on the expressway

Ayyy I'm a pirate, the worst pirate you've ever heard of. Instead of pirating games I'd rather pay for them. That is if Nintendo didn't withhold their treasure and offered all their retro games on their digital store. Sadly that's not the case, so here's to rum! uh... I mean ROM!

Seriously the most ill conceived article I have ever read on this site.
"Game not coming to Switch"
"Reggie says nothing about online service."
"I'm not happy with 80 Neo Geo games delivered on a weekly basis, Donkey Kong rights being ironed out, Sky Skipper being reconstructed, WonderBoy the Dragons Trap being lovingly re-created, Langrisser and Grandia announced, R-Type Dimensions getting a revamp, Square bringing their Final Fantasy games to Switch, M2 modernising so many game, Sega Classics, Atari Classics, Capcom Belt Bundle, but you know what, I can't wait for Nintendo to figure out how they are joining this renaissance, I just want all the old cheese re-released again immediately or else I am going to pirate it."
Really, Nintendo's business is their software. How on Earth can this article exist on a Nintendo site.

Nintendo have such a high attachment rate that a Netflix service is suicide.
This article is just so short sighted. I want an Ocarina of Time remaster not the N64 game on VC. I want Super Metroid with a toggleable retro / modern look and sound with maybe some bells and whistles. Gah...so much wrong with this it hurts my brain lol.

nobody is losing money on 30 year old games, there's almost no legal way of obtaining them so pirate the hell out of them I say.

@Crono1973 I disagree, third parties are showing that the virtual console was much more expensive and inefficient than it needed to be. For instance: you can buy all six NES Mega Man games for $30 from the virtual console, or for $15 via the Legacy Collection with even more features.

I'm not saying that the idea of the Virtual Console is completely bad. Rather I'm saying that it could be done better, as third parties are showing.

I'm sure glad this isn't how people feel about rare stuff I have in my home.

"I can't buy it so I'm going to steal it."

Why do all games need to be played on each and every console? These retro games can be played on the original hardware, old consoles with virtual console, classic consoles, barcades, retrocons, etc.

There are so many great games for the Switch, are there really people clamoring to play Wcw vs Nwo world tour from N64 instead of Hollow Knight?

This discussion is so tedious and boring. Each new console that comes out, we need to play the same games? This is the mentality that has ruined film: reboot and reuse the same properties to death and no original ideas or properties get created. The indie games that everyone is lauding on the switxh will fall to the wayside if the market is flooded with more retro games.

Its not as if there are no retro games available to play.

Once again, fans want to believe they should have access to every game ever at all times, and only pay for it one time.

The soapbox is being based on being a crybaby about a dead service that has been neglected horribly for years from its only properly fed heyday on the Wii when it first started.

Get over it.

There's nothing wrong with the NES library growing from the starting pile to 3 more a month. You do realize if this is ONLY intended for the NES they have a limited pool of games to pull from. While there were over 700 NES games, there were at least a 100-150 unlicensed titles that'll never happen. Furthermore, you can remove hundreds more due to licensing hangups, and even more off that from the utter garbage that was so poorly made they won't even bother with it.

Let's say that leaves you with maybe 300 games at best to pick from. You have 20 to start and another 9 added this year. With 3 more a month a year out that's another 36. Within a little over a year of service that'll be 65 games. Add another 36 per year after. Now you have to speculate how many years this will be offered as a thing as part of the network package. What if it lasted 10 years? They'd run out. They have to be more conservative with their offerings because they need to have plenty to go around that's interesting to people to want to tinker with.

This whole entitlement spoiled frenzy over the VC being dead needs to cool it. The VC was never done well in the first place and people would moan how much each game would cost being too much due to ROMS being free. Now you get them free as part of a cheap network service, and there's still whining and moaning about it. Nintendo can't win can they? Nope, they never do. Fans and even more so the haters will piss on them whether they go one direction or the next as no one ever wants to be pleased.

Truth is hard, but Hamster with their ACA offerings are doing a far better service justifiable with their prices and options each game offers over what Nintendo farted out at $5-10 a pop with a bare bones ROM release with a hot save at best on the back end. Let companies release what they want through Hamster or on their own, and leave the freebix netflixing NES stuff to the Nintendo Switch services and just relax already.

@MailOrderNinja
soapbox_neighbors_maddening_stance_on_loaning_tools_is_driving_me_to_stealing

My dream is Nintendo releasing retro games as retail games. I’d gladly pay full price for a cartridge with Super Mario World or A Link to the Past.

I have 99 problems. Trying to constantly relive my childhood on every videogame system because I can't let go of the past isn't one of them.

Entitled gamer promotes illegal activity because he feels he deserves more.

nintendo dont care about you wise up. Get snes mini nes mini and hack it great way to play the nes and snes games on the original hardware sort of. but nintendo want you buy same games drip fed from system to system. most 360 games i got digitally i can still play thoses buggers on my xbox one and x

"services such as Spotify, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video exist proves that isn't the case."

Why not compare actual comparable services, like MS Gamepass, EA Access and PS Now? Subscription game services which were mostly excluded from the article, I think they popped up once.

I think it will happen, but just as MS keeps Live and Game Pass separate, one cost is online, 1 is game rentals, and Sony keeps PS+ and PS Now separate, 1 is online, one is game rentals, I think Nintendo will have a paid rental service, "Nintendo Nostalgia" might make a good name. It will be $10 per month like the other game rental services, not $20 per year. But considering how long it took them to get their paid online going I think we gave 2 to 3 years yet for "NN".

Maybe if the article had examined those other comparable services more closely it would have realized paid online <> game rentals.

@DownRightSam what entitled gamer wants to buy games legaly and a service fot for purpose. Seriously how did music industrie combat piracy mmmmmmmmmmm make the music avalible easily and at a reasonable cost. Yes some people still will pirate music but they would nver buy it anyway while most average people are happy to pay a reasonable amount. The only entitled people are the old money grabbing suits at nintendo that believe they have the right to ffffffffffffffff everyone over.

@Anguspuss To be fair, the music industry also combated piracy with lawsuits and intervention by the RIAA first. Then when that wasn't successful, and Napster was neutered, the industry began to change the way products were offered.

I find it pretty absurd for piraters to blame Nintendo over their own actions and wants. Especially since Nintendo has been one of the most supportive to redistribute their legacy content on other platforms. Seriously, not many companies would actually throw effort into having games like Sky Skipper, Kuru Kuru Kururin, Star Fox 2 or Sin & Punishment on their platforms. And in terms of retro content, the Switch is outpacing what the Wii, Wii U or 3DS brought forward, even if it's not under the "Virtual Console" moniker you so desire. But at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter because "Muh Dracula X," which, funny enough, is coming to PS4 later this month, which kinda brings that example to moot.

@BMO_Advanced Very good you old pirate. Very good.

My ideal approach to classic games would be an expanded NES Remix-like package. I have purchased the games I would be interested in from the NES, SNES, or N64 multiple times over at this point, and would need another hook to get me interested. I am not interested in online multiplayer, but a curated collection of games in a retail package that includes some history, maybe some dev interviews, artwork, etc. (think Rare Replay), the full games, and NES Remix style challenges would be incredibly appealing to me, at least for NES and SNES games. A handful of NES games would not cut it for me anymore.

In this case, I think Nintendo should look to stuff like the Mega Man Legacy Collection for inspiration. Modern takes on Super Mario All-Stars would be appealing as well. A collection of Zelda games across several platforms with some new interviews, maybe some stuff similar to what was included in Hyrule Historia and the other Dark Horse books would be great

In a sense, I understand the angle of this soapbox. Ignoring all the legal/illegal issues of the following for a sec: I do believe that game preservation should be pursued. I don't believe that illegal ROM sites are the answer, but I also understand the frustration of having no other (legal) way to play a game. While I've never downloaded ROMs/emulators for my own use due to a lack of trust of most of the websites that host them, I have used Project 64 on a friend's tablet and have played some of the MS-DOS and arcade libraries in-browser that are available on a site that's quite safe. (I'd name it, but I'm not sure if that's allowed here.) I've also messed around on a MAME cabinet that an instructor put together in college.

I do take issue with the following article snippet:

"...but if you make content readily available, then people won't resort to piracy."

This may be partially true in the context of retro gaming, but nearly everyone knows that there are plenty of people out there who pirate games that are readily available. Remember the recent Super Mario Party article?

What is the big rush for Gamecube VC? I understand NES-64/GBA but why? You can buy a wii for like, 30 dollars now, and all gamecube games work on it.

What’s kind of funny to me is that people are complaining that they bought these games 5 times already AND why can’t Nintendo just release them on Switch?!? Uh, can’t you play one of your 5 different versions of the game you already bought??

I don't want or need my switch to be online so I don't pay for it.

I would however like to play the old SNES Mario games though and would be happy to buy them as a digital download. But Nintendo doesn't allow that option so they've lost out on some money from me.

@Not_Soos
Not really, most b/w Mickey shorts are public domain, and legally accesible. Thats not the case with Nes Games.

@kingofthesofa That's precisely the thing that annoys me the most when I hear complaints about the lack of a Virtual Console. One look at any weekly sales chart for Wii U or 3DS and it should be obvious that if there were a VC for Switch indies would never have found the success that they did, and that the Switch wouldn't be where it is now, which is arguably the best place to play indie games. If NintendoLife publishes a "Soapbox: The Lack of a Virtual Console Has Made The Switch Nindie Heaven" I might start taking them seriously again, but until then I can only hope Nintendo UK sees them advocating piracy and responds accordingly.

Nintendo's offering in this area is absolutely terrible. Got a GPD XD though, that's my old school gaming covered.

There should be a separate poll:

If you have downloaded and played ROMs - are they of games you actually own physically or have bought digitally from Nintendo, Sony, etc. already.

In my case this is yes for every single game I play though on emulators. Basically I keep a Wii U and 3DS available for the eShop to buy a digital license (or find a physical cart on eBay) - then I find a rom to play it on the best system I have available for it at the time (so I don't have to play Super Metroid on the 3DSs lest that stellar screen for instance). Basically I've decided on my own end user agreement, since the companies versions are unsatisfactory, which is that after I've handed over money to the relevant company I'll play that game on any system I wish. Nintendo, Sony and more have already had me buying several copies of the same game in the past. Enough is enough for re-buying a file I've already bought on every future system. If these companies don't find a better future model for legal gaming then they are in danger of being the one's doing the stealing. I don't support stealing, I've no desire to steal games and this is my workaround for a system that is broken. It used to be you bought a CD and played it on any player you wanted, but now Apple, Google, Amazon want you to buy a song/book/games that is only for their ecosystems. It's wrong and unfortunately console gaming has always had that BS. But no matter how wrong a companies actions are I don't think we should use it as an excuse to drop our own moral guidelines, so I'm going to find the most reasonable way I can.

Nintendo should at least include digital scans of the originals manuals with its Nes games... They gived so little effort in their NES approach it hurts

I’d rather support developers, but if Nintendo wants to act like this, I have no problem pirating. I only support the company when I support their actions. Failing to bring retro games to the Switch in a sufficient manner and reselling illegal ROMs of Super Mario Bros off the internet on the Virtual Console are inexcusable and stupid.

"Driving me to piracy"

Imagine if someone justified their assassination of a political figure by saying "hey, I didn't want to kill him, but his policies were so outrageous, it drove me to kill him."

Piracy is a crime. Of course, I do it, everyone and their Mom does it, and it is true that, like you say in the rest of the article that, morality aside, people would probably pirate less if Nintendo did it better.
But it doesn't make it any more righteous just because a company isn't selling it the way you want it to. Nintendo isn't backing you into a corner.

@Anri02 Yet he's not advocating for others to do it. He's pointing out that he's done it due to a lack of options, and that whether or not people should, people already are, and that the only way to stop it is to give people legitimate ways to access the games. He's even stated that he'd prefer not to himself.

The console gaming industry needs to evolve to be more like the PC gaming industry when it comes to "old" games. Let us buy all the old games at a reasonable price digitally, or just release them as freeware. No one should be asked to pay money for a rom copy of "Ice Hockey". However, charging $3.00 for Super Mario Bros. 3 might be reasonable.

It is so easy to monetize these games in a simple way; there seems to be an actual disease at Nintendo that prevents them from implementing online and legacy content in a sane and pleasing way.

If I want to play Nintendo 64 games, my only option is to purchase them on the Wii U. These purchases afford me far less options than I get emulating them via my own PC. Selling me an inferior product when stealing the superior one is neither risky nor difficult is a ridiculous proposition. Capitalism does not function properly through the "honor system".

I gave up waiting for Nintendo to deliver classic games on a trickle. I purchased a GPD WIN and have all the retro I want, Dreamcast on down. If they would have opened the floodgates to their games I would have purchased them. I have quite an extensive VC library from the Wii and Wii U. They dropped the ball and I kept playing.

@Benjamin I disagree. By saying he's being "driven towards piracy" he's making it sound like pirating is ok when the company isn't reselling the games again. He chose the article title, so he's getting the repercussions he deserves for it.

I enjoy the older games just as much as the next guy but to me a similar experience is offered via Indies and most of those have far better visuals (obviously), quality of life improvements, and quantity than most of the classics. The void left by the VC was filled by Indies and I would rather be playing the new games (with a few exceptions).

With that being said, a Netflix style service is probably preferable to me simply because I've already purchased several of these games multiple times so I really do not want to spend hundreds of dollars rebuying them.

@Nicolai That's not a particularly great example. A better one would be "this guy's policies were so awful that it drove me to vote against him".

@Moirayn I said this ten years ago when i spent 100s Of pounds on Wii ware and vc games. They are now on my Wii U which is used exclusively for these. It is utter madness that I could not bring these games to the Switch.

Nintendo has such a wonderful library of games. Every day I question why they don't make use of it. NES Online definitely is not a replacement for Virtual Console.

@Benjamin but... voting isn't morally reprehensible. And at least in this country it isn't illegal.

LOL
Wait, is it another Funny Debates about ROM piracy ?

(Sit down on the sofa with some snacks and start eating the snack while watching the funny debates keep going)

People keep saying - I don’t want a subscription service I want to buy and own them... the VC isn’t that. It’s clear in T and Cs when they want Nintendo can remove ability to down load them - you are basically renting them anyway. If your device stays working you have access but if you buy a new device in ten years you are out of luck.

I hate all digital for this reason I own 80+ physical switch games for this reason. Ones that include a download depress me as when Nintendo decides that game dies.

Patches annoy me for similar reason.

I still play original Megadrive and n64 carts and they play how I remember on a new machine.

The nes mini and adding the library of games I once own and bought 100 times along with dead games long forgotten was beautiful.

Ive spent 10s of thousands on gaming in my lifetime.

I want proper services that work.
That will not be yanked at a minutes notice.

Nintendo has a terrible record.

Currently Xbox is leading the way when it comes to rewarding long term fans - BC with Xbox and 360 is amazing and using original media to get versions on latest console is how it should work.

VC should have ported across from Wii to Wii U to switch. No question. The purchases should have stood.

That’s implied in the title. A virtual console. Played on any device would be the suggestion.

The nes games work wonderfully on switch.

But cmon. There should already be 100s available.

"if you make content readily available, then people won't resort to piracy"

PC says otherwise. Games are readily available, piracy is still rampant.

There's also the fact that Nintendo completely restarts its library for every console. Unifying this under a single console-independent account would be far more healthy in the long run. Just make everything that can be suitably emulated on a given platform available. Of course, I'd say that Nintendo should also extend this service to PC/Mobile for the NES, SNES, GB, GBC, and GBA libraries and maybe N64. These games make up a significant portion of piracy and its not like anyone is going to spend hundreds of dollars on special hardware just to play them. There's obvious demand, but Nintendo's attitude just costs them that potential profit. I've never had the biggest issues with Nintendo's offerings, owning every console since the DS, but understand that people don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on a console to play a small handful of games.

@Benjamin I have no interest in this writer. This is the third article on here where I've rolled my eyes the whole time I was reading only to find out it's the SAME author.

What I don't get is, why did they make the NES/SNES Classics super easy to hack and even left us a hidden message, if they're gonna try and make it super difficult to find the ROMs? I don't get them, why do the systems even have the USB cable? lol

Unless you were in Japan, you weren't getting Square titles on the Virtual Console. I think Nintendo does need to a better job but it is hard when other groups just want to sell their retro games that were on Nintendo platforms for almost triple the price it was on VC on other services.

I absolutely agree with this article. (And nice comparison with the Disney thing.) Of course, outside of the people at Nintendo themselves, it's also the most basic of common sense to almost anyone.

Good ole Nintendo! I’ve been ragging about the VC service since the day Wii U hit the shelves for first, not even being ready and then AFTER starting it, killed us with a drip feed of one game a week for about 3 years! Now the Switch comes and again no VC day 1. No excuse again! Now they’ve resorted to this “Netflix” approach which is fine except we SHOULD have the option to purchase a game if we wanna keep it, If afterwards we choose to end our subscription! And just Nes games to start off is ridiculous!! I applaud Hamster, Flying Tiger, Psikyo, and now Sega and soon Atari for bringing the classics to us on their own! If I was running a video game company sitting on tons of classics and looking to resell them, I wouldn’t wait on Nintendo either. No sense to their logic on this at all. And even IF they vastly improve in this, my opinion is it won’t stop piracy regardless!! Hackers will hack like the man said!!

The Disney comparison was spot on.

I agree with everything said here, even with the polarizing “Netflix of Games” suggestion. That’s what Switch Online should have been. It still could be...but it “should have been”.

Sorry, but I totally disagree with this approach of..."Since I can't purchase this retro game on my current system, I'll just steal it."
For the past 11 years you have been able to purchase from a huge library of VC games on the Wii. With that opportunity closing, it still leaves the WiiU, 3DS, Nes Classic and Snes Classic as current viable options.
Justify piracy all you want, but the IP holders of these retro games deserve to be paid when you play their games.
I really don't see how a Nintendo fan site can seriously condone piracy.

My preference would be for a subscription service with thousands (or tens of thousands of games) and then a front end populated by content from HG101 which helps me find what to play next.

Yet again, take it from someone butt-deep in emulation and still making use of two CFW'd handhelds with historically comatose local retail to this day - Nintendo's approach doesn't drive us to ANYTHING. Our fanship drives to piracy, our want to experience what we can't experience legally drives us to this, our need for the fiction we can biologically and socially dispense with just fine drives us to getting this - coupled with the ease of doing it and getting away with it. I'm as miffed by the limits of the existing digital retro libraries - be it VC, CGC or Sony's PSP store shelf - as the next guy, but whether we like it or not, it's the companies' choice whether/how to offer any of that and it's their choice how to deal with any hypothetical profit losses it might entail. Dedicating long soapbox post to making bargains with our conscience is pointless, and telling Nintendo to outtempt digital piracy with AAA (access, availability and affordability) is Captain Obvious stuff - you really believe that nowadays, years since iTunes became a thing, Nintendo isn't aware of this method? Yet we have also seen numerous times that knowing about something doesn't give Nintendo's an automatic urge to replicate it.

For the record, iTunes never completely erased MP3 piracy either. And no kind of virtual console will completely erase the part of the discussed "effortlessness" that pitches paying and having stuff to not paying and still having stuff. Partly "thanks" to the pitfalls of human nature, partly "thanks" to the fact that romsets often preserve the stuff any platform and service would be challenged to outnumber in the world of licensing, sunk IP holders, new IP holders - sometimes the latest ones in a long chain, too - and whatnot.

As for the polls, I've already covered the emulation one above. It's hard to judge a library's satisfaction value until you know you're assessing everything there was to be offered, but at any given moment, I do feel appreciative of officially getting to play the retro titles I can play, with the inherited emulation perks like save states (even Mini Classics have them now) and the crucial presence of actual buttons on the platforms involved (I don't get nearly as many opportunities for "tabletop modes" as to consider bluetooth controllers a panacea for mobile gaming's acquired inferiority in this regard). Concerning "netflix vs virtual console", I prefer the latter but by a slight margin - especially since both are digital content anyway, and owning a license rather than a game has given me its own share of gaming fun on PS Plus.

Oh, and:

"imagine if tomorrow, Disney launched its much-hyped Netflix rival but only included the black-and-white Mickey Mouse short films on day one? Would you sign up?"

Chances are I would. At least when the service became available in Belarus (which most services take forever to do), but yes, chances are I would.

Would prefer VC over Netflix of games. I don't want to stream games...

Why are there so many people in this comments section that are getting so livid about people downloading ROMs and emulating decades-old games that have already made enough money? How's me playing Super Mario World on a Raspberry Pi going to hurt Nintendo?

@Hughesy : That is a very unnuanced view. PC piracy can have a variety of motivations beyond "I want the game for free." Some pirates do simply demo the game, or pirate due to perceived performance hits from DRM, performance checking and more. Piracy, as a whole, has declined in the PC sphere, where Steam users often own more games than they even manage to play. So, not all of that piracy is pure %100 playing the game without ever paying for it (although a significant portion still is), but it has also significantly decreased. But yes, shockingly, on one of the most available gaming platforms, one of the most available methods of acquiring games (if you don't care about morality/legality) is pretty popular. PC piracy is still just about the most accessible method of acquiring games, so of course it's a strong force.

@nin10doom I don’t take from the article that he’s condoning piracy. What he’s saying is if Nintendo would quicken the pace some, hackers may have 2nd thoughts about throwing up a rom for say super Mario Bros which is already legally available in many ways. On the other side if those hackers see that Snes games are still NOT on Switch they won’t hesitate to list the ROMs!

Excellent article. I've said practically the same thing in so many words. Piracy isn't a flame you can put out with water, you have to become a bigger flame to outdo it, or in business-speak, make NSO's retro library "compelling to consumers". I would expect this trickle release if piracy was in its infancy and we HAD no choice, but it's not. I can play all 1000+ NES games right NOW... RIGHT. NOW. I'm not even asking Nintendo to hand over the licensed games (TMNT, Goldeneye, etc.), just their own complete NES game library. The last thing I'll rant about, is I thought Nintendo was going to bust in with like, 100 games, THEN trickle the rest at a rate of like 10 a month, or 3 a "week"... Not this. I'm going to hold out a shred of a benefit of a doubt and say, I believe Nintendo is listening, and by New Year's, I'm anticipating a change or the announcement of a change. At this rate we'll have 65 NES games by December 2019. Utter nonsense. Even if SNES does show up, these trickle rates are still ridiculous.

Whoa! You're allowed to do that headline??

Nintendo has found ways of re-releasing their content for years. How many different ways has nintendo released NES games:
GBA-NES game carts
GBA-Ereader NES Cards
NES within games like animal crossing.
NES VC on wii, wii u and 3ds
NES 3d versions on 3ds
NES remakes like mario all-stars and mario advance gba series
albeit this one is capcom; but allowing NES titles being brought back like mega man legacy collection on nintendo switch.
NES Classic console
NES Online

If you want to play these popular NES games you can likely do so without pirating...

However many other gems don't have and have not had the nice re-releases on VC or GOG or Steam or anywhere. Crystalis for example has not had a re-release since the gbc and the gbc one is on such a small screen it hardly would do it justice. 18 years since then... games like that might drive people to piracy; even still it's only like 20$ used on ebay. PS it's finally getting a re-release on switch via snk 40th anniversary bundle for 40$.
but some gems are not so lucky and much more costly.

If there's no way to legally buy a game whatsoever I'm absolutely 100% fine with pirating. Some of my absolute favourite games have never been rereleased since their original release over 20 years ago, what else am I supposed to do? Terranigma's one of my favourite games ever made but a cartridge alone can go for over 100 bucks. The original developers/publishers wouldn't even get any money from second-hand sales so it's hardly stealing from them.

Of course there's also games that were never even localized, I played the fan translation of Mother 3 close to 10 years ago and Nintendo still stubbornly refuses to release the game outside Japan. They clearly don't want my money, so I'll just take the easy route instead of praying that they'll just randomly decide to release it over a decade late. And no, Reggie acknowledging the fact people want it about once a year is hardly proof that it'll come eventually.

We all know piracy will never go away and to some it's a looked at as a deadly sin but I don't think the entire emulation community is a bad thing. I think it is a good thing we have people that care enough to dump all these games for preservation purposes when a lot of these games are missing it's original source code being able to play powerfest 94 is awesome.

Also the emulation community growing shows companies like nintendo and sony that people still care about retro games and gives them an incentive to makes things like nesc and snesc.. Also sometimes emulation is by far the best way to play some of these retro games when companies just don't care about the porting with a lot of emulation developers spending countless hours developing an emulator for free.

Let's not also forget some of these games are just downright impossible to get and the only person you'd be supporting is a scalper/collector. I'm not saying piracy is good in anyway and if there'es a readily available way to get your retro fix and support developers and companies then I'm all for it but let's not lump every single downloadable rom as a downright sin.

If you woke up today, having never owned a games console before, but you are going to buy one today, and you decided on a Switch.

Your neighbour sees you on your way out and you tell him your are getting a Switch and he says I have 20 PS4 games I no longer want, if you buy a PS4 you can have them. So you do and he gives you the games, you are a happy bunny

Nintendo was swamped with Indi games so why rock that boat with a Netflix of past games. Nintendo are happy bunnies with the amount of Indi and old 3rd party stuff on the Switch.

What we have is Nintendo seemingly giving us what they promised, at last, but holding back on the stuff we want N64 and Cube games; so they don't upset the Indi market.

It's too bad, Reggie Fils-Amie' doesn't actually come here and pay attention, maybe he does come here, but it does not seem he (or whoever works for him) actually looks into or takes anything into consideration

he said they "compete for player time not compete against other companies", yet what's the best way to get player/consumer time ???
GIVE THEM WHAT THEY WANT (within reason, a 5GHz processor, 32GB ram, 1TB storage and 4K screen Switch Pro is NOT reasonable)

I love Nintendo for what they have given over the years, and early on, the philosophy of don't ask them what they want, TELL them what they want worked, the early days of gaming consoles, even up to the N64, people didn't really know what was avail and/or achievable, but as the computer age progressed and Sony became a competitor, then Microsoft, people knew what could be done, game wise and hardware wise, John & Jane Q. Public have been tech savy for a long time now and know what we want now and that it (soft & hard ware) can be done, so Nintendo's old philosophy "Tell, don't ask" is completely outdated and if you want the consumer's time, you need to give them a reason to want your time over someone else's

I like my Switch as is, except for a unbricking the Bluetooth, a nicer battery and for the Joy-Con sticks to be SEALED from dust & debris, I love it, now that we have a system that can handle the demands that others could not, preventing from having all the library of classic titles back then, they need to do it, they are in business to make money, give people the reason to throw money at you, don't hold it back

Amen, brother, amen.

I never did virtual console before and I was really looking forward to it when I bought my switch. "I'll never need to pirate again," I said, but no.

Everyone else is doing great, even final fantasy 7 will be coming out. But not Nintendo, just useless old NES games. Oh well...

Valid points, but Nintendo knows what they're doing which why at the end of the day their target customers are casuals because they know for the most part casuals won't complain but will continue to buy into it. I never used roms and hacking but I certainly understand as to why people jailbreak their consoles to include games and features because of Nintendo's stubborn business practices. Most of us who know Nintendo since the 80's and are familiar with their history are the ones who go viral the most about their B.S. Haha we'll see what happens, but Nintendo will not stop being who they always been.

I don't mind the 3 games a month Netflix style right now because of the 20 NES games on the their right now I have only played through about four. I enjoy playing them when I do and I plan to play through every single one of them.

If the drip feed starts all over again during the next console generation (which it probably will) then I will start getting frustrated.

@UmbreonsPapa nice strawmanning.

Nintendo is going backwards. It's just so unbelievably cretinous.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=j4J3Jf3aJHM

keep on downloading boy and girls.
nintendo robbed enough money with dinosaur titles, wich was no effort made for over and over again.
its thievery the let people pay multiple times for the same product for every system.

i would understand if nintendo got mad for stealing NGC hd remake titles. they made costs to run it smooth and made graphical changes.
but paying over and over again for all these n64 8bit and 16 classic is nonsence. fact is that most young kids don't even like these games anymore.

these titles should be free for downloading (always) and not used in a online subscribtion as promotional material.
its an insult to the faithfull nintendo fan wich suported the company for decades.

@Mogster Please explain how I’m “strawmanning”.

"Have you ever downloaded ROMs and used emulation yourself?"

Nice try FBI, i'm not falling for that!

Jokes aside i wouldn't mind a "Netflix" type of service (with an offline option like the current NES games, not streaming) if it had at least the size of the Wii U VC library. Right now the offering is incredibly underwhelming.

If they are going to keep at this pace, i rather just buy and own them.

The biggest problem with this debate is that there are a lot of gamers who seem to think they are somehow entitled to Nintendo's classic catalog. You're not, and until you guys understand that, this discussion is pointless.

Anyone else remember when this website used to like Nintendo?

@Moirayn or, you can have a Netflix style based system that works with every console they make in the future, so you lose nothing and the system can keep on growing. Why would you want to buy something as an alternative when you can pay a base amount ever month and get the games you want and more? Because you want the illusion you actually own something? Don't want to ruin that illusion, but you don't on the game. We are in the transition of owning things to streaming games from servers. So of course Nintendo will be moving on to systems like this because it's the current trend and it WILL continue to grow.

As a shareholder of N stock it really pisses me off that they constantly make the wrong decisions. Creatively they are brilliant but when it come to strategy, pricing, production they are flipping rubbish

@BubbleMatrix82 It's not just nostalgia for everyone who plays old games. Some people may just prefer the design philosophy of the time period. It's the same with other media. The assumption that modern, retro-style games are just the same thing as before with a new coat of paint is incorrect. Some games are very similar to what came before, but there are many retro games that don't really have modern alternatives in one way or another, especially when looking deeper at game design. Not every side-scrolling game is the same as there are many variations on what appears to be a simple design. If you're not very interested in older stuff, that's fine. It's all just a matter of taste and we are in a time when more styles of gaming are available and viable. I just want to share my viewpoint. I don't have a problem if you think it's weird if I want to play Shinobi or Metal Slug. I think it's weird for people who want to play very long games with lots of cutscenes or open-world anything, but I'm okay with it.

You've reskinned this article many times, but the facts still remain. At the end of the day the most pirated retro games are the ones that are easiest to obtain legally. Hell, just read the comments section on any (S)NES Classic Edition article and take a drink every time you come across "derp derp derp ROMS! derp derp Emulators! derp derp derp RASPBERRY PI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!". It won't be long before you're throwing ice at people.

@Euler

Not gonna lie, the rasperry pi part made me chuckle. My god that side of the emulation fanbase can be truly maddening.

That aside, none of this is really a surprise. I still say it's too soon to dismiss the subscription service but I totally get why people are turning more and more towards just downloading what they need. I myself have a hacked Wii and PSP, both of which I use to play many emulated games including Gamecube. I would gladly give Nintendo money for the same games I emulate (especially GC) but Nintendo is veering too far away from what most of us want. All they need to do to combat the rom sites is compete with them. Offer us more than 3 games a month, and you'll find plenty of people throwing money at you. That's the basic crux of this article and I completely agree. I play on the original hardware a lot as a collector, but I also enjoy the convenience of just flicking a switch and getting a game to run easily. Nintendo is wasting their time so far with their newfound approach to retro gaming.

That said... dead horse is dead. Nintendolife needs to move on to another horse to beat on.

Amen to this article!

Especially this bit right here: "Shutting down ROM-sharing sites but then failing to offer any viable means of playing those games outside of sourcing the original hardware and software – both of which might be extortionately expensive options these days – shows that Nintendo doesn't really comprehend the nature of this side of its business."

It seriously always boggles my mind when I read post from people on this site hell bent against emulation.

The current sytem sucks. It just does. Nintendo had a chance, a REAL CHANCE, to be awesome. Instead, they're giving us 20 warmed over, stale NES games, that virtually no one is excited for, with 3 more a month (yippee...) and not a WORD about SNES, GCN, GB, GBC, GBA, N64, Wii, DS...

Nintendo knows we want Mother 3, for instance. Imagine if they'd opened NSO with MOTHER 3, some SNES titles, the best NES titles, and, GASP, GAMECUBE! There would be no complaints.

All you guys saying the SNES Mini is a good substitute can suck it. Until it is READILY available everywhere, it is NOT a substitute.

Pirating roms is stealing? No s***, Sherlock. Nobody cares. Give it up already. Some games are literally impossible to play without pirating a rom.

“Fighting 'ROM culture' needs more than 3 NES games a month.“

/sign

@Leej07 I can see your point, instead of NES, we should of seen a wide variety of games from multiple system. Now the SNES mini WOULD be a good substitute if we had access to VC for it, to be able to add more games to the system.

I'm shocked that the ps1 classic doesn't have online ability to allow users to play their ps1 games that they have digitally from the PSN store.

Also, yes, I HAVE downloaded ROMs. Mostly really ancient PC games that run on DOS.

However, I also have full romset of the Wii VC, because I was never able to get any of those games back in the day, due to not even having a Wii until fairly recently, and I have no shame.

@jhewitt3476 if you are interested in ROM files of only things you already own, you might be able to do it yourself if you don't mind the chore of doing it and having to buy yet another box for the purpose. The Retro Freak multi-system console dumps the ROM from a cart and leaves you with an accessible file, if I recall correctly. I can't personally vouch for the machine as I don't have one. As for optical media, those may be straightforward to rip since they tend to be standard formats, but I haven't gotten around to trying that yet.

I think a subscription service is great, but only as an alternative.
It's a good way for someone to try out a game, but Nintendo needs to have the option to actually own the game.

Nintendo's approach to resetting their retro library every darn console is ridiculous. The Wii had a very strong retro library with a lot of consoles, including ones that weren't Nintendo like Sega and Hudson. Wii U did reset the library, but there was at least access to the Wii's shop via emulation mode and it's own shop provided more consoles like the GBA, DS, and Wii.

The Wii's shop is now closing, and simultaneously closing easy legal access to dozens and dozens of games that haven't made it to the eshop, like anything from Square and a lot from Sega. And now hundreds of titles from the Wii U eshop aren't being transferred to the Switch.

If Nintendo can't keep the availability of their games consistent or even allow you to now own the games to begin with, their biggest enemy of their war against piracy are themselves.

This is more of an ethics issue then. Legality does not equal ethical, and vice versa.

But that is in any case besides the point. Music companies used to pull this poop too. Now everyone streams.

Why promote illigal gaming on a gaming site?

@I_Am_A_Geek Because some popular Gamecube games are $50+, used.
People want digital, where they would expect maybe $15 for each title and not get bankrupt just to play 15-20 year old games.

I said yes to the Netflix approach, but not at the coat of the classic systems. Nintendo will never release Goldeneye again. I want a 64 classic so I can have Goldeneye on a HDMI connection with original controllers.

Yeah that 8 bit do thing looka neat. Might pick one up. Solves my issue with phone emulators.

TLDR Nintendo please bring us more games faster. Rental service, Arcade Archives, or a collection of titles. Stick a price on it and people will buy it. My 6 purchases of Legend of Zelda say its true.
On my Switch I happily have the online service, all 4 Megaman collections, Capcom's Beatemup Bundle, 5 Neogeo games, arcade archives Punchout, and I've preordered the SNK and Sega Genesis collections. Waiting for Atari (confirmed coming) and Midway (in my dreams) collections as well. I want my Switch to be able to legally play as many games that I love as possible because hybrid console is king. (AKA I take it to work to unwind during lunchbreaks and can hide in some reclusive part of the house when the inlaws visit or play it next to my wife when the TV is dominated by a cooking show.)
I also have other collections (Atari Arcade collection, Midway Arcade treasures, Namco plugnplay, Sonic's Genesis collection) and modded devices(Xbox, SNES, and NES classics) but these all lack the portability factor that I covet my Switch for. Bring us the games Nintendo, we'll bring the $$$.

"However, as the owner of an Android smartphone and 8BitDo Bluetooth controller, I'm never more than a few clicks away from a complete history of gaming. I can fire up any NES, SNES, Mega Drive, N64, Dreamcast, GBA, Nintendo DS or PlayStation game I like and play it with just as much ease as I would if it were on my Switch."

i love it, that is the beauty of android OS, having a shield tv also makes nintendo's paltry offerings obsolete, best of both worlds.

As far as preservation, once Nintendo started going after ROM sites I immediatetly downloaded a full N64 Rom set. I already have the ROMs for SNES that I want. Now that emuparadise doesnt host indivieual games, its much easier to just download everything. I already own all the gamea for the system I want, but I'm not mechanically inclined when it comes to computers so grabbing my own image would be difficult.

@Seacliff
Strange. When I shop GC online, there are many cheap ones. Maybe you were looking at some other wierd site?....or maybe I am

@link12684
I couldn’t care less about the way things are trending. We have no reason to believe Nintendo will go past the NES generation with this current service. They’ve literally only said NES so far and anything else is speculation. The service is pitiful as is. Will it grow? Sure. At the current rate it will have 50 NES games I don’t care about by this time next year. WOOOOHOOOOO /s

Virtually console I know has games that I want on it from the GBA era and onward. I’ve purchased them in the past and still play them on my Wii U from time to time. I don’t want or need to pay $10/month for access to this Netflix style thing as the service expands, as there is no way the pricing stays the same as they add more console generations. I’d pay more in a year on that than I do when I buy 15 games on virtual console that I actually like.

@Trajan i agree, i like the look of his controller, i use a Ipega PG-9067 which is just as good too, love playing gba games on the go.

@OberonPrime yep, that too.

@I_Am_A_Geek The "Weird Site" is Amazon.
Super Mario Sunshine is over $60
Fire Emblem Path of Radiance is over $100
If you're paying less than $50 Twilight Princess, you don't even get the game's case.
But if you want Super Smash bros Melee, $50 isn't even going to get you the case.
Mario Party games range from $35-$50
Wind Waker is decently priced but is still at around $30.

These are popular or highly rated games that often come to people's mind as titles they want on the eshop.

So I'm wondering what weird shovelware titles you are looking up the price for?

@HexNash That's a good video.

@Seacliff Melee is that expensive? Damn... I got Twilight Princess for $30. Yeah no case. Bought a black case and printed off the art work though.

Yes Nintendo has a huge library of classic games that w¡onlu Sony or MS could dream of. They know that.

That's why they do this. Their classic games are only released for a purpose.
Virtual Console on the Wii was created to attract lapsed gamers. The free ambassador games on 3DS were released to keep first adopters happy after the price cut. VC on Wii U appeared when the Wii U was failing. NES classic edition was created to have something for christmas in 2016 and the SNES classic was released afther its success. Now? Classic games are created as a bonus for Online suscribers.

After all these years, you people should know Nintendos modus operandi.

@Trajan I'm checking ebay as well, and yeah, it seems to be that expensive elsewhere. Game and case can be around $70, anything cheaper is still on bidding.

Thing is, it's mostly just Gamecube games that are this expensive. A lot of the popular PS2, Xbox, and even Dreamcast titles are normally cheaper. (For refrence, Jack and Daxter is less than $10, Halo 1 and 2 are about $10 each). Not saying games on those consoles can't be as expensive as GameCube games, but they are normally pretty obscure, while games like Melee sold really well and are definitely not short on supply.

I think this deserves an article of research itself because it's clearly more than the game's rarity that makes the prices higher. Perhaps Nintendo gamers value their games more, and believe they should be sold for more?

@OberonPrime on the long term, the price just to keep these games functioning will be astronomical over a long period of time, this is why i don't get cloud gaming/streaming and it's focus.

@Seacliff We have a local exchange store here. Never priced GC games, but Star Fox 64 and Goldeneye were like $40. I got SF64 off ebay for $16 earlier this year (rented but never owned it). Halo 1 and 2 were $3 each.

Picked up Wolfenstein Enemy Territory for $2.

I play Melee like once every couple of years. I'd be real tempted to sell it if it wasn't the first game my dad got me with the console for my birthday in 2002.

Probably why I wont get Ultimate too.

I always liked to hack Nintendo DS/3DS for homebrew stuff.
Here is some info for the Switch.
https://gbatemp.net/forums/switch-exploits-custom-firmwares-soft-mods.285/

@DockEllisD @TheDragonDAFan Some even comparing it to breaking and entering or murder!

@PALversusNTSC Imagine being this entitled. You paid for your games and you got those games. Nintendo ows you nothing.

@janpampoen Thank you for making this point. I can't believe how many people have the mindset that legality equals morality.

There used to be segregation laws in many states. Slavery used to be perfectly legal ffs. And there are still many places where you can be put in jail for consuming (or just being in possession of) a plant.

Until Nintendo release a Virtual Console in which I continuosly own the digital games through each generation I will continue to emulate. It is becoming a joke now.

@Seacliff Don't even get me started on Paper Mario TTYD. That game frequently goes from anywhere between $70 to $100. Sheesh.

What gets me is that why do some folks brag about playing retro games on their phone, raspberry pi, PC or whatever for FREE, but they want to pay for these same games on Switch....? I'm not against playing ROMs on another device as I've done the same before, but if you're content with playing the same games for free, why pay for them?

Due to licensing etc., some games will never see the light of day in modern consoles, and contrary to hat some think, that's not up to Nintendo. So with these ROM sites, you pretty much have access to every retro game available(there are some exceptions and some emulators are tricky to run, but you get the picture) for free and if you're content with that I have a hard time believing why you would want to pay for these same games.

Let's not act like ROM sites didn't exist during the peak of the Wii VC days, lol because they did. You could make this same argument 10 years ago and download the same games on your PC for free.

Another thing, no one's entitled to Nintendo or any third party retro games. Should cross buy be a thing? Perhaps, but that's not something to take for granted. You can't blame Nintendo or third parties for wanting to squeeze as much juice out of that orange as possible.

As for me, I like the NESFlix style and no one likes to mention this, but we're getting a really good deal with the NES games. People complained before about $5 a pop for NES games, but don't like having access to a growing selection of NES games for $20/year? Retro collections like the SF 30th anniversary or the upcoming Genesis collection are also good. I just can't justify, for the most part, paying piece meal for retro games anymore.

Lastly, I also think Indies and games on eShop in general benefit from the lack of VC. I much rather have both options: a separate retro game sub service and a wide variety of Indies and downloadable third party games.

@KryptoniteKrunch It comes down to one thing for me: While I'm not against emulating, and in fact encourage it, I myself do not really care to emulate. I don't really have a good set up for it, don't have the technical know-how to tinker around with a Retro-Pie, and don't particularly enjoy emulating Nintendo games on my PC.
Basically, I like to take the path of least resistance, and that path, for me at least, is either Virtual Console, or actually owning the original hardware.
If Nintendo would just stop being so obtuse about releasing their own games beyond the NES on the Switch, without all the online hoops you gotta jump through, that would be a big win-win for everyone all around.

The kick in the teeth is having to pay over and over for games again and again, because reasons.

Games I bought for the iPhone in 2008 still play fine on my current device, My copy of SSX3 which I bought in 2003 still plays on my Xbox One.

Theee things can be done.

I just want the games on offer. Not on some plug and play toy taking up its own HDMI slot, I want them on the Switch. People have already started hacking to make that possible and once that scene has it down pat, I will resort to that if Nintendo continues to blow off this aspect of their own market.

I’d follow you through the gates of hell, @Damo

Top notch article.

Most of the time I only frequent the comments section as I get a perverse joy from getting angry at fanboy comments, this one is actually making me think of never coming back. I effing hate fanboys, some of the NDF nonsense here is mind boggling.

Nintendo should just release roms themselves on services like gog.com, or license it out to them.
It's obvious they can't be bothered to take their own legacy seriously so just let someone that does it well take care of it.

They can threaten to close as many sites as they want, but the roms are already out there. They can't remove them and they will just keep popping back up. Not to mention piratebay which seems to be immortal. So just offer people a legal, cheap and above all easy way to purchase them once and for all.

All excellent points. I foolishly hoped way back in the day that Nintendo would make thier entire back catalog available as a thank you to long time fans and as an introduction for new players. But no, they've gone the stupid way about it all along. This new offering is paltry at best and a shame. Nintendo Netflix would be an acceptable means and I'd go for it. But they do need to include as many of the old systems as possible on a technical level. And if they need to pursue license agreements, well, they need to get on that.

As for emualtion and piracy, the best deterrent is for Nintendo to provide such a service themselves, duh. They don't seem to think it's worth the time or effort but they are wrong. And it can't be all that difficult when one homebrewed program or app can run so very many rooms perfectly on loads of other platforms. Time to wake up and get on board nintendo

So, the writer is basically saying that Nintendo should give him what he wants in the manner he wants, or he will just steal it because he has the right to have everything he wants whenever he wants it. OK.

Although I agree with some things that the article says, I find most of the rest unrealistic, totally disconnected from the real business world and downright self entitled.

The entitlement in this article is astonishing. Nintendo doesn’t own you anything. You might agree or not, but they can do whatever they want with their property. You accept it or not, but that doesn’t give you any right to steal.

The “game history preservation” is only a very poor excuse for theft. Those games are preserved, you just want them in your possession.

I really think that Nintendo could and perhaps should do a better work in making available its catalog of classic games but just because I want something I can’t get in the way I want doesn’t mean that I can go an get it illegally.

It looks like we live in the age of self entitlement. We should own everything we want, shouldn’t we?

A thought occurred to me: I have loads of games on an SD card in my Wii; why not make it possible for me to put that card in my Switch and play those games?

I guess I really don't understand Nintendo either. They have to know people will line up to buy their classic games over and over again so why the hold out? As for piracy and all that, I personally wouldn't go for it but I cant be mad at the people who do. Nintendo is selfishly( for no reason that I can understand or justify) keeping all these games from us. They have to expect people to turn to this way of playing games if they cant purchase them on a Nintendo console..especially their latest and greatest.

I don't play many old games now a days, but I sure used to especially in the early days of the Internet. So I'm with ya.

Reggie Fils-Aime' (Pres. Nintendo U.S. & C.O.O.) needs to get his head out of his bum, the benefits of Nintendo Direct access combined with an actual library like Virtual Console and bam, but they won't, they have their heads so far up their bums, they're tickling their tonsils with their nose hairs,

it's the oldest rule in the book, "Demand & Supply", and when the consumer can't get what they want from one company, they will find someone else to give them what they want or take it for themselves (like downloading ROMs)

get on the ball Reggie

This is a wreckless article and needs to be taken down. You are advocating piracy and I will report this directly to Nintendo

@ilikeike Let me clarify. Third parties releasing retro games shows that there is a market for the Virtual Console.

@steventonysmith Maybe Nintendo will reward you with a 30% off coupon for a game you don't want.

@Spectra I believe Nintendo's policy is to always try to keep consumers in demand mode.

The NES mini and SNES mini were the perfect opportunities to add a virtual console back into the mix without clogging up their Switch ecosystem. All they needed was their own eShop, and cheap games.

I totally agree

I personally would want the Virtual console back, but the possibility to choose between the purchase or the subscription with both available would probably be the best so everybody could choose and have what they want.
I will NEVER pay a subscription anyway but other people could have different opinion I guess.

@steventonysmith I dare you

I have to be honest, I have tried Roms and I find them lacking in polish and execution. I am still a firm believer in physical cartridges though. I collect and maintain personal retro hardware and actively look for original game cartridges I find interesting for my various consoles. In fact I think this is one of the activities many will never know now that video game stores rarely sell used or old rental games outside of the crumbling Gamestop chain. We should examine the impact of the Virtual console and streaming older games and new titles.

If we step outside this market and look at the PC gaming environment obviously downloads are the rule and have been for many years as companies attempt to short sell into the market and cut costs in a frenzied attempt to continually update game software. This kamikaze approach which actually served the industry well in the early years in the form of shareware and demos eventually led to non-stop upgrades for PC users and a never ending cycle of having old hardware.

This financial drainer is one reason I stepped back into console gaming again as a way to manage my investment. Console games always work on their intended platform and development companies are in a longer cycle and tend to more fully flesh out and polish their games. Now we are seeing an attempt at blurring the distinction between console and PC markets as developers attempt to create this digital download platform as the new norm and while I find digital downloads okay they are a burgeoning problem yet to reveal itself.

I posit that if we fully embrace the streaming of games we are essentially letting developers and console makers off the hook in regards to delivering quality titles that are not bug ridden as the rush to get to market overtakes the need to create good content. The future will be a total bums rush of forgettable junk that tries to fill our Netflix appetite for unlimited games to play. Lets be realistic; how many PC games do you truly remember that you downloaded over the years outside of a few breakout hits like Doom, Diablo etc? I bet many of us remember more of the physical games because we have a tactile connection to the endless hours playing levels of games bought with limited funds and fervent anticipation. Nostalgia exists because there is a truth buried in the fuzziness of it all. We did have more fun and while some of it is situational we still come back to the retro games for good story-lines and solid game play.

Is Nintendo taking a zig-zag walk in regards to retro gaming? Yes they are and that approach embodies what Nintendo always has done. I would love to have old titles available to purchase that would be difficult if not impossible to find in a physical form. I really am not interested in a streaming pay to play platform because I am the one who shoulders the cost for a modern version of "vaporware"; something that exists only in an on-line sense and not physically available.

Now if Battle Toads comes on-line I may tweak my argument.

It's stupid decisions like this, are what make me glad to have a Super NT with an SD2SNES, nothing like seeing Snes games in HDMI while simulating them via FPGA. In other words, it looks better than the real thing and this flashcart has 99% compatibility, so...

@steventonysmith I already did. I tweeted a link to Nintendo UK. Gotta be honest I really hope they drop the hammer on them.

I want steady and permanent access to a virtual console and keep the content indefinitely; having a subscription/rental service is a crock of crap and only leads to potential shoddy services/unexpected rip offs later on. C’mon Nintendo; listen to your customers and stop cutting corners; give us a VC and we will pay for your content. How hard is it for these people to understand that?

@PanurgeJr or drop some decent vc games on the eshop

this article is NOT advocating piracy, it IS explaining why it is done and how best to defeat it is to give the people what they want.....

no body here is saying it's right, no one here is giving advice on who, how and where to be able to do it, almost everyone here has either just talked about why they did/would, or how they wish Nintendo would just help out by giving them the real thing,

no, there was NO "Advocating"

@KryptoniteKrunch For me, I like to see all the available options, with emulation being a last-resort.

The games I emulated before are either title never localized, or are not available digitally and are very expensive physically. If a game is expensive, but is in reason, then I might emulate it for a few hours to see if it's worth buying.

It also helps that the Switch is a very good candidate for VC. It's easily powerful enough to emulate anything up to the gamecube, it's portable, and it has a controller. If it was as simple as playing a game on my phone or on my computer screen, it's tedious to transfer the save files back and forth if I wanted to continue a game on my phone on the computer and vice versa.

I think disappointment in lack of VC isn't just that it's not available on other devices, but because the Switch is a really good device for it, and it's the worst time for Nintendo to simply stop supporting VC.

@steventonysmith Snitches get stitches and crybabies like you are less than spit, kiddo.

Another article where I've just got to say wow. This site's slipping.

@WiltonRoots what makes you say that?

Least everyone forget there things called License fees and if you don't get the license to publish it you don't get to publish it. Everything comes down to this. Nintendo publishes games they own but others they are licensed to Nintendo to publish.

@SwitchForce I don't think anyone is questioning how Nintendo can upload every single game they have ever published onto the eShop, but they certainly have more than 36 games a year for a service.

Pokemon Snap and Star Fox 64 were added to the Wii U eShop just a month before the Switch's release and after the announcement of the cancellation of production for the console. Not to mention that there are titles like Secret of Mana and FFVI not on the Wii U eshop, but were easily obtained anyways for the SNES classic, so it's not like they are not willing to go through any legal hopes for some of the most popular third-party titles.

@0rwellianson I doubt anyone is worried about your opinion of them, kiddo.

I just want more games and more systems, I dont mind subscribing, buying sounds good until you realize you bought the same games 3 VCs in the last 12 years.

@nintendobynature Yeah, no, the opinion of a fan site with a questionable journalistic track record now advocating piracy isn't going to change Nintendo's business model.

The problem is the piracy is so much more of an appeal for more than just being free. Playing roms and such, I can play together with friends online with more than just a couple of NES games and I can earn achievements on all my favourite Retro games.

@PanurgeJr I was only messing around with you. I'm not and never have downloaded any illegal games for the record. But I doubt Nintendo will actually do anything after NL gets reported. Well see i guess

Still waiting for Secret of Mana collection to be translated, my Japanese isnt good enough to play those.

But is there too much of a risk of making a loss paying someone to translate the obscure ones?

Some games are forever lost in the battle of rights and money, some emulation should be praised and promoted.

Of course, given the near-unanymous anti-piracy stance of the site's staff and userbase alike (@steventonysmith's comment in particular comes to mind, and the fact it's being taken seriously says a lot about our community), it comes to no one's surprise that this soapbox is "a tough one to write". Truth is, it's not tough as long as we're blunt about things.
The message is clear from the headlines alone - Nintendo keeps walking on thin ice seemingly on purpose for the sake of sticking to a nearly-suicidal strategy based on thresholds.
Think about it - Super Mario Maker itself, way less later than "the future" that was teased, only came to be after the Wii U started failing hard.
Same goes for the Wii U's own Virtual Console - which started gobbling up handhelds (DS and, most aggravatingly, the GBA, which never happened on 3DS as a result) for the same reason.
Meanwhile, we have the excellent ACA NeoGeo and Sega AGES lines which are Virtual Console(s) of their own, and the fact they even exist proves that yes, there is a demand which goes way farther than the "appetite" Reggie alluded to.
In other words, the Online Service owes much of its current sales (mine included) to the fact the NES has deliberately kept away from the userbase until it was actually needed to sell something else.
Which, given the vast majority of people keeping their gaming legal, is already a problem; now that Nintendo has started forcing their legal rights on ROM-sharing sites, it's becoming increasingly harder to side with Nintendo. Removing legal access to software is one thing, but going as far as removing all access to older games is another: it's not like my GameCube is going to work forever, after all, nor is yours and you know it.
If memory serves, it was Valve's own Gabe Newell who backed up their "insane" discount-heavy strategy (itself a double-edged sword, I know it has its disadvantages) with the words "Piracy can't defeat legal downloads when they prove to be the better alternative" - indeed, when you can just cough up a few bucks for an AAA game on PC, why bother pirating it?
I know you're going to go on a long-winded tirade deconstructing all my points in a later comment down the line, but face it: "why bother pirating" should be the de-facto implied tagline of Nintendo, and very much not in the "... because it's going to be bricked as soon as you even think about pirating" sense.
Again: I have paid for the Online Service, and I feel I'm not getting much out of the family account I've paid for. And buyer's remorse should, again, not be something ever associated to the word Nintendo itself. But it is, and unless either SNES or a lot of NES games start rolling around before next E3, I might want to disable the automatic renewal of the service, and regardless of whatever your stance on piracy is, it's still a disheartening thing for me to say and I'm just as sad to state this out loud as you are while reading my words.
We're getting Metroid this month, and then... what, exactly? Super Mario Bros. 2 and Kirby's Adventure will arrive in 2019, I guess. But regardless of the SNES controllers being among the datamined stuff in the Switch updates, the fact we still don't know jack is not a good thing. It's not like anyone is actually "holding out" and waiting for SNES being confirmed, anyway, not when doing so also prevents him/her from playing online.
I'm not going to ask for a refund or anything, I still have good faith in Nintendo, but merely because I want to do so. Bears repeating - I'm giving Nintendo faith that I don't feel I should give. Not the most complimentary statement. But not feeling like getting my money's worth... it hurts.
It hurts to see and to say that at least some of the piracy is a demon, figuratively speaking, that Nintendo themselves had a hand in creating; the fact that legality comes with extra restrictions, such as cloud save data not being supported by some games including titles that need it the most (Splatoon 2 and especially the upcoming "spinoffs that will never be officially known as such despite all evidence saying they are" Pokémon games, with Pokémon being itself a nasty piece of work what with the Pokémon Company incentivising cheating way more than they should) doesn't help matters at all.
I wish I could completely side against piracy. I really do. But as of now, I can't really say Nintendo is entirely in the right. They have legal right, but on a moral standpoint, a legal alternative should always be given in order to make piracy inherently bad.

Tl;dr: I keep it mostly legal, but it sucks to do so, and in turn it also sucks to say it, talking as a fan.

@Trajan
Emuparadise actually still allows downloads then? What?

@PanurgeJr if you didn’t care, you wouldn’t have commented, cupcake. Take a hike.

VC was a channel for third party historical content, NSO is not, Classics mini consoles are not. Nintendo has completely failed to consider retro gaming. Let me repeat, they are miles away from where they were a decade ago. They are not providing retro solutions. You have to go elsewhere.

@0rwellianson I'm just going to assume you don't get the irony of your comment, nor that people who say "take a hike" are the least worth listening to.

Between these type of clickbait headlines and your garbage reviews of indies giving them all 9 out of 10 you're becoming a laughing stock.

People seem to be really picky about a company's own property. "If you don't give us what we want we'll just pirate it."

Coupled with the fact that they protect their ip by releasing on their terms in their ways either to help market something or new ideas.
You think snes mini would have been as successful if the entire snes library was available on switch?

It's a privelage we get to play these games in the first place. It's not our place to negotiate as consumers and essentially blackmail them. We can voice our unhappiness with this or celebrate it. But threatening a business with illegal activity is not the strongest case, just because it's easy to do doesn't mean we should resort to it instead.

@sdelfin I can stand behind what you say and I appreciate your input. Everyone does have different tastes.

To be honest I don't have anything against emulation.
I always lived in Brazil, the economy here was always a mess and it will get a LOT worse now. (The crime rates are abnormal, the hospitals are a mess an the majority of the population don't have access to it, I can go on and on)
And if I want to play an older game that I already bought, I'll play on PC if I can.
Life has many problems as it is, and Emulation of Old games is not of them.
Don't take me wrong, I'll buy new games for new consoles all the time, I support the companies that I like. But I don't see emulation as a problem as people make it out to be.

@Crono1973 Yes, I think that's something we can both agree on! Apologies for the misunderstandings.

Really, Nintendo need look no further than their Mini Classic consoles to see that people really want their classic games. Let's hope that some resolution to this issue shows up, be it through a revised online subscription service, the old virtual console, collections, or some other form entirely.

@ilikeike I agree!!

@PanurgeJr keep telling yourself that, idiot.

It's really your own fault for not buying the games on the Wii Virtual Console when you had the chance. While you can't buy them anymore (unless you happen to have leftover Wii Points), those games are all still perfectly playable on your Wii or Wii U. Plus, there's a smaller selection still available on the Wii U and 3DS Virtual Consoles, not to mention the Classic Edition consoles. (It's also your own fault if you packed away your older systems just because you've got a shiny new Switch to play on.) There's still no need for piracy!

@tedko Wait wait wait. You are complaining about people comparing the issue of legality with unrelated things like murder but in the very next comment you compare it to unrelated things like slavery.
This HAS to be a joke.

I emulate all I can. But when I couldn't get Albert Odyssey or Panzer Dragoon Saga to emulate well I went ahead and bought a Saturn.

@SwitchForce I hear that Nintendo charges Nintendo large license fees for Super Mario World and Yoshi's Island! /s

@NewAdvent Backwards compatibility once again would be nice, but it's not ultimately necessary. Nothing is stopping you from just playing "A Link to the Past" on your 3DS instead of your Raspberry Pi. As long as you keep your data backed up, you only need to buy the digital version of a game once (or twice for the $2 Wii U feature upgrade), and you'll always have access to it. In your case, you really didn't need to buy any digital copies at all and just settled for your SNES and GBA versions. Gamers who don't bother to keep their old systems around are absolute fools!

@ilikeike NIntendo knows and has known for years what fans want and they refuse to deliver it. I am done 'hoping' that they get their head back on properly. I believe that they do the things they do on purpose and with full knowledge. Another poster above believes that consumers aren't supposed to negotiate with corporations, we are supposed to just feel privileged about what they give us. Nintendo thinks this way too I believe.

@Syrek24 Some of you believe that game journalism should be slaves to the game corporations.

I'm no huge fan of the "Big N" (or "Ninty", as our Euro Superiors call it), but I don't begrudge them their power to cut off distribution of game data for their hardware.

However, I also don't expect them to be able to stop everybody from seeking out ways to subvert their draconian practices.

@SKTTR While this is true, you're still not entitled to free entertainment just because it's not legally available. If a rare retro game can't be found on a digital service, in a used game store, or an online auction site (and if is available online but too expensive for you, too bad, that's just how free markets work), then gamers need to accept the fact that they are just simply unable to play that game.

@link12684 While you can't download Wii VC games anymore, you can certainly still play the ones you have. As long as you keep your data backed up, you certainly do own those VC purchases and can play them for however long you like.

@BulbasaurusRex Until your Wii dies, you can't play them on any Wii other than one they are registered to.

They need to make a real retro console that plays nes snes GBA GBC GB n64 and GameCube. They need to re release hard copies of all the games in some cool sized cartridge format, probably half the size of snes or maybe GBA size. This would sell like nothing else on the planet, complete with manual art books and posters and a glossy cardboard packet.

Licence to print money Nintendo.

@BulbasaurusRex Which Nintendo console or handheld can I download Lufia 2 on?

@AlexSora89 No, I'm saying brcause I couldn't I just downloaded the entire batch as a torrent. Took 2 mins. Quicker than hunting for individual files.

I did use emuparadise for my SNES mini, and playing f-zero 15 years ago at school.

Also according to the poll, most people emulate. Or have done so.

I see that some people are still defending Nintendo's bad decisions although I'm happier to see few and fewer do it.

I would like a virtual console myself. I don't want every game ever made, I just want to be able to buy the exact ones I want and keep them for more than one console. Not even forever. Just give me something Nintendo.

@BulbasaurusRex Don't worry, I pay for my games. And I can wait for the few that are unobtainable at the moment. I bought 97 VC games for Wii and 56 VC games for Wii U. I bought retro collections like Samurai Shodown Anthlogy on Wii disc and retro remakes like Bubble Bobble Plus! on WiiWare to get some of my favourite older games. I took my chance to buy 90% of the retro stuff I ever wanted. The other 10% I can wait for. It also helped that I already amassed huge SNES, Game Boy, N64, Gamecube, Wii, and Wii U collections with all the best games. The main bases are covered.

If you sold your wii u ... then get hold of another one... and get all the awesome virtual console games you could ever wish for. Lately I've been playing DKCT and Super Metroid. LONG LIVE THE WII U

@Crono1973 Cute how you call this fan site "journalism". Remember, it was @damo who thought it was a good idea to take and tweet a picture of Kamiya at E3 while he was asleep. That's the sort of thing that doesn't even occur to actual journalists.

@Syrek24 Just shut the f*** up. Nobody cares what you have to say. Quit being a d*** white knight, get off your high horse, and get over yourself.

@PanurgeJr My comment wasn't limited to this site. Some of you want the game companies to control games journalism.

@PanurgeJr And get over yourself, too.

@BulbasaurusRex Sure, fine, we, as gamers, are not entitled to play every game ever made. Fine. I mean, yeah, that's true... But so what?

We're just supposed to go "ho-hum, I can't speak Japanese, guess I'll never play Mother 3, because I'm not entitled to ever be allowed to play it."

That's about the most stupid thing, ever. Sorry, but it is.

@Leej07 What a subtle yet powerful argument that has surely persuaded me that a rando I've never interacted with is worth heeding.

Sorry to make a third post in rapid succession, but I've realized the heart of this issue.

You limit piracy by competing with it in a matter of convenience. This is done in two ways. You make your product more convenient or you make piracy more inconvenient. Nintendo has fully embraced making piracy inconvenient through its intense efforts to remove their ROMs from more prominent ROM sites. Where I used to download old (and owned) favorites to share with my cousin (vs risking old, expensive hardware during transportation), I can barely find anything quickly now. The issue with Nintendo is that they are making piracy inconvenient, but also making access hilariously inconvenient. NES and SNES Mini's were horribly underproduced, VC/NSO resets for each console and is drip fed (despite taking almost no effort beyond constructing a proper emulator except cases accounting for additional on-chip hardware). Nintendo is competing against and offering poorer offerings than were previously available on the market. I don't think it's unreasonable to criticize Nintendo on this. The reality is that there is a means for consumers to get their hands on the games, even if it is illegal. Nintendo would be best to realize that they can't completely stop it, but chooses to try and stop it while not providing a legitimate alternative either.

@PanurgeJr Dude, I'm ignoring you now, because I'm tired of you. Ta-ta.

@SomeBitTripFan You've hit the nail on the head.

HOW WILL I SLEEP TONIGHT KNOWING @Leej07 IS IGNORING ME?!?!?!?!?!?

@Crono1973 Then I just get another one and contact Nintendo to transfer my account. Sure, there could be a better process, but the process does exit. Eventually, there will also be clone consoles of the Wii and Wii U and also a more user friendly way to transfer your account.

As for "Lufia II," there's no way to legally download it, so you'll just have to find a used copy of either the original SNES version or DS remake in a used game store or online. If you can't find it, then you'll just have to accept that you can't play it, since you aren't entitled to free entertainment just because it's otherwise unavailable.

@BulbasaurusRex "Then I just get another one and contact Nintendo to transfer my account."
You... can't do that though.
Even so, after January, what would transferring your account do? You wouldn't be able to redownload the games once the Wii Shop fully closes.

@BulbasaurusRex I doubt you will be able to transfer your Wii purchases to a new Wii anymore. Let me know when you successfully do it but until then, I just don't see it happening especially after the Wii shop closes in a few months.

Eventually there will be clone consoles of the Wii and Wii U? Not anytime soon for the Wii (I haven't even seen a clone N64 yet) and I doubt we will ever see a clone Wii U due to the Gamepad being required to use it. We couldn't even get third party Gamepads and we won't get a third party Wii U with a third party Gamepad in the future either.

You sure do go out of your way to inconvenience yourself for Nintendo's sake, most people won't do that.

Sigh

@Leej07 Yes, you are, and it's not stupid at all. It's just common sense. Either learn Japanese and get the official version of "Mother 3," or you can read an online transcript of the fan translation if you really just want to know the story. There's no issue with the translation itself as long as it's not part of the game.

Unfortunately, due to the village of transvestites, "Mother 3" will probably never see a Western release, as cultural differences would cause it to get an M (or equivalent) rating in the West, which would kill the sales potential with what is already a niche series; or they'd have to butcher the story with censorship and get lambasted for doing so.

the only solution to vc is to put classic games on cartridges make them into collection of sorts like snk and sega are doing.

Best read on NL in a while. I can't say I disagree with you on anything mwntioned. Spot-on.

I've been a Nintendo fan since I got a NES when I was 5. I loved the virtual console on Wii and even paid the $1 to transfer my games to my Wii U. I was looking forward to picking up a SNES mini, but the ridiculousness of the supply made me give up and just emulate all the old SNES games I wanted on my PC.

My wish is that this is the last NL article on the subject of pirating, but I know deep down that’s an unrealistic thought.

All that articles like this does, is creating anger and hostility. This community is getting more and more toxic everyday and many of the articles seems to be written to contribute to such a climate. It’s really such a shame and it doesn’t matter if you try to hide it under this ”soapbox” banner: it still creates that effect.

But you’re only in it for the clicks, I guess.

@Crono1973 @Seacliff Of course you still can! That's a service that will always exist and in no way requires active servers. I wouldn't need to redownload the games, because a parallel account transfer doesn't require it if you've got the game downloads (and save data) backed up, which I do. I'd just get Nintendo to transfer my account, backup my data once again, pop in my SD Card, and continue to enjoy my games.

There will be such clone consoles EVENTUALLY, as in decades from now, and there's no reason the GamePad can't be copied like any other peripheral at that point of the future. The supply of existing used official consoles will hold until then.

No, most people with extensive digital collections will go through such an inconvenience, simply because they're law-abiding citizens and have been prepared for years for such an eventuality. Besides, it's just as inconvenient to try and find working ROMs for all of those games, particularily your WiiWare games, plus you'd lose all your save data.

@BulbasaurusRex Once you have transferred all your Wiiware and Wii VC games without redownloading them, let us know. Also, you are talking about possible clone consoles decades from now, get out of here. Your solutions aren't helpful.

I have a question. Where are the manuals for the Nintendo Switch Online NES games?

I agree with Damien. Every sentence in this article is true and makes sense and it's valiant of him to write this as a NL employee. How easy is to play Nintendo games on a mobile phone with a proper controller and how difficult on a Nintendo platform!

@BulbasaurusRex Dude, here's a heads up: The Mother 3 fan translation literally could not have existed in the first place without a downloaded ROM. In fact, virtually no fan translation of any Japanese exclusive game can be created without a ROM being downloaded somewhere.

By your logic, then, fan translations cannot be allowed to exist. They just can't.

They could release every game they've ever published on the Switch eShop this week (rather, every game they have the rights to or can easily get permission to use) and they would make millions of dollars overnight and into perpetuity.

P.S. Port/remaster Baten Kaitos and Origins to Switch soon so people can buy it to show support and give the green light to the developers for Baten Kaitos 3!!!

@Crono1973 They aren't there. Nintendo couldn't even be bothered to recreate proper digital manuals for the games, some of which practically REQUIRE a manual to even understand in the first place.

@backlogrob problem is that namco owns the rights to the first 2 games of baten.

@Leej07 Are you serious? They have a website with both the electronic and printed manuals for the NES Classic games but they couldn't be bothered to copy the relevant ones over and scan in the new ones for their online service??? For example, Solomons Key comes out tomorrow on the service so I thought I would read the manual tonight.

Why do people defend this company?

Normally, I'm on board with the idea of "owning" rather than "renting" or subscribing to a service. I'd rather own my own books, movies, music, video games, etc. But when it's a digital game which I'll probably play once, then never again, I'm fine with a subscription based service. I just want to play Super Metroid on my Switch. That's all. But until then, Yo-Ho, me laddies!

@Crono1973 If you wonder why people defend Nintendo, why are you at a fan site? (Psst: the answer is that you're an antiNintendo zealot.)

@PanurgeJr So, in your mind, being critical of Nintendo should never happen even when they can't even be bothered to give us digital manuals for 30 year old games that they put on their online service?

@PanurgeJr So people that enjoy some Nintendo games should approve every ridiculous Nintendo's business decision and customer service failure?

I’ve just hacked my SNES Classic Mini and went to town with SNES roms. I own a Retron 5 and original carts, but the portability factor of the SNES Mini can’t be beat. I can take the system, cables and both controllers in a tiny box to my friend’s house and away we go.

The only better medium I can think of is the Switch. If Nintendo are out of touch with what they should achievably be providing us as far as retro games are concerned, I’ll take the initiative myself.

They are going backwards IMO.

Gabe Newell of Steam fame said it best

We think there is a fundamental misconception about piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem. For example, if a pirate offers a product anywhere in the world, 24/7, purchasable from the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal provider says the product is region-locked, will come to your country three months after the U.S. release and can only be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the pirate's service is more valuable.

"Most DRM solutions diminish the value of the product by either directly restricting a customer's use or by creating uncertainty."

In this case, Nintendo's service is not good enough.

i think not owning these nes games on the online service might not be so bad for one they dont take up any space on our systems besides we all know digital games take a huge chunk out console memory space reason why i stick to physical dont mind downloading only ones worth downloading.

Nintendo's maddening stance on retro gaming Is driving me insane! Why Switch offer even less options than 3ds or wii U? And NES games are just crap in this time and age.

Relevant video from Jim Sterling:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA8xrgLqQZ8

there should be a choice for both like Xbox does it.

Aw jeez. I don't condemn anyone doing what they want blah blah and I don't deny the lack of retro games supplied by Nintendo at this current time but game lovers please!

We don't have to play every single game that ever released on every device known to man and woman.

And because someone isn't providing a service you want it doesn't 'force you' to do it.
You can sure but I keep seeing this and it makes the entire community sound like a bunch of entitled crybabys with excuses coming out the ying yang lol.

@DABYX Aw jeez. I don't condemn anyone doing what they want

....but if you use a word I don't approve of like 'force', I will condemn that.

You can sure but I keep seeing this and it makes the entire community sound like a bunch of entitled crybabys with excuses coming out the ying yang lol.

You know, trying to shame people rarely, if ever, works.

@BlueOcean First, nobody has shown that the lack of a Virtual Console is either a ridiculous business decision or customer service failure. Second, I never said (or even implied) that anyone must defend all of Nintendo's actions. I was critiquing the opposite view, actually. A quick perusal of @Crono1973 's comments here, or any familiarity with his comments elsewhere (which I have, courtesy of his voluminous trolling) will allow you to conclude that his opinion is that he questions why anyone could defend any of Nintendo's actions; that he thinks everything they do is worthy of criticism. In Crono's mind everything they do is wrong. That he believes that and yet populates a fan site is the mark of a zealot. That is what I was saying.

But by all means, don't let anything get in the way of believing people fall into place in your narrative.

@Crono1973 First point, well yea. No one is forcing anyone to do anything and it's all I ever see when people talk about it online.
I'm sure it's probably just a turn of phrase by some or most but if I can't hear how you say it then it makes it seem like you're entitled.
In my opinion.
Without knowing the person.

And I'm not trying to make anything work, just drives me nuts and thought I'd comment my first thought opinion like we all do

@PanurgeJr So uh, what do you think about NIntendo not even offering manuals for the NES games on the Switch?

@BlueOcean @Leej07 @Crono1973 @0rwellianson It's amazing that it never seems to occur to most people that a corporation that has been in business since the nineteenth century has a reason behind every action they take. I assure you that they do. So everyone who thinks I'm blindly supporting Nintendo, please tell me why you think Nintendo doesn't have a Virtual Console on Switch. @damo, please tell everyone why you think they don't have a Virtual Console. Because they have a reason. Right or wrong, good decision or bad decision, tell me what you think it is.

Anyone who says "because they don't like money" is immediately disqualified.

@Crono1973 The same thing I thought about them not offering a manual for Breath of the Wild. Or Sony not offering a manual for The Last of Us Remastered. Keep up with this line of argument if you want to undermine yourself.

26 people voted for question 1 and 3, but not 2. Lmao.

@PanurgeJr So I am guessing here that you do not think it's ok to not provide manuals. So why did you attack me when I said the same thing? Is this a personal thing with you now?

@BulbasaurusRex your Lufia II comment was hilarious because, the thing is, I can get it. That's the entire point of this article. We live in an age where we can get most things we want if it's not offered. I don't see anything wrong with that. Since they're not providing a way for me to purchase said product their not losing out on any money if I choose to d/load it and play it on Retro-Arch across a myriad of other devices.

If they make said product, be it Lufia II or any other retro game the community wants officially available via whichever channels they choose I would gladly purchase the product to support their efforts and medium. Hence one of the reasons I pay for their online service, I'm actually enjoying a few of the NES games.

All it takes is one look at at the poll on this very article to see over 80% of people use emulation or have used emulation, whatever the reason may be. You can talk about taking the high road all you like but the reality is there are many simple options available out there and the solution is to provide a legal alternative method.

Nintendo should just make a program that is simply NES emulator.
Sell it with the "classic mini NES" games list, and add extra games as DLCs.
If done correct, Nintendo only needs to modify the program to run on another platform when it becomes necessary.

And if Nintendo is really clever they could work with ROM sites.
That way they can remove ROMs that are being sold and keep an eye on what people are downloading.

Now that does not make the ROMs legal in any way.
But if Nintendo can use this site to figure out what the market wants, well that could be good for the market.

And the Market will turn to crime if a product is not available.
And that a bad thing for everyone.

Interesting article Damien, and a subject that seems to be in the limelight off and on especially with Nintendo's anemic offerings on Switch (and previously on Wii U and Wii). It's a subject that should be talked about. Yes, I've played a few ROMs myself despite having a collection of hundreds of classic physical games including NES, SNES, N64, Gamecube, Wii, Wii U, Switch, GameBoy, GBA, DS, 3DS, Xbox, 360, XboxOne, PSOne, PS2, PS3, PS4, Vita, Genesis, GameGear, and other consoles and games.

It's interesting how there seem to be a few people debating different sides of this topic. You typically have those with large collections that are fine without Nintendo re-releasing anything as they already have it all or all that they want. You also have the group that has some but wants it available on more sources like Switch or their phone and are willing to pay for it. And then there is the last group that sometimes claims to have "given Nintendo enough money" and is content with not paying for anything. I've heard arguments that "these are old games that should be free" and many other rationalizations on why they are okay with free libraries. And to a point I sympathize. Nintendo only makes available a few of their titles at a time sometimes using emulation to sell you their games on each console from the Wii, Wii U, 3DS, and possibly more going forward. And some of these old titles are very rare and priced very high with resellers profiting on them not Nintendo at this point, which is the way it is so I suppose I'm okay with that.

I like Nintendo's offering so far with Switch Online, but I believe they need to expand it to include SNES, N64, and potentially GameCube and Wii in the near future. Personally I would be okay with a Microsoft Game Pass style offering for these titles where you pay $10/mo and have access to hundreds of titles. But I also want the option to buy some so that I have them on my console forever. I have many of the titles I would rebuy if they were available. Some even justify that Switch Online at $20/yr is just an overpriced VC collection when that is only one facet of the service including cloud saves, online play (that sure we had for a very long time for free, even though they warned us from the beginning), and future discounts as well. I get that the service is new, only weeks old now, but it can use some tuning with a lot more content. I mean I and likely many others would be content if they did nothing more than provide all NES, SNES, and N64 titles that were available previously on the Wii Virtual Console to those paying for Switch Online or Switch Game Pass. And this is coming from someone who despite owning hundreds of old cartridges would still pay for Switch Online or a Netflix style library of games if it were available.

@electrolite77
If responses were gold, yours would be solid, 24 carat.

I do not know whether to yawn or lol at these preachy little scabs on this post. If they sold us the games there would be no need for emulation, but alas they do not and yes I am entitled to do so.

@Crono1973 you won't get SNES games for the current price. Nintendo has been very clear for a while now that you will get a growing library of NES games

People need to chill out on emulation. Emulation is not a devil, as mentioned previously the majority of the publishers have absolutely no revenue with the games as the only thing sold is used copies that sell for stupidly amounts of money (that I can agree that is sort of a crime). When you have a laptop and can easily have 20/30 years of gaming in it off course 90% of people will do it. Finally companies can try but emulation, ROMs and torrents will Never go away (good luck on it)

@0rwellianson I find the site a lot more clickbaity than it used to be, and I find it a bit odd that such a non issue is worth writing an article over, but then I remembered it’s all about the clicks.

@WiltonRoots ehhhhh. -shrugs-

@0rwellianson Yeah that was my exact thought when I saw the article.

@WiltonRoots great minds indeed think alike.

Nintendo always want to fight piracy but all they do is making people with at least some common sense angry and ENCOURAGE piracy that way, they literally INSTIGATE it, while the most effective way to fight piracy is to discourage it.
People love their games so much that they wouldn't even need to be 100% fair, the price of their games can even be slightly bigger than other games and many people still buy them.

I can accept that, I can accept to pay "a little bloated" prices (to pay to ACTUALLY BUY something I mean, not to just have "access" to something for a limited period), but nothing worse than that.

Now they are not simply unfair with just the amount of money they ask, the method itself is completely unfair and exploitative imo.
The method imo is much worse than simply the amount of money.
A simple price to buy something can be considered eccessive, but if I choose to pay it I do so just once and after that I don't even think about it again.
The price is unfair, but at least the seling method is not.

What Nintendo is doing now is completely unacceptable imo.
It is very hard to leave their games and their console behind for me, but I cannot do otherwise. I can't accept what they are doing to me and all other customers with Switch.

If you pirate games, you don't tell everyone in the world about it. Do it in private, don't write an article about it.

As an artform, gaming has a shelf life that is determined by the move of technology. I love the GC but playing those games now isn't as easy as just plugging in the console. I need a compatible TV or some sort of mod for newer TV's. I need to maintain all the gear and that is just ONE console.

For people with no interest in retro gaming then sure, not a big deal in the same way lots of people are not interested in watching movies from the 60's or something. However, if Dr No was no longer available legally, Bond fans would be pirating the film to watch it. Like movies, old games are a window into current games. Citizen Kane is a film that many film afficionados like to have because it shows so many techniques that became staples of modern films. Same with retro games.

They need to be available and I think with the power of hardware these days, there is no reason why all manufacturers and publishers can't make these libraries available for those that want ot experience them.

It blows my mind that the online service was delayed for a year and it's painfully lacking. NES games are all they're going to offer? Tie that alongside a stupidly lacking release schedule of games overall for this year, nothing whatsoever in regards to big third party releases other than 10 year old ports. Nintendo really know how to mess up a good thing that they've had for the first year or so. All they've made me realise is that,I will spend more time with my ps4/ps3 when I get available game time. Just started red dead redemption on ps3 as I never finished it and I think I'll pick up the new one in a couple weeks time. Nintendo you can keep your NES games 'offerings'. It's embarrassing frankly 🤨

Honestly though, retro game file sharing will continue. All Nintendo did was drive it off of dedicated sites that could profit from this. filesharing gives no one any money. People who go far enough are like this author. People who will find things like this usually do it to get something old/obscure or new/unreleased in their region. If it is old we know the money won't go to the company, so just get it online. If it is new or unavailable, we are such super fans of that thing that we want it NOW and will buy the proper version later should it come.

That is just the thing, we will support official means. Until then nothing can stop this.

Also let us not pretend like the VC was good. After years they finally put SNES games on the N3DS VC and still won't do it for GBA. Meanwhile the WiiU got pokemon snap, a beloved game, in the console's twilight moment. They've never put enough effort in, and this new system is just the same. If they were really gung ho about this whole thing they'd release the top 50 grossing games from each console in the past up to Wii as VC titles(minus any remakes on 3DS, WiiU or Switch). The reason is honestly that these games wouldn't sell enough to make it worth the development time for many titles. How many people ACTUALLY want to pay any amount of money for a mario 3 emulation? It just isn't good enough.

I suspect they will expand beyond the NES in time for the subscription, but don't expect them to go fast. Financially this is the safest move, but not the one that will make a splash. Headlines don't always equate money.

In the meantime, just fileshare all you want, Nintendo doesn't actually care that much about it until money is involved or their IP is being used. Those game ROMS and EMUs still exist, it isn't like the sky is falling.

NES
SNES
Satellaview
N64
64DD
Gamecube
Wii
Wii U
Game Boy
Virtual Boy
Game Boy Color
Game Boy Advance
DS
3DS
Someday... one day... a service with games from all of these systems.

A fool's dream.

God, 324 comments! The righteous NL fanboys are out in force I see! 🙄

My opinion? Pirate as much as you like! Nintendo can't stop it, simple Google search and you can find everything again to download. I'm not gonna stop, even if I have all consoles going back to the NES.

Get off your high horses folks.

Nope. Done with NL and the internet for a while.

Things an adult would do:
-Support companies who put out good products even though they can be greedy.
-Provide valid criticisms to the company or other fans
-Use any of the existing VC, mini, or classic systems
-Hell, even pirate begrudgingly (if a game can't be obtained any other way like FE 4 etc).

Things a 14-year old forever incel would do:
-This NL story
-80% of this comment section

I'd rather be on a high horse then sound like I live in my mom's basement

If Nintendo had done the typical Virtual Console, the cost of all the games available is well more than the £20 they are asking for. NES games cost about £4 -£5 on the Wii U virtual console. 23 NES games would cost you about £100 on the Virtual Console.

@R_Champ
"Things an adult would do:
-Support companies who put out good products even though they can be greedy.
-Provide valid criticisms to the company or other fans
-Use any of the existing VC, mini, or classic systems
-Hell, even pirate begrudgingly (if a game can't be obtained any other way like FE 4 etc)."

An adult wouldn't do any of this.
An adult would not care about games at all, would not care about nothing at all for himself, he would only care about being useful to other members of his family, being used by society and pirating games if his children ask for them so he can give them things spending less money at least until they annoy him so much for the real thing that he cannot give them pirated games anymore and is forced to buy them original games.
If kids don't go so far that he is forced to buy them original games and that they prefer to buy a single original rather than have thousands of pirated games, then it means that they will probably forget soon about games and don't care about them that much: a sign that they will probably become adult very soon and would think only about being used by society and by their family, not about things to have for themselves and their own enjoyment anymore.
That's how awesome being adult is.

I just think it's funny how the same people that will call out how greedy a company is will use illegal means to get what they want.

Headline is ridiculous. "Look what you made me do." If you're going to pirate old games, it's your choice, no one is "driving you" to it.

The best way to fight piracy, is to actually give people a decent, no-fuss and reasonably priced opportunity to get what they want.

Piracy will never be eliminated. For many people, "free" will always beat "not free" (there are people who torrented games offered in a $1 bundle on Humble Bundle for f sake. $1 !!!!).

That being said, if we want to reduce piracy, companies will need to start thinking of their back catalogues like how people think of them as well. Most people buy their music once (those who still buy it anyways), and it usually can be played on various devices. Music doesn't cease to be playable when you upgrade your music player or phone. Movies on DVD are still playable in Blu-Ray players. Why? Because they're usually sold in a "universal" format.

Games from the past need to be treated in a similar manner. In fact, files like ROM files are the equivalent of MP3 files (or FLAC, or whatever format you prefer) for music. You should be able to buy these games, and be able to have a "player" for them on various devices.

Now, I know most companies would never do this, because it opens the gates to people messing with their IPs through hacking, and if people can get unofficial emulators for those, who knows what could happen, as you can't provide a guarantee something would work ok on a software you didn't make yourself... But then again, it's the same with music... Nothing prevents people from using the player they want, with various features sometimes affecting the sound output greatly. And people are ALREADY doing that with old roms anyways...

Anyways... I don't know how companies will end up working this out, but I still think that a transition to a model similar to this would be needed at some point if companies want to truly reduce piracy and ROM sharing. Otherwise, it's a fight (against piracy) they will never win.

When there's no excuse to pirate games, or when it's easier getting content legally than pirating games, piracy will stay marginal, and most won't even bother.

Nintendo does not owe any of you self entitled Waluigis the ability to play games from decades ago. Does it make sense on a business level to just do it? Sure. But the don't owe you anything. They sold you a modern system that is both portable and a home console, they have released an amazing stream of both new games, ports and Indies. So if you badly want to play old games go be an illegal pirating piece of poop or buy the original systems and games

@steventonysmith yeah some are illegal pirating pieces of poop and some others like to be treated like poopie by companies that are not only unfair but even stupid and blind in the ways they choose to be unfair.
You are free to choose what you prefer of course.

@PanurgeJr My first console was the SNES. I can't be the only one here that did not play NES because I was playing with pencils and play dough. Unless you have been playing NES games back in the day you need (digital) manuals now for NES games.

NES games were designed when instructions booklets were a given. Breath of the Wild is not a good example, it explains everything to you while playing. You can't compare the lack of manual in The Legend of Zelda and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

I tell you, NES games are usually hard for people that have not played them in the 80s, although for me the real problem is the controls and lack of nostalgic value. I can't beat the first screen of Mega Man 1 or go far in Metroid 1, or I lack the required patience. I can beat Super Mario Bros. 1, 2 and 3 without cheating though.

I never say anything cruel about NES games because I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, but they have aged badly and even people that have enjoyed them back in the day are tired of them if this comments section is to be believed. We don't want to wipe NES games off the face of the earth, just to have the option to play anything else.

I don't care if they call it Virtual Console or not. I voted for a mixed approach on the poll, like on Xbox where you can buy games and/or subscribe to a "Netflix of games".

Nintendo's legacy is probably the most significant in the gaming world but the lack of anything other than NES games on Switch is outrageous.

Wii had NES, SNES and N64 on the first day of the Virtual Console. Switch has NES. It's absolutely ridiculous, no wonder people hack their Switch consoles or play on a phone/tablet what Nintendo doesn't want to give them.

Switch release was delayed and Nintendo Online was delayed too for nothing. All they had prepared was a Wii U port.

"digital-only future is a scary one" Keep in mind that in most countries, physical games aren't available or are extremely expensive. In my case, as I live in a 3rd world country, digital games were a salvation.

@Trikeboy Most people only play a few of them so they would only buy a few of them.

@Crono1973 You only need to play 5 of them to break even on the price off the online service.

@Trikeboy I only play 3 of them. Also, you have to renew the rental fees every year so in 5 years you will pay $100 for 3 games and still won't be able to play them after the online service goes down.

I still have not gotten Nintendo Online because I just personally don't feel enough is being offered to make me want to purchase it. I have NES & SNES classic's, so it's doubtful there are going to be too many games that could sway me anytime soon especially when we are being drip fed classic titles. Also I have a slew of old games sitting on my shelves and I just don't have the systems to play them anymore because my old systems have gone bad, and not afraid to pick up a rom to play games i own because older systems just won't last forever, and getting a replacement system to play them is difficult. Even if you get an actual SNES or NES they are old systems and could still go out, and things like retrons generally suck and don't work very long it seems. They need to ramp up more game additions to the library to tempt me in. Having the option to play online on my other games has not been enough yet to make me want to pick up the online services because I hardly ever got online anyways. I hope maybe with early adopters bringing in some money to the sub service, maybe they will then put that money back into the service to make it better at least.

@Trajan
I'm starting to fear we'll need these ROM packs soon, if we have to take preservation into our hands. Unless Nintendo is willing to turn the tables, of course.

@AlexSora89 Anyone that cares should probably download them anyway, just in case. I don't care about NES (despite it being the first system that was actually mine), and I have a SNES classic with all the games I want on it (my real SNES needs a fuse replaced, even then, HDMI). I physically own all of the great N64 games, and all of the GC ones. But easy .rar packs as a back up is probably good for everyone.

I don't see what you mean with the hacked Zelda?

@Trajan
I meant that from the wasteland that is the 3 NES games per month format, we're taking a step in the right direction. Official hacked NES games would give value to the Switch Online Service, which - let's face it - needs it.

I've never seen a company so against giving their customers what they want and making money from it. As much as I love Nintendo's games they seriously need to change their ways. After the failure of the WiiU I expected them to come out swinging with the Switch. Now we have no VC, No Miiverse, silly app needed for voice chat, paid online, no Netflix or other streaming apps and a lousy 3 NES games a month. Makes one think Nintendo is trying to lose customers.

@steventonysmith Do you know how much an EFFING SNES GOES FOR? Just shut up.

@Leej07
About $60-70 get a job

@steventonysmith I have a f***ing job, idiot. Still can't afford one, because that's too damn expensive for 30 year old technology that should be dirt cheap if it weren't for all the fanboys wanting one. How about you f*** off while you're ahead.

@Leej07
I'm sorry you may need to work a second job if$60 or 70 is too much for you

Forgetting all the "Hurr durr, Piracy is eviler than Nazis" crap, what Nintendo is doing is just shockingly anticonsumer. It was much better in this regard when Iwata was still president, and I firmly believe he would never have allowed a service this shoddy to get out the gate without MAJOR restructuring. His two successors have clearly shown they just don't care what their own customers actually WANT.

@Leej07
It's weird when a company cares about the majority and not the loudest whinest minority. If you don't like what is on offer use that job of yours and buy a PS4

@GrailUK I definitely agree with some of your points, but some of us want to see a plethora of Nintendo first party stuff. I also agree with you that there's such a high value to these games it would mean that a Netflix style services wouldn't serve them well. I just wish they would just let us buy the games we love & we could keep them forever - I hate the idea of non ownership when it comes to games.

@Seacliff
Those were the titles I saw on Ebay and craigslist for like $20. But that's probably craigslist being suspicious as usual.

This article reflects my own views perfectly. Thank you.

@Ensemen when did I compare it to slavery? I was pointing out that morality is not the same as legality.

@RadioHedgeFund it's called greed, simple as.

Unpaid shills really are the best shills.

What an odd statement. No one is making you do anything. You're deciding on your own to pirate the games, you can't hold Nintendo responsible for that.

I'm curious how a Venn diagram would look between "Piracy Advocates" and "Artists/Content Creators"?

This is merely conjecture and anecdotal, but it seems like most who more vocally encourage piracy tend not to be the types who make things themselves (or see a disconnect between their type of creative work and what they feel is "allowed" to be pirated).

Personally, I could never, in good conscience, encourage folks. As an artist myself, I know that I'd like to make sales on the things I toiled over. And the last thing I need is to have folks kick my pedestal from right under me.

@DTFaux Music is always available though. Video games are not.

My professor wrote a book. It's been out of print for 15 years now. He pirated his own book for the class.

@KoopaTrooper its pretty sad as Nintendo this year is high on their horse and actively going against the fans. Last year they were spot on.

I guess the best we can hope for is repeated failures for Nintendo to make them try.

@tedko Yes and the other guy was pointing out that stupid reasons don't justify something illegal. You were both making a point by drawing an exagerated comparison.

@DTFaux On the contrary, I've heard from multiple game devs and programmers recently who have no issue at all with their older games being distributed as ROMs now, because they're otherwise in some cases extremely difficult or even impossible to acquire in any legal way.

I do have a question for everybody here who's against ROMs and pirating, though.

If a game is completely impossible to acquire, in any legal manner, whatsoever, completely impossible to purchase on Ebay, and will never be released, ever again, for any reason, is it wrong to distribute a ROM of it?

Before you say this is a ridiculous example, I shall point out the Satellaview, which was a Japan only satellite based game streaming service, and its games are completely impossible to obtain legally.

@I_Am_A_Geek If any of those titles are $20 on ebay, then they are either lacking a case or are not done with bidding.

Check the same games under 'buy now', or even ones close to done with bidding.

@Leej07 There were some late wonderswan games released in 2006 that had only had a few hundred copies ever produced.

So it's not even that ridiculous of an example with physical in mind.

@Seacliff That's very true. There are a myriad of legitimately rare games out there for many consoles, that had only hundreds, or maybe a few thousand copies released, that are basically impossible to acquire, because all the super rich collectors out there already have them, and they never turn up for sale.

And this doesn't even begin to cover games that were programmed but never released at all.

The real fact is... Emulation is the future.
Much as I hate to admit it, original hardware just won't last forever. It can't. Consoles break, disks rot, carts fail eventually.

There will come a time in the not so distant future in which ROMs and emulators will become the only way to go to keep retro gaming alive, and the sooner all you prudes (and Nintendo, too) realize it, the better.

@Leej07

What's sad is that Nintendo Switch Online is pretty much the perfect platform to revive all of those Satellaview games. Nintendo could even rotate the games out if they really wanted to.

@Damo

I think excluding their less illustrious catalog is also a mistake. Very few people would pay for a stand-alone version of Super Mario Bros Special or Hotel Mario. But paying $20 a year to have access to all of the PC 88 and/or CD-I games is an absolute steal! It's also probably the only way Nintendo will actually make money on those titles.

As a side note, the Internet Archive recently launched their Commodore 64 emulator along with 10,000+ programs. You might even recognize some Nintendo titles there. (We'll see how long that lasts.)

@DTFaux Nobody here is saying that piracy is good to be able to have things for free instead of paying their price.
We are talking about games that would have an extremely cheap price anyway while their price when we were children was prohibitive for many of us.
Even if they were sligthly overpriced by today's standard (many people think so at least), the price of virtual console games was nothing more than a joke for most of us and some of those games are fantastic masterpieces.
Most of us sometimes spend even 50 euros just to try a new game we are not even sure about.
It is not a copyright issue we have here.
I've always had my favourite SNES and Megadrive roms but at the same time I have bought their official releases several times anyway, to show my appreciation and to have them on my favourite consoles too.
You as a creator really think that my behaviour is wrong only because I keep a copy of somerhing that I am still willing to pay, even multiple times, anyway?
You would sound ridiculous that way.
This is a matter of respect and fairness. I feel like Nintendo is not respecting me anymore, and while consoles always had certain problems (like the lack of backwards compatibility) they are adding new issues and annoyances instead of trying to solve the old problems AND are trying to SCAM their customers (the thing that made me ultimately change my opinion about them), and because of that I have no more respect for them and for their copyrights in return. It is clear that roms and emulation is the only way to preserve old games, one can believe that and keep his "unofficial" backup while still supporting and buying official games as well like many passionate gamers do, but when you see a company that becomes so anti-consumer, disrespectful and arrogant it is hard to keep your good will and loyalty to them

@Ensemen So your argument is that everything that is illegal is morally wrong? And if something is legal somewhere at some point in time, in that time and place it is morally justified? Tell me, do you always follow every law? You never drive over the speed limit? or roll through a stop sign if there is no one else in the intersection?

Tell me how a company is a victim when someone downloads a rom of a game that can no longer be purchased from that company, or which the customer has already purchased from the company.

@DTFaux If you make art intending to get money, you've missed the point entirely. Money should be a nice bonus you could get from people who really like your art and say "thanks for making such nice art, here's a little something from me". The moment you wilfully start producing art for a price, you've corrupted it, and it no longer has any inherent value.

@c2017nlifemedia "Art for art's sake" is a ridiculous opinion and I'm embarrassed I ever held it. Creators deserve recompense for their work just like everyone else.

@PanurgeJr Considering art as work is precisely the problem, and calling artists 'creators' is ridiculous newspeak.

@c2017nlifemedia I have a feeling your scope on "what an artist is" is either limited or disconnected, if that's how you really feel. Wanting to create something meaningful and wanting to be compensated for the time/skill doesnt have to be mutually exclusive.

Like, what kind of people do you think puts in the footwork to make video games, music, shows, comics, books, etc. [that we enjoy] a reality? They dont just magically pop up out of nowhere.

And I get the dubiousness of only being in it for the money (those folks dont usually last). If someone wants to (and can afford to) be a hobby artist, that's their prerogative. But that shouldnt be any bearing on those who might want to be compensated for their time/skills if they're spending literal hours/days/years of their lives making something [and people actually enjoy it].

Unless you are pirating the latest software for the switch then yea I would call you a no good meanie but an old ass snes rpg that never made it state side and was fan translated from a company that went defunct in the late nineties I would play and tell others to get bent if they whine to me about it.

@c2017nlifemedia Spoken like somebody who has never been an artist.

@tedko What the hell? I didn't make any argument at all. I never said any of those things and i have no interest in discussing this topic with you.

The only thing i did was pointing out how you were complaining about people making a comparison to murder but in your very next comment you made a comparison with slavery. Note that comparing =/= equating. He used a discussion technique were you try to look at something in another perspective by comparing it to something completely different. You complained about that but used the very same technique in your next comment.

I didn't say anything about my opinion regarding your both comments. The thing i want to say is: don't complain about someone doing something if you're gonna do it yourself.

And see you're doing the exact same thing in your latest comment. Comparing it to something completely different.
Is this so hard to understand or do you not WANT to understand it?

@Ensemen Chill out man

Off topic, but can any of you guys tell me how to switch this site back to the mobile version?

@andykara2003
As I sit on my PS4 I would love to play money and play the Die Hard Collection from the PS1. Do I want don't to invest time and energy into making it happen? No but it doesn't mean I'm going to go steal it either

@steventonysmith Same - I hate piracy, especially for Nintendo stuff. I have physical copies of every game I've loved back to the SNES - I just can't get satisfaction out of pirated games; having and putting in the cart/disk is a big part of the experience for me.

I do have a question for everybody here who's against ROMs and pirating, though.

If a game is completely impossible to acquire, in any legal manner, whatsoever, completely impossible to purchase on Ebay, and will never be released, ever again, for any reason, is it wrong to distribute a ROM of it?

Before you say this is a ridiculous example, I shall point out the Satellaview, which was a Japan only satellite based game streaming service, and its games are completely impossible to obtain legally.

Still waiting for an answer to this question.

Nintendo has a chance to offer a great selection of retro games on Switch and make it the best VC ever for a console that has become so popular and well-selling. But the company is missing that chance badly, very badly. The biggest appeal of playing retro games on Switch is the option to play either in portable mode or on TV - something that Nintendo Wii, WiiU and 3DS will never offer. That's too bad - I will pass the subscription that only offers lousy NES games. If at least there were games available for other consoles...

I prefer Retro games to appear on this new 'NESflix' format but the service so far does leave a taste of 'I want more' in your mouth.

@tedko For what it is worth, ethics in this case would be a two way street. One could argue it is our responsibility to preserve these titles any which way, as opposed to the obvious counterpoint.

@c2017nlifemedia So what does have "inherent value", Maslow?

@Leej07
It is illegal because some people do not possess common sense or compassion.
Because of this, the law has to set the bar low to prevent this people from exploiting the system.

So a ROM is only ever legal if it did not break the copyright to make is and you can only use if you out own the right to do so.

Now this rule is make to protect the creators of the content that we love, without this protection the gaming industry would collapse.

Now I personally do not mind people using ROMs, as long at they buy a legal copy when it become available to them.
Not doing so, show a lack of compassion towards the people that make the requested content available legally.

As for the example of Satellaview, you could in theory buy the rights to it so you can make it available to others.
Now if you justify the illegal ROMs on the base that the price of the Satellaview rights are to high.
Then how would you legally determine this?

I lose hope in humanity when I see so many people voting for a netflix-like solution to videogames. Stop yourselves.

They should have included 1000 SNES games

@LuckyLand So u support piracy because of your pathetic hatred of Nintendo because you foolishly believed they are ruining the things you love? Wow, what a delusional troll you are, you think Nintendo is scamming people. Must be because of your pea size brain...

@Alantor28 oh I'm so ashamed that I'm not as smart as you, who have probably already started paying to have access to games that you already bought before and to be able to upload your saves on a cloud while everybody else in the world give you a free alternative! I would like so much to be as intelligent as you! You know what is the only thing that I would want even more? Being more intelligent than you. Go on and pay your dear subscription to have the privilege to be mistreated and exploited by your Nintendo gods. I'm sure it feels so good being mistreated by those superior and awe inspiring deities. I'd like so much to try myself but I'm not as intelligent as you are...

@LuckyLand And that's why you'll always hide behind your monitor like the spineless coward you are.