Legal Crackdown On Mario 64 PC Port Not Enough To Stop Modders From Improving It

It’s out there now. It’s not going anywhere. No matter how much Nintendo try.

Out of curiosity have they tried stopping the boot leg amiibo cards being sold online?

Hobbyists gonna hobby.
Zero interest in playing this though, like 99% of the 'fan projects' out there.

It’s really impressive, I would hate for it to be shut down. Mods are a great thing too, there’s tons for the original game so if this makes it easier, we could see more Kaizo impossible games to speed run!

High polygon Mario in a low polygon world looks weird.

That Mario model sucks.

They should mod it to have Yoshi, Luigi, and Wario playable. Why yes, I am in the DS-Version-Was-Better camp.

I agree the high polygon Mario looks a bit off in that environment. What would be great is if they could replace the low res HUD and in-game 2D elements with high res equivalents that match the originals as closely as possible.

If you really want to show how good you are at video game programming and design, make your own with an original idea.

@retro_player_77 ya but we also sadly live in a world where 99% of whats made is considered garbage by people and even the good stuff is easily overlooked most the time.

@retro_player_77
Yeah I’m sure the millionaires at Nintendo are crying themselves to sleep over a project that has zero chance to actually impact their sale, unless Nintendo has an Arenal Gear they’re never gonna stop this project by being continued and shared by anyone. Sonic Mania and the history of its devs who had a history of rom hacking and decomposing the code of the Genesis games says hi, Sega profited by not only not threatening them but by working with on a official game.

@retro_player_77
You can't fight it, the industry will survive by adapting. Bethesda, while they are a greedy crummy company. Have seen this and is allowing mods for their games, even on consoles to some extent.

Nintendo is a relic in this regard, they could have embraced this opportunity and even made some money of it by officially releasing and selling the game on PC.

Not like they are going to sell any more N64's because of this game anyways, so no reason not to release it on other platforms.

They already sold their soul by releasing mobile games, so only a matter of time now anyways.

Nintendo has to be seen to be taking action to protect its IPs otherwise it stands to lose them but otherwise they are probably enjoying this free publicity building up to the reported Mario re-releases

If only Nintendo spent as much effort on their online gaming infrastructure as they do taking down projects

Wasting your talent to work on IP you don't own instead of doing your own thing is so stupid. Never liked this leftist mindset in the hacking community who think everything belong to everyone. They should go living to North Korea if they love communism so much.

@retro_player_77 Hmm - actually I haven’t considered this quite as starkly as you’re expressing here, I think you might be right (apart from suggesting the games industry is dying).

It’s a difficult one - I can appreciate the game modding community, but perhaps they should only mod if they have the go ahead from the game’s creator. For example Rockstar actually encourages and supports the modders for their game. But in this case, yes Nintendo doesn’t want their IP being distributed freely like this I can understand that. They were the creators after all and might well bring out their own remake at some point.

And of course hacking for the purposes of the purposes of creating ‘home brew’ is for the most part a joke - 99% of that is for pirating.

If anything this puts more pressure on Nintendo to release a better Mario 64 on switch compared to the travesty of darkened Mario on Wii U. Imagine they actually remade the game in Odyssey's engine with better visuals and audio, it'll 99% of the time be more popular and more appreciated than the pc port.

Also to those that keep saying SM64 isn't available to buy and Nintendo isn't earning money from it, you should check the Wii U eshop (while it is still open...).

In the end it took these people years to reverse engineer SM64 so I wouldn't see this as a "big threat" for the industry. Mostly games that sold well in their time and are considered classics get decompiled in this way, SM64 isn't the first and probably won't be the last.

@mitkom1 This is probably the wrong place to be asking for a download link, considering the nature of this project. It shouldn't be too hard to find on your own though if you are desperate to have it.

I dunno, maybe release the game for the Switch already along with ll the other Mario games that are supposed to hit the system soon.

On the one hand Nintendo have to try and protect their IP but on the other they have absolutely no chance of stopping this, you can still very easily download any Nintendo game if you really want to. I've got this on my PC and its great, I also own Mario 64 on the N64 and Wii and if it comes to Switch I'll buy it on that so it's not as if I'm costing Nintendo any money

once it touches the internet its there forever. hell i can still find that metriod 2 remake even though people claim its been gone forever

@Hagemaru I don't believe that, maybe the always-on online, but the advent of multiplayer and DLC would have happened anyway, selling add-on packs to existing games has been going on for ages, the original SimCity has a couple of add-on packs, and that's 30-odd years ago. (Add-on disks are about the same as DLC, anyway, although selling incomplete games to sell the missing bits as DLC is new)

As for multiplayer everything, that's a good way to make a game last longer, and it removes a lot of the need for expensive cutscenes and stuff.

I'll be that guy and state the simple solution.
If Nintendo is afraid this might steal their official remake its thunder... why not announce it already?
"Here's the real deal", bam. All (well, most I guess) attention the PC port got goes straight down the toilet.

@EmmatheBest
Same team, right here! [raises hand]

@Abeedo
True dat. Taking down projects takes time. Much time. And it would be better spent on, I dunno, literally anything else.
But as you know, toe-mah-to, toe-may-to. We say as much, other people will reply "Nintendo would improve the online if it wasn't for fan projects forcing the company to take action".

@Bomberman64
At this rate, I think Nintendo should just go the Sonic Mania route.
"You like remaking games? Good, fine-tune that 5#17 and you've got yourself a nice job."

@GodOfLard There has been one fan game I have been following for 10 years almost and I can't wait until it is done. Megaman X Corrupted.

@DarkLloyd Yep and it is vastly superior to Nintendo's remake.

They better make their own hd Mario 64 so good.

Personally, I think Nintendo should take this down as they need to protect their intellectual property, but at the same time, they should also look at this from a veiw point of 'ok, this is the kind of thing fans want, prehaps we should consider the development of official PC ports'

I love it. It’s really good.

@AlexSora89 "toe-mah-to, toe-may-to"

It's actually the other way around....

Good. That's all that really needs to be said, just GOOD.

It's out there, it won't go away. I just wish someone would make a tool like Doom64 EX had so the majority of people who can't compile or code can take personal responsibility to apply their own ROM to make an executable for their OS of choice. In its original vanilla first form weeks ago it's fantastic.

Nintendo is just making it more famous, they should have been quiet and few would have known.

@retro_player_77 someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed

64? Meh.

Let me know when they're doing Galaxy 2

@retro_player_77 Talk about mellow dramatic, SM64 is about 24 years old and people who wanted to purchase the game directly from nintendo already did a LOOOOOOOOONG time ago.

If this was a nintendo switch game, I could see your point.. However Nintendo will only takes classic such as this and use them as their nintendo subscription services, and the modding community is very passionate about what they do, far more passionate for classic games then nintendo are

@Jakiboy You can already play Galaxy 2 on PC, upscaled to 4k or even 8k if you wanted, using dolphin

Ofc you'd want wiimotes and motion bars as well otherwise it wouldn't really play right

@glaemay Please don't be as childish to turn this article into your own culture war political driven agenda, not everyone here cares for cringey shock/outrage culture like you antisjw and sjw do lol

@EmmatheBest Darn right! Yoshi's running animation was stupid adorable.

Thieves. Amazing people support theft. Worthless scum.

Dude! I'm western values all the way, but let people tinker and improve on vaporware. The ENTIRE reason we got Resident Evil 2 Remake was because some intrepid programmers were making the game themselves, so Capcom saw the interest and went with it.

Nintendo is so backwards when it comes to the internet age. Poorly online gaming and chat, their insane Youtube policies, the ban of all ROMs everything. I get the ROM thing is to protect their interests but so many of those titles just arent available anywhere else. And banning mods etc this stuff normally helps the industry not harm it. Why are they so archaic in their online presence.

Public domain should go back to being a thing.

They should at least change laws where Nintendo has exclusive rights to make new Mario games, but old Mario games should be available for everyone to use, distribute, mod and improve.

@GoblinKing86 Copyright infringement is not theft, theft is when you have something, and they take it away from you, you don't have it anymore, but if someone comes, makes a copy of what you have, and takes away the copy, you still own the original.

Not a good year to make this available if the rumours prove true. Hopefully Mario 64 will be on Switch before the end of the year.

I hope this does not give a negative effect to whatever it is Nintendo plans to release for Mario's 35th Anniversary, like for example their own HD remake of Super Mario 64 or something... they better make L real this time if they plan to surpass this mods somehow.

Remember what Reggie said regarding AM2R; they are ok with mods and fangames, but when they see something that has potential to be profitable, then they take action.

Also, for the people that say that this is a "waste of time", get your head off the clouds; people are doing this because they like the game and they want to experience the game in multiple other ways, like like a hobby. If it's not on your cup of tea, then cool (while it's true that is a gray area, I'll stand with what Reggie said regarding AM2R, until another Nintendo representative touches on the subject again, and even is it's another IP, people are just having fun in the end)

This time, I suppose Nintendo is adamant to take it down because it's a way to play a complete game of theirs for free, which has potential that has to be rereleased, like what happened with metroid: samus returns and AM2R being released a few months before, which is completely justified if they want this taken down.

@GodOfLard I agree to a point. I am interested in playing the original port that is still the same game just HD, but when fans start adding unnecessary stuff that wasn't in the base game (ray tracing) and/or looks completely different (that modern Mario model looses the charm of the original), that's where I loose interest.

Guys - for those who are saying it’s ridiculous for N to always protect their properties like this, I totally understand as on the surface that appears logical and obvious. However Peer from IGN did a brilliant explanation on NVC as to why they have to, and it goes way beyond just being petty and is essential for their future business.

I don’t remember which episode unfortunately, it was a year or two ago - but if anyone can find it, it’s a very succinct and logical explanation.

@Bomberman64 I'd honestly prefer a remaster over a remake. The original art style has a certain cartoony charm to it that none of the future games managed to emulate in quite the same way

I support Nintendo protecting their IPs and I understand why they want to take the mod down. I also believe that if Nintendo made their retro catalog more widely available, people wouldn't feel the need to make these projects.

@retro_player_77 Consider the coders and artists who helped create and define Mario as a character, and develop that gameplay, up to 1985 (the release of SMB 1). What share of the profits netted by Nintendo from even those early releases has come down to those individuals? Do you think it would be even as high as 2 percent?

Do you think Nintendo itself has been entirely respectful toward everyone who helped establish the company in video games?
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/134790/the_secret_history_of_donkey_kong.php?print=1

I will agree with you, totally, if you say that copyright should protect individual work, or the work of creative groups, for a good fair period of time. But politician-buying conglomerates like Disney should not have title to cultural figures in perpetuity. I sympathize with your Shovel Knight example. Upcoming creators should make their own characters and not piggyback on existing mascots. But when you get angry at modders and technically savvy people working on something beloved, please remember that this is how culture is naturally transmitted and preserved.

@Doktor-Mandrake I find that the signal-to-noise ratio of this forum improves, slowly, with time and the use of the Ignore button. As such, I welcome the first, unsophisticated, totally unconvincing, totally ineffective screeches of users like @glaemay, as they help me filter comments like theirs out. Forever.

@COVIDberry annoys the living hell out of me when people try to push their stupid political agendas into places where it does not belong lol

@GoblinKing86 Oh please, more mellow drama

People on PC have been able to play SM64 on PC for donkeys years, this just cuts out the need for emulator and even then, if you use 144hz like I do you have to fiddle about make it 60hz, and had to use x360ce to get my n64 controller to work

Oh, and I own a copy of SM64 and an N64 thanks, rather just play on my PC with my n64 controller

If you think this is eating into Nintendo's profits you're delusional, this is an old, old game and this sort of thing isn't negatively effecting them at all

If anything, it's a good thing for nintendo if it gets more people playing their games for the first time.

Now things like Switch emulation? Different matter, because that would eat into Nintendos profits that you can't help but endlessly reeeee about

@retro_player_77 To be honest I don’t think there has ever been a time when people could properly protect their own work. Tetris is a prime example but so are (probably) more than half of Edison’s “inventions.”

Also the games industry currently generates more revenue than the film and music industry combined. I don’t think it’s dying any time soon.

I've only discovered about the port after Nintendo's legal action, so I think it cause more damage than helps. Also, playing it through and having a lot of fun...

Just goes to show we want a Mario 64 HD (remake) but Nintendo doesn't listen to its fans. Same for OoT HD (remake) and where's a new 1080, F-Zero, etc. Come on Nintendo!

Maybe the only way they could stop it is to MAKE the remaster or remake already for it on switch. Man why is it so hard for nintendo to listen to their fans.

The problem Nintendo would have is that this PC port is open source. There's a GitHub repo that provides a means of building this software if a rom is provided for the copyrighted assets.

It's mad ain't it overnight the best way to play Mario 64 became pc

@SalvorHardin It's not about stopping it. It's about making sure they show legally that they care about protecting their IP. If they don't put up somewhat of a fight then it could affect them when it may actually matter. That's the point. It's not about putting the genie back in the bottle.