Nintendo Fears A Popular ROM Website Could Make A Comeback

Shutting down pirated ROMs website kinda like slashing Hydra's head.
One down, More heads regenerated.

Really wish everyone embraced the emulation and rom modding efforts.

@Anti-Matter doubtful the Legal team thinks they can end rom sharing forever. They're more like cutting down the weeds that get too big.

A court actually called their bluff on “irreparable harm"? Good.

I’ve honestly never even heard of that site.

Nintendo could just turn the Switch Online into the virtual console if they don't want people emulating for free. Not like these sites are threatening since the games are so old and they're selling so many new games anyway.

At this point, if Ninty isn't providing a game on 3DS, Wii U, or Switch, there is absolutely zero reason to NOT pirate. If they aren't selling something, you aren't taking away money. Nintendo gains zero money from garage sale gamecubes and ebay gamecube auctions, so what is so different about pirating old games? Obviously don't pirate newer games, but if it's like old old, go for it

just keep fighting nintendo. take these hacks down. nintendo has every right to keep fighting. if i made a game and 50 years from now. and i never used the property again and some hack wanted to put it up even though they make no money from it? THEN SUCKS TO BE THEM .TOO BAD.. it is still MY PROPERTY. if i do not want anyone using my property. then they are not going to use it .same goes for nintendo. like it or not it is their property. you may not care. but it is not your property now is it? so go nintendo stop these hackers. why don't these losers get a Real Hobby.

@tntswitchfan68 ….they aren’t hackers. They literally don’t hack anything. They take a legit game and rip it. Then copy it. Then put it online. It’s legal to rip, it’s illegal to share.

"Cut one head off, two more shall take its place"

HEY NINTENDO! How About you just port your games over to NSO!

Nintendo's quaking in their boots thinking about all the old games they wouldn't be able to resell for $60 with a mediocre Switch port. Or all the games they can forcibly push into obscurity, never to be seen again because they're "not profitable." You won't catch me crying with them.

I agree with Nintendo's stance in protecting their IP. They made these games, their people, their creativity, their hard work. They have every right to want it to be distributed only the way they want. If they are not able to profit off of their own work, the company will fail and all the people who make up that company would be out of a job.

The reason I agree with that is simple. If I put that kind of work into making something. If I spent years of my life on it. With a major point of that work being making a product to sell as a source of income toward my livelihood. And I followed all the appropriate laws and got my work copywritten or patented or insert relevant laws... I would be furious if people just took it and started making mass amounts of copies of and spreading it all over the internet for free - or worse yet making money off of MY work.

And I also find the idea that people have, that they're entitled to a game just because it's a few years old or no longer for sale to be... well, entitled and selfish. We are NOT entitled to someone else's work, no matter how old or hard to purchase legitimately.

HOWEVER I also believe this to be a losing battle. @Anti-Matter made a good comparison. It's like trying to fight a Hydra. Every time you stop someone from doing it, several more show up in their place. I think no matter how hard any company fights, if a product is digital and can be uploaded/downloaded online, then it is inevitable that those products will be pirated.

@tntswitchfan68

You made a nerf gun 50 years ago

It gets outdated and better models in every way, shape, and form are produced and sold

50 years later, your model is the shared with a kid and his friends without money going to you. You somehow deserve that money now more than ever?

Long live to software preservation.

@Heavyarms55 Depends on what kind of work it is. Music and artwork can become public domain many years after the artist has passed away

It would be nice if Nintendo could make their legacy content easy to access on their bestselling system. I'm pretty sure people would rather have an official method of getting these games than resort to modifying their systems and set up emulators just to play N64 or GBA titles.

@LXP8 That's a different sort of issue. But I do agree that public domain laws will eventually need to be updated to deal with video games and software as well. But public domain laws generally are related to very old content.

Further, I fully support anyone who signs a contract with a company that passes on legal ownership of their work to another individual or corporation after they pass away. To me, that's the same thing as putting something in your will, so that your car will go to your child or your estate will be sold and the proceeds directed toward charity or whatever. If that sort of agreement is made, then it should be honored, no matter how old the content.

Was RomUniverse the sketchy rom site or the really sketchy rom site?

If I was the judge in this case, I would ask Nintendo if they planned on rereleasing these older games in the foreseeable future. How I would rule on the case depends on their answer.

And in the court of law, you must tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, meaning that Nintendo can't give a half-answer (as they usually give to the press) or a lie by omission, lest they risk perjury charges.

Obviously, they own the copyright to the games, but if you ask me, they can't demonstrate "irreparable harm" from these so-called "pirates" when they don't rerelease older games that have long been out of print/circulation themselves, and thus no longer make any money off of them.

I don’t like that people usually have to turn to Roms to access legacy content. I just don’t get why these companies are so reluctant to give a platform that people can enjoy their old school games.

How many times have Star Wars movies been re released on every single media platform out there? They know people will buy it just to keep updating their modern library. I get both sides and only come out disappointed either way at what’s become. I just want to have all my games in a single system that will transfer over to new hardware when it becomes available

The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It's by giving those people a service that's better than what they're receiving from the pirates.

• Gabe Newell

@Curbie iirc in this case it was literally the case of a site that actually offered a special subscription for faster/easier access to ROMs.
So not just a big site, but one which was actually attempting to make money (however directly/indirectly) from said ROMs.

Nintendo refuses to give Switch owners a reasonable avenue of playing the vast majority of their retro library, so they can go pound sand for all I care.

@AstroTheGamosian judges usually arnt gamers, and I'm p sure you can just 'plead the 5th' to basically not answer any questions.

@PBandSmelly That’s my view too

If your society needs to police kilobytes of data in order to safeguard an artist's financial security, maybe it's time to rethink the concepts of IP and compensation.

@AstroTheGamosian Generally the lawyers ask the questions and your first point would be a great issue for the ROM site's attorney to flesh out during an actual trial if one ever occurs.

Secondly, people lie through their G*ddamned teeth in court. Outright lies and deceptions are rampant. As for omissions, a witness is only required to answer the question posed to them. It is the examining lawyer's responsibility to ask the "right" follow-up questions to reveal more of the "truth" from that witness. Otherwise, they shut up (if I prepared them) and only reveal what is absolutely, literally responsive to our opponent's questions. For example, the correct answer to "Do you know what time it is?" is not to look at one's watch and say the time. Rather, the correct response is, "Yes" after looking at the watch.

So, yeah, courts are rife with what normal humans consider lies. And it's allowed.

The people defending the big giant corporation are all quite silly to me. Having only a Switch, it’s near-impossible for me to experience anything put out on a Nintendo console between 1996 and 2011 without emulation. That’s fifteen years of content MIA. Many of the original hardware is too dated to consistently rely on since it’s all used (a Wii I obtained a few months ago displays constant disc errors, for example), so I’m SOL on legacy content if I just stick with the Switch. Wii U and 3DS did so incredibly amazing on Virtual Console, and NSO’s subscription-based offering of NES/SNES is such a step in the right direction towards a Game Pass/PS Now competitor (imo); what’s the hold-up???

tl;dr I want all the consoles on Switch Online ASAP and I use way too many acronyms in my rants

@Musharna You can only plead the 5th if your answers would tend to actually incriminate you. Generally, this means that your answer would provide probable cause supporting at least one element of a crime. It's about potential incrimination, not just the desire to avoid testifying.

A very easy way of combating this Nintendo:

Make Switch Online like Disney Plus.

That means you offer ALL Nintendo branded titles up to the Gamecube for either an annual or monthly fee.

Heck, you could do a plus tier with Wii, 3DS, and Wii U titles for a slightly higher fee.

And you could put some third party content that won't ever be rereleased.

That would be better than drip feeding some Jaleco or Data East titles for the NES or SNES that nobody wants.

@Anti-Matter cut one head off, two more grow in its place.

HAIL HYDRA

Yes. Emulator sites caused Nintendo irreparable harm by letting people access games that Nintendo won't sell them.

@PBandSmelly - That assumes all these ROMS are going to kids.

Better comparison is people start modding the new designs to act like the original and share it.

If he has a stake in the designs as a whole, why wouldn't you try and halt the distribution of a free variant of direct competition?

Nintendo is practically doing it to themselves, though. It's a bittersweet pill, they can easily make is accessible through NSO or other means.

Hell, a VC again would likely net them larger shares of money for those bothered by the internet checks on a portable machine.

my only opinion about it:

Keep the Roms for preservation, not mods (everything that involves drastic changes to the game and that removes people and companies from the credits, nothing that involves monetization and that the Roms are from discontinued and hard-to-get consoles. If all is well, then it is correct emulation.

However, if they are roms of current games, have their distribution monetized (in any way) and have modifications that do not respect originality or credits, then do not expect positive opinions.

@kingbk Implying games like Vice: Project Doom, Journey to Silius, and SCAT don't kick a**?

Honestly at this point I don't see how ROM sites would really be any skin off of Nintendo's backs. Do they own the rights to all those 25 to 35 year-old games? Yes. Are they within their legal rights to protect their IPs? Yes. But there's another angle they and other mega-publishers in the industry would rather not acknowledge.

That angle being the simple fact that, in countless cases, neither they nor other publishers (assuming said publishers are still even around anymore) have done a single thing with those IPs or the specific games in question for years or even decades. And due to Nintendo killing the Virtual Console in exchange for (VERY) token and sporadic support of Switch Online's NES and SNES libraries, gamers no longer have the option to legally buy or play countless retro titles (FUN FACT: many of them would readily do so if given the opportunity, so apparently money isn't the core, or at least only, issue here).

I doubt it will ever happen, but there really should be copyright limitations on videogames and IPs that go unused or are not republished after a given period similar to that of books and (in certain cases) films. Public domain could literally save thousands upon thousands of videogames from extinction. ROMs get a lot of heat from the industry's heavyweights for the same reason they've gone to such lengths to push brick and mortar game stores to bankruptcy (they don't make a penny from used game sales), but the truth is that emulation has the better interest of game preservation in mind than the very companies that own the rights. In short, it's all about CONTROL.

Nintendo doesn't make any money off of 95% of those ROMs. Really, the site should remove anything that is currently on NSO, the Wii U and 3DS eShops. Other than that, there's nothing on there that Nintendo seems even remotely interested in bringing back, so it's very hard for me to have sympathy towards the company for their legal decisions.

My advice: stop giving this massive corporation your money, so that they will be forced to stop suing individuals for impossible sums of cash.

Nintendo is missing the whole point here. It's evident enough that they simply CAN'T release their classic games at this slow of a pacing. Not only that, but some games haven't received official localizations yet (Mother 3). Some games haven't been re-released permanently yet (a playable Four Swords from the GBA). Some games are just so damn hard to find because of the lack of consoles available (every GBA game that isn't a SNES port). They really need to step up their game if they want to win against the ROM websites. I support Nintendo's stance, but not their decisions.

Here's an idea Nintendo: sell your own ROMs. I know this sounds crazy but hear me out. If you go on Steam, you can buy a bunch of Genesis games, and those games show up in the Genesis Classics Collection's folder as uncompressed ROMs that you can then use however you wish. I bought Ristar and Sonic 3 & Knuckles, and modded my Genesis Classic to run them. Heck, maybe Nintendo could have their own storefront on computers that linked directly to your Nintendo account so that you could access these same games from any future Nintendo console, all Nintendo would have to do is provide the means to play them on said consoles, and if it meant paying a fee to get an SNES emulator on the latest system, I wouldn't think it unreasonable.

There is shop i know still actively hack switch device so it can change its operating system to download file from ROM server, so yeah, they still roaming actually.

It's always amusing to see how many people will take something they have not paid the creator for and actually try to claim the moral high ground because the creator chooses not to publish those things at this time. All while knowing full well that these same websites we're talking about also host ROMs for games that were released last week.

I wish we could ban Nintendo and others from suing rom sites. Maybe after 10 years games become public domain? Something like that should work.

The pirate pic, I never get tired of seeing it in these type of articles.

@nessisonett

This is actually not 100% true.
When material is being ripped and it is not in the public domain, and the person performing the rip does not have the copyright owner's permission, then such ripping could be regarded as copyright infringement.
Some countries either allow it in certain “circumstances”. Some countries also have fair use-type laws which allow unauthorized copies to be made under certain conditions. Also bypassing copy protection such as the encryption used on most digital content, may also be illegal in certain countries.

And what is Nintendo afraid of? Is it that people could play games that Nintendo is not selling at all? Nintendo should realise that their pitiful NINTENDO ONLINE generating 3 or 4 old games every 3rd or 4th month is nothing else but a punch into the players' faces. Nintendo only cares about their imaginary money that they could have earned, had they sold their old games, players care about those games, because they love them. ***** this corporate ***** called Nintendo!!

@gsilver It also let's them access that's that they do sell too, so how about that?

Strangely games they sell like Super Mario tend to get pirated a bit more often than the ones they don't on VC.

❗I've already got all the Retro ROMs I could possibly want for NES/SNES/MD/MS/GB/GG/GBC/GBA/DS on my R4 Card/Bittboy Pocket-Go from various sites so this coming back is pointless.

@BlackenedHalo Probably they're more concerned with people downloading the games they are selling.

Because ROMsites let people download those too

Hope they get their injunction.

I love Nintendo but they be on that BS sometimes

Take em out Nintendo

@The-Nate Reread by comment.

"And you could put some third party content that won't ever be rereleased."

Journey to Silus, S.C.A.T. and Vice: Project Doom all fall into this.

@Atticus-XI Username checks out.

By the way, the true answer to “Do you know what time it is?” is always “No”. But that is a philosophical issue. =)

@Anti-Matter Eh I think there's an endpoint. If Nintendo cut down the most prominent and blatant ROMsites. It may be a Hydra but they're still actual people, would you stick your neck out when Nintendo comes chopping?

It cuts down options to dubious sites with less traffic and revenue, which are the ones more likely to to fill the site and downloads with Malware. At that point it's probably more trouble than its worth for customers so they'll more likely use official sources.

@kingbk I was expecting you to call those games "absolute garbage" like the rest of them, because I'm the only person who actually has taste anymore that isn't over 30 years old

@moodycat
Exactly. IIRC, the introduction of streaming services cut down on piracy a bit, however with everyone and their dog putting out a streaming service I fully expect it to start going back up

As someone who has modded, and pirated games for most if not all systems I have ever owned, trust me, you will ALWAYS be able to find roms for the games you want. Sometimes it's just a bit more work, but they are always out there for a person determined enough. Nintendo makes enough money, I have no sympathy for a company like this who doesn't make it easy for people to legitimately purchase their older games anymore.

Let's be honest, "Defendant’s threat to continue to operate RomUniverse to distribute videogame ROMs, using the same website he used for the past several years" necessitates an eyebrow raise at the very least. The audacity levels may not be incomparable to that phishing hacker/leaker guy from way back when. Surely someone so invested (no pun intended) in "preservation of retro games" must have heard of torrents and p2p at least once by now?🙄

The definition of "irreparable harm" surely gets stretched a lot these days.

@Entrr_username oh and if someone isnt using their whole yard they shouldn't care I make a garden on whatever part I feel like since they aint using what is theirs anyway..

@AtlanteanMan OK like I replied to another you are saying anyone can use someone elses land for whatever you want because 'they aint using it anyway'
Such a pathetic commie mentality that ignores past work as generated store of wealth. Only a loser who cant produce anything of value themselves would think with this rubish logic

Suck it Nintendo, I hope the site comes back.

"Storman's only assurance to Nintendo's lawyer is that a site relaunch will not feature the company's titles."

Which means what, exactly? Does Nintendo actually own the copyright for ROMs made by Capcom? Konami? Irem?

Does it follow that Nintendo should only be able to prosecute based on their own first party games? 🤔

Hail, Hydra! Immortal Hydra! We shall never be destroyed! Cut off a limb and two more shall take its place! We serve none but the Master—as the world shall soon serve us!

$2.1m at $50 a month = 3,500 years. Seems practical.

Good to see that so many here pretending to be moral actors while also supporting piracy.

We need to work against nintendo here
i will support any rom site that exists even if ai have absolutely no intendtoon to play out dated games that I care nothing about.

F*** you nintendo! You ignored this problem for years allowing fans to appreciate nintendo, now your have greedy shareholders after a successful switch launch, so you want some easy money simple as!

@westman98 The only surprising thing right now is that these same people aren't rushing to set up a ROM site of their own to stick it to Nintendo for not making it easier to obtain Nintendo's older releases.

@Mince No, I hate this total lack of respect for game developers.

I'm torn by this, there is no easy way to get hold of or play many of these games. Take Cubivore for example, to get a good PAL copy you're looking at £500 on ebay, I'm not going to pay that and the game isn't about to be re-released as far as I know... So perhaps getting a ROM isn't quite so bad here? On the other hand, as a software developer (not games or anything interesting, I deal with corporate systems) I loath the thought of my hard work being ripped off.

I wonder if there will ever be a Project Gutenberg for games? Surely some of these older games are reaching the end of copyright.

@Dr_Lugae lol, maybe you just don't understand the meaning of respect. Distributing old roms in no way questions the abilities or achievements of the developers.

In fact if anything it allows their achievements to continue to be experienced by younger generations who otherwise have no access to their (developers) work, thus more people come to respect said developers. Either way, dont make things up.

@robe I think the people who would rip your work of though would have NEVER paid for it to being with, not saying it is acceptable but its not exactly lost profit. In most cases anyway.

Meanwhile in games it could lead to sales because they want the lates patch for bug fixes or it becomes a fan favourite etc. Piracy of modern games is horrible for the people involved but were talking about a form of game preservation here. Like you said £500 for some game is stupid end of discussion, go to a rom site, or nintendo fixes the problem but they show no signs of doing that.

Too many people defending communism here. Gamers will never be taken seriously by the other mediums.

@Meteoroid If that was the case piracy would be considerably higher on pc, considering almost every title is available to pirate, every sign movie gets released on torrent sites etc. Jailbreaks for ios would be more popular etc. By your example every person should be getting freebies worldwide, I think you fail to realise the vast majority of people have morals, and wouldn't consider looking for a pirate copy (freebie as you called it)

And how are neither of them statements true?
Rom site are usually free, no paid service (don't group them all together because you know of a bad egg.)
Over 90% of roms are not distributed anymore except via scalpers. (with the exception of a few sites that might host 3ds roms) but even many 3ds games are not distributed any longer)

Why does nintendo not hose their own digital roms store? Problem solved.

Edit: not too sure about this point so removed it!

My comments are obviously about rom sites And piracy as a whole and not specific individuals or specific sites. In this case yes the made unauthorised profits, and has been taken to court for this.

Wow, just wow, is this the point where we are at?

If I track down a Game Boy Advance and a bunch of games on eBay, Nintendo's not seeing a penny of the money I pay. So, if Nintendo's not going to make legacy games available for play and/or purchase, then I'll use ROM sites. They're not getting paid either way.

Considering there is no way to play Metroid's GBA games on 3DS or Switch, screw em. Either Nintendo sells their products, or we need to find other methods

Nintendo has yet to learn what the music industry learned 20 or 30 years ago. If you give people an easier way to legally do something, they will take the path of least resistance. If you do not make a product easily available, people will find ways to obtain that product that are not beneficial to you, the owner.

How is it the 2020s and Nintendo is waging the Napster-style legal battles of the 90s?

They want to protect their IPs but they barely make them playable on modern consoles....I have bought Metal Slug so many times on so many consoles (+PC and smartphone)...same for many other old games...still the first time I played most of them was with Mame!! Nintendo doesn't want people to make illecitely Money with their old games? Fine, but they should release them on the Switch ASAP, or people will search and play them on other platforms. It's just as easy as that.

It's a losing battle they're fighting, and all they're doing is just trimming the grass in a hayfield.
This isn't how you fight piracy anyway. Despite popular opinion, many people don't pirate games just to get them for free (tho, many others do). Many people pirate them because there is simply no reasonable way to play them in a modern age. The argument of going out and buying a rare system and game from someone else doesn't hold much water here, either, since giving someone else some crazy amount of money doesn't benefit the IP owner either.
It's a weird situation where consumers want a product, want to pay for that product, want to use that product, but the company that owns that product won't provide nor sell it and fights anyone trying to use it.
Game preservation is a key issue here too. Nothing has come even close to preserving old works like the emulation community. There's so many games that would be lost forever otherwise.
Nintendo had the right idea with NSO.....but then fumbled with that. People have to use their previous generation system, that was a monumental failure, to legitimately purchase some of their older catalog. You'd think they'd want people doing this on their current and very successful console.

You know, for a company that keeps killing off ROM sites, Nintendo is doing awfully little for game preservation...

@ChakraStomps First off, I am NOT a "commie" and that sort of arbitrary name-calling is precisely what turns forums like this one into vitriolic, mindless free-for-alls. Whether you think so or not, you lose a TON of points for your own point of view the instant you resort to name-calling and insults in ANY debate. Please be better than that.

Second, I never said anyone can just do whatever they want because an owner isn't using their property (reading comprehension skills are really important when debating online; you should brush up!); I opened my post up by acknowledging the realities of the law and Nintendo's ownership status, in fact. I simply gave a solution (copyright expiration and public domain; again, the EXACT SAME PROCESS is already being used for books!!!!) that would protect their interests and still allow games to be preserved in the long-term. I even mentioned the fact that yes, people would be more than happy to PAY to be able to purchase these programs for themselves if only they were made available.

Your attack (which is what it amounted to) was unjustified and frankly unappreciated. Learn to comprehend what a person wrote as opposed to being so hasty with your disagreements that you end up putting words in their mouths they never even said.

Seeing things like this always makes me think back to that Gabe Newell quote about piracy being a service issue. If Nintendo actually put its legacy material on the Switch, like it has with the NES and SNES collections, people would be much less inclined to seek it out on ROM sites. If someone wants to play an old game enough, they will find a way to do so, and it's Nintendo's responsibility to offer up their own option to fill that demand.

People are gonna stick to emulation instead of your lackluster services, Nintendo. Adding Spanky’s Quest to NSO and taking down ROM sites won’t change that no matter how much you wish it will.

To me, video game preservation is important. ROMS are the only way to access many many titles. It is as simple as that.

@Heavyarms55 I agree with your argument to the point where these old games are paying anyone's money for living. I agree for new games which are still sold by Nintendo or are part of a subscription. But I also agree with the people who claim, that Nintendo is not loosing a single penny with rips of games which they don't sell.

Copyright protection is important and I understand Nintendo's point. But also, the game industry is one of the few media industries who fail to make their products available on newer platforms, Nintendo beeing the worst of the big three with the biggest backlog. Look at music or film. Everything (almost) available via streaming or on new media (DVD, BR, etc.). Sure, it's a lot of licensing which makes it probably impossible to make all games available. But Nintendo's own catalog would be a start.

You see, two hearts beating in my chest...

Honestly, I couldn't care less about their legal copyright issues because it's not my problem, it's theirs. I am not going to waste my time defending a greedy corporation because I have bigger concerns like online play subscription, the joycon drift, missing virtual console, 60 euros ports plague, a mario overdose, missed anniversaries, money wasted on an amusement park, 19 years to release Metroid 5, captain falcon's murder. Those are the things we gamers should care about but nobody mentions, which is even more concerning.

My philosophy always was "If they make it available, I'll pay for it." If they don't, and they have the ability to, but still complain, I have no sympathy for them. They're actively shooting themselves in the feet and asking why they bleed. I like Nintendo, but man they make very dumb decisions regarding their legacy content.

@AtlanteanMan Maybe you need to comprehend your example of book copyrights. 95 years for old stuff right? So in another 50 years maybe Pong will be public domain.
Or you could go to the library and borrow a copy.
Or you could make friends with someone and borrow their copy.
Or you could trade for a copy.

But you don't get to go make copies and distribute them.

@PBandSmelly literally my thoughts exactly. So what I pirated super Metroid to play on a little device I own it in like four places already! I want to play mother 3 in English and try some N64 games that haven't been re released. I mean I'd rather play it officially but if there's no option I mean it's not harming anyone except Nintendo but I mean as much as I love there games I think they'll be okay with me playing mother 3. I get it it's a legal gray area but I mean I don't exactly care about the income of a company with so much money when me playing their old titles they didn't port leads me to play new ones releasing. One of my friends pirates switch games and although I've never judged them for it I do think it's kind of wrong when the product is readily available anyway

Let's not forget that without these roms a bunch of the games would be long gone since they are not archived.

My stance on Piracy is that, if there is no way for me to legal get the game that gives money directly to the developer/publisher then I will class those games as abandoned ware. Yes it is Piracy but it is in that grey area since you can't buy these games that benefit the publisher and/or developer.

Subscriptions base options will count as giving money to the developers (ie gamepass/NSO).

There are legacy games I want to own on modern Nintendo systems but since Nintendo doesn't want to do this, my only other choice is to go and pirate them. Since Nintendo isn't going to lose money by me downloading these games.

nintendo has no one to blame but themselves for not giving people an option to buy the games

@r0mer0 Hah!

@nessisonett me neither. but I wish these morons would have just kept their heads down and come back quietly later, instead of antagonizing a company that's got way more money for good lawyers then they do. I also agree with Nintendo's legal right to bulldoze them into paste. You can be for game preservation AND a company's creative rights at the same time.

@PBandSmelly
thankyou for using a nerf gun as an example and not a car.
usually theres far too many car analogies.

as for the article, considering virtual console is no longer a thing and its replacement doesn't allow people to actually buy the games, i could understand why people would turn to this.

@YoungLink64
i dont think many of the people supporting the site support the actual act of stealing, if anything you see more people wishing things like the virtual console exists so they could buy the games legit.

The point is that in order to play certain classic games you have the choice either to buy an old used cartridge or emulate the game using a ROM that you download on the internet. The producers make no money from either of those methods, so I doubt they care. Nintendo is shutting down a handful of sites just to make the masses of casual gamers believe that it's now impossible to find the ROMs online, and that's Nintendo will send the cops after anyone who downloads ROMs. Nintendo wants as many people as possible to use their awful online service. I'll never use it. When they put up a virtual console, I'll buy games on that, but I refuse to play games online. I want the games to be on my Switch even when I'm offline.

It's good that Nintendo put out the NES Mini and the SNES Mini, but they only did that because they wanted a piece of the Raspberry Pi action. They figured there was no way to stop those devices from selling, so they might as well take a slice of that market.

@PBandSmelly Yes. You are taking someone's idea. Like it or not, it is their property, not yours.

@nessisonett It is illegal to use someone else's IP without their consent.

@tntswitchfan68
It's the same as buying from a third party seller online. If I buy from a seller on ebay, Nintendo gets zero money anyway. What makes a difference here

@tntswitchfan68 Well that depends. I rip my legal copies of my games and play them on my laptop. That’s legal. I am allowed to do that. What I’m not allowed to do is then share those copies, which I don’t.

@Meteoroid
i never said anything about people not using emulators when the VC was a thing, theres always those who will use them regardless of generation or availablilty.

the comment i was replying to was mentioning people in the comments being in defence of piracy, when there's a large number of comments from people saying they want to be able to buy the games, there were even those who ended up buying zero mission and metroid fusion on wiiu when dread was announced.

even with emulation available the amount of retro compilations you see on switch (including 5 megaman ones) does show there's still a market for legacy content, same with how many people were hoping for a switch release of those FF pixel remasters.

@Meteoroid
You're right, Nintendo is going after a handful of sites that offer free Nintendo games. Their strategy is to discourage piracy, not to eliminate it. Nintendo knows they can't stop piracy, because 90% of the sites that offer free Nintendo downloads are impossible to stop. It's a stupid strategy.

The best strategy to stop piracy would be to sell all the classic Nintendo games as Nintendo Switch downloads on the eshop or on a new Virtual Console. They should release the games all at once, so as not to compete with modern games every month. But Nintendo is run by mediocre businessmen, so most people who want to play the classics will just play them for free on their Raspberry Pi or their Mini system.

@Karst
it was the one where the person said that it was their god given right to play video games and they cant live without them.

ive seen people saying they want to see these games more available and that they would prefer not to have to use things like rom sites in order to play them, but it usually doesnt go as far as demanding.

how successful a VC would be on switch is still up for debate but it does feel like there still is at least some desire for legacy content with how many retro collections you see (not that im complaining, i love some compilations) it tends to come down to convenience.

@Karst
it does feel kind of different in this generation because the games cant be bought however i do feel like (constructive) criticism of some of nintendos handling of things last generation can still be valid considering competition,

for example i really liked how the psp/ps3/vita handled retro content with psone games bought on one device being playable on all 3 devices providing they were linked to the same account, sadly the ps4 didnt support the psone classics line. its why i was somewhat disappointed that the wii, wiiu and 3ds VC were all separate though you could upgrade a select few games there was a large portion of the wii's VC which couldnt be upgraded sadly, though this largely was more an issue with how wii mode was seperate so you couldnt use the gamepad as say, a pro controller. so it was on a technical level more than anything, along with the wii not having an account system.

while nintendo doesnt see themselves as competing against the other 2 systems, comparisons are still valid since they arent in a theoretical vacuum. and if it wasnt for reactions from fans we could have ended up with an online only xbox one.

Only time I go to a rom site is to find 15+ year old games that I've bought at least once before and no longer have the console to play them. The amount of people wanting to play a classic vs people getting roms of new games on a modded switch has to be insanely higher for the retro side.

@nessisonett The IP is owned by Nintendo, if they do not want people to emulate it, that is up to them.

@PBandSmelly Because someone bought it to begin with. It is not like never paying for it in the first place.

@tntswitchfan68
And someone had to buy a copy of the game in order to dump it online

@PBandSmelly Yes, but selling something online means someone bought it in the first place.

Good. Nintendo are really bad when it comes to legacy title. Microsoft is doing far better job.

@tntswitchfan68 That’s just blatantly not how it works. Walkers could come out and tell you not to put crisps on a sandwich. You can still do it.

@mallowmars25 Valve DRM is famously invasive, though

@nessisonett that is a bad analogy. You are not selling it to anyone. Big difference.

@ElStormo0

I see that you were not "rude" with your answer, but be careful how you answer me; yes, I did mention that "romhacks" are not, let's say welcome, but I didn't say they are not allowed.
My point was that when "offered", and I emphasize "" offer "", modified games, for certain reasons that I do not mention in order not to lengthen this, they do not end to the liking of many, and especially and obviously of the original developers, which falls into this constant problem about emulators and piracy (also, I emphasize "emulators" and "piracy" like separate two points).
However, I do not mention that "everyone" is against it and I repeat, I did not say that they are not allowed; You just have to remember that once a game is modified "without permission", there are certain rules that must be understood once it is released to the public light and beyond.

In summary, it is okay to modify games, be it for fun, knowledge, learning, improvements, etc;, you just have to understand what can happen once that modification is revealed, and "the rules" behind it