Rumour: Banjo-Kazooie, Perfect Dark, And Paper Mario Might All Be Getting Fan PC Ports

This is where it's important to make the distinction between "legal" and "official" perfectly clear.

@BrazillianCara Perhaps "official" and "unofficial" would be more suitable?

Are these copies technically illegal to play?

@Dman10 If you are asking are they illegal to currently play on pc, yes, emulating games using software that isn't sanctioned by the makers isn't actually legal at all. An nintendo has in the past and can go after the various sites who host the emulation software.

I really don't care about this tbh. Clickbait title along with the "Rumour" tag implies these would be official Nintendo authorised PC ports. Thanks for wasting my time.

The lengths people will go to just to avoid buying a Nintendo console is almost commendable. I get some of these games aren't readily available or are locked behind a pay wall, but still. Pretty wild way to spend your time.

I’m confused by the legality of it all…

So I guess Stadium will feature some kind of device to plug our RBY carts in?

@Darkcaptain3 There’s nothing wrong with emulating. The law protects against copy write infringement, which means it’s illegal to distribute ROMs. Ripping your own ROMs and playing them is legal, as long as you don’t distribute what you ripped. Creating and distributing emulators is legal. Reverse engineering old games is legal. This is all dependent on region, of course, since laws vary from country to country. I’m speaking strictly US law.

Lol, what is this site becoming? Every week...Nintendo game at 4K, Play as Thomas the Tank Engine in Zelda, Unreal version of whatever. I'm not sure all this is cool and I have a hard time not construing stuff like this as property theft. I know, I know. Emulation is legal. ROMs aren't. But you aren't kidding anyone. Fans don't have some sort of right to do this. I dunno. I neither condone or condemn it as I don't know enough about it...but it's getting so widespread on the internet, you can see how folk think it's ok.

@IronMan30 I don’t think they are avoiding buying a console. When code is reverse engineered, it opens up the modding scene. It also gives the creators full control of the end-product, so if they chose to do so, they could implement changes from gameplay to upping resolution and beyond.

@Gavintendo Did someone from Nintendo Life put a gun to your head, force you to browse to the site, make you click the link, and then force your hands to write a comment?

Last I checked Space Station Silicon Valley wasn't fully functional via emulation so a PC port of that would be amazing. Several of these games aren't owned by Nintendo so there's always a (very small) chance the PC ports could end up on GOG.

it'll do until they bring rare replay to pc game pass

@IronMan30 or you can invest 10-20 minutes of time, and save the trouble and money of hunting down carts. I understand this particular endeavor required more extensive work but you make it sound like emulation is somehow more difficult or time consuming than spending hundreds of dollars.

I have no problem buying anything from Nintendo given the option to do so, or any creator/publisher, but spending upwards of $1000 to play my favourite childhood RPGs in their original form are the 'lengths' I'm trying to avoid going to.

@Royalblues Exactly this

@GrailUK emulations great, your over thinking it bud

Yes, give me Banjo and Conker on PC...Or M$ could just port Rare Replay already.

@BloodNinja Yes, by misleading me into believing that Nintendo were possibly planning to officially port their legacy content to PC.

@Alpha008 It's always borderline illegal. But you can be sure it will get immediately taken down if Nintendo doesn't like it. I hate the fact NL always "omits" to specify if it's official or not in the title, or simply add a disclaimer about emulation

This is probably the most clickbaity article I’ve ever seen on this site. What sounded interesting from the headline amounted to “some fans might potentially possibly maybe port some N64 games to PC sometime down the road who knows”

Yeah nice one cheers

For a second I thought these were going to be official ports due to how the article was titled but I guess not.

@Kainbrightside the only scenario where there's any true moral problem is when there's a legal, convenient way of purchasing something and you choose to pirate it. If a book is out of print and the only way I can read it is paying hundreds of dollars to someone who owns a copy, and not the publisher or author, why wouldn't I pirate it? Same thing applies to retro video game content, and the industry is nowhere near matching the strong initiative to properly preserve legacy content that the publishing and film industries do. They seem to be way better at understanding that when you give people a choice and the means a lot of them will gladly spend their money.

@Deljo Yeah, maybe I am. I'm such a noob with this sort of thing. But we get the articles promoting this sort of stuff...but never ones telling us what we need to do and where to go to do it.

@TedGundy I get that. It is just something I can't get my head around. Granted, I don't go out of my way to do so.

@BrazillianCara Its perfectly legal to emulate games, and there is nothing wrong with them doing it as well. You can't get the these old games any where, unless your willing or have a old X console, and then you have to spend a load of money just to buy X game, makes total sense to emulate it if your not going to let me buy it..

But yeah, I agree with everyone else, I don't think I have seen a more click baity article on this site, and I even defended some of them that were kinda, but not this, I got straight up click baited.

@Slowdive GoG is a great example. When it comes to PC games from the early to mid 90s they've eliminated any incentive for me to pirate anything.

I know you guys are no strangers to clickbait titles but this probably takes the cake. The title makes it seem like they are official ports, not done by fans. This site has gone downhill fast.

@GrailUK sa'll good, I don't think I understood what you meant.

Stop fixing good games, start fixing bad games. Superman 64, Castlevania 64, Quest 64, Earthworm Jim 3D, and Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero should be on that list instead.

@blindsquarel Started coming here a lot more once GoNintendo went dark, with them being back I’m probably just gonna go there again if this is the kind of thing to be expected here

If anyone has any guilt in any which way they play a 30 year old game that you can’t buy or worse already own - your morale compass is way way off.

These million dollar firms do far worse believe me.

@Stocksy
So if we aren’t okay with stealing something then our morals are off. I’m not judging if you want to emulate, but unless the roms are ripped from your copy of the game it is stealing. Even if you rip them it is still pretty iffy.

Ridiculous level of clickbait here, honestly shameful

Honestly, going beyond the click baity headline for a moment, the amount of these piracy/mod articles is just getting boring. Even the comment sections tend to be the same kind of thing every time; people moaning about Nintendo not providing an alternative, complaining Nintendo don't show their old games enough respect and effort, something about preservationists being modern day heroes blah blah blah no wonder Nlife has become such a joke amongst genuine Nintendo fans these days.

Give us Body Harvest, you cowards!

Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon

Goemon bros...we're going home!

@blindsquarel I think people would buy the games if they could.

@Snatcher
I agree, that wasn’t what my comment was about though.

@Nintendo

@NintendoofAmerica

@blindsquarel Oh my bad. Was it about the dude saying peoples moral compass was off if they found it wrong? Because i'm not gonna lie, I actually feel bad doing it if there is still a way to buy a game.

@Snatcher
Yeah that was it

@bluemage1989 i want to know about these Genuine Nintendo Fan Circles that are specifically judging nintendolife because the concept is hilarious

we have gone beyond fanboyism into Website For Fanboys Fanboyism.

The more articles, the higher chance the ports get taken down.

@blindsquarel I agree with what you said about it. Idk why its bad people feel bad about it, you can tell them its not wrong, but no need to make them feel like crap for feeling bad.

@bluemage1989
If someone is wishing that Nintendo would provide a better alternative so they could buy these games and not resort to other methods then I don't see what makes them any less of a "genuine Nintendo fan"

in the case of perfect dark and banjo however there are at least ways to buy the games thanks to the likes of rare replay

@TedGundy I don't see how I made any of those arguments, but okay.

From my own post, I said I understand some of these games aren't readily available (in which case, who really cares) but a good chunk of them are and aren't even behind that large of a pay wall. According to many people here, you can just go and buy a Switch anywhere, and the NSO expansion pass is there. That ranges from $250 to $400. Plenty of people with a PC can afford one but are unwilling to pay that price. I don't begrudge them but it is mildly humorous that they are the same people who will refuse to buy a Nintendo system because reasons.

This is basically piracy, but high brow at best.

Paper Mario is the only title listed in the headline that had me scratching my head at whether or not this was official. Banjo & Perfect Dark releasing on PC wouldn't surprise me at all seeing as how they're owned by MS (honestly surprised they're not already).

Glad to have it cleared up though.

>Dinosaur Planet

THAT GAME NEVER CAME OUT YOU UNDERNOURISHED BANANAS

@IronMan30
In perfect dark and banjo's case they are available on the xbox store (and in rare replay)

While i dont really play on PC i feel my main issue with the accessibility of a few of these games is less to do with the price and more how they are accessed, I would be fine with paying up for Banjo kazooie and paper mario on switch but dont really feel like investing time into service based games due to them only being available to play as long as the service itself is up (wheres a bought game can be played even after the service is down providing you already downloaded it)

Every time nl publishes a article about modding I just come here to see the dumbest thing people say in the reply section. It is incredible how brainwashed nintendo fans are.

@Mgalens well yeah, and I was going to concede that latter point about owning vs renting. I get not everyone wants that.

and no they will not take this down since it is all code no copyrighted assets.

@dartmonkey I clicked because it was a rumour. Who wouldn't click on a rumour of Nintendo putting games on PC (M$ and SONY have both done it!) Much better headline now

One thing I've always wanted was a version of Banjo-Kazooie that implements changes to the iconic duo's moveset made in Banjo-Tooie, such as being able to aim the Beak Bomb attack, move a little bit during the Beak Buster's wind-up, and slightly turn during the Beak Barge attack. I hope fans will be able to reverse engineer Banjo-Tooie, and make that dream come true!

@Gavintendo Man, sucks that you have Nintendo lifers coming at you with guns! What part of the headline is misleading? It says “fan PC ports,” what do you think that means?

@IronMan30
my personal ideal scenario would be like how things such as the Mario kart DLC is handled (or gamepass) where you can access all the games when you are subbed but you can also have a "buy and keep" option.

@BloodNinja Maybe they edited the article headline, like the guy a few comments above yours said they did?

Seriously, stop replying to me.

@dartmonkey A few years back it may have seemed obvious that Sony wouldn't port their PlayStation exclusives to PC, or Nintendo releasing smartphone games.

I just hope GoldenEye would get a similar PC port, especially since it was based on an earlier version of the Perfect Dark engine.

@IronMan30 you think someone who goes through the trouble of reverse engineering a game is doing so to avoid buying a Nintendo console? Do you think people who would even bother to play OoT in 4k are doing so to avoid paying for a Switch online subscription? Because if you think there's any crossover between those demographics and people who pirate because they just like stealing you're high.

Most of these people have already paid for Ocarina of Time at least once in some form since 1998. No one is specifically doing this because they're a cheapskate or don't want to buy a Nintendo console, and this isn't comparable to refusing to pay for an NSO subscription and getting shoddy emulation for it, it's going to the nth degree to do something you would pay for if it was offered by Nintendo. I have no idea how that translates to casual emulation or piracy in your mind.

@BloodNinja When the article was released, the word "Fan" was not in the title, which is pretty clickbaity. They changed it later, though.

When Superman 64 is not only going to get a PC port, but an improved version, fixing all the bugs and problems?

@dartmonkey
They did edit the title.

@StarPoint Interesting! I must have been late to the party. Glad it got fixed, and we can all move on

@Gavintendo <3

@a1904 See you tomorrow!

Haven't used the Ignore function on this website until now, thanks for that feature at least.

Nintendo should just do what Sony does and release official PC versions of their old games. That would stop all the unofficial fan ports.

For a moment I thought Microsoft was finally porting Banjoo and Perfect Dark to pc :c

@KeoTsumata Thats what I mean't, like sure you can buy them, but you can't actually buy them at there actually price.

@TedGundy so then why are they doing it? You threw a lot of insults at my guy, but you didn't say anything substantive.

Not to be savage, but at this point I'm starting to avoid articles just because they have your name on them. Stop reporting on rumors. It doesn't help your credibility.

The amount of whiny kids in these comments lol

Look forward to this day.

The best part is that because they're not emulated (so many kids here seem to think this is emulation lol) that will mean not having all this overhead. That's why sm64 runs so great even on my raspberry pi at 1080p

@LittleGhost why am I doing what now?

Still no Star Fox..

So something to keep in mind is the distinction between ripping a rom and reverse engineering. These folks are looking at the code and rebuilding them with enough differences to allow fair use. It's like repainting the Mona Lisa, the image looks the same but the brush strokes are not. I will say the part I find difficult to wrap my head around is the use of what I imagine are still copyrighted music and characters. I would be very interested in what loophole is at play here.

Awesome news.... That dev who reverse engineered Super Mario 64 was onto something which blew the homebrew/fan hobbyist scene wide open.