Skunkfish

@justin233 You might find that you regret it less if you open it and use it!

I'm tempted, but it's a lot cheaper on Steam. There's a physical release as well so I suspect they've bumped up the eShop price to match that...

@BanjoPickles The two main groups that we've got here are those who may have robbed a convenience store in the past but realise it was wrong and have changed their ways and those that continue to rob convenience stores, believing its somehow for the 'greater good' and that they're doing no harm.

@Crono1973 But would they sell more or less old titles if ROMs became completely unavailable tomorrow? You'd be a fool to say less

And let's combine the timing of that ROM removal with the launch of a new paid service featuring downloads of their old titles. Are you saying that it wouldn't be more appealing to customers if the games they were getting were ONLY available on that service?

All of the above is why ROMs are harmful to Nintendo.

And you want proof? In my teens I spent hundreds of hours playing SNES, Gameboy and N64 ROMs and didn't pay a penny for them. How did that not harm Nintendo's sales?

@Crono1973 Are you saying that it doesn't, or has no potential to damage sales?

Because that's what Nintendo are protecting here, the bottom line.

You could argue that many of the games are no longer and will not be available again. But if all of those old games are deemed worthless, does that increase or decrease the perceived value of their new games?

If they made Mario Karts 1-7 are available for free, would people be happy paying $50 for 8?

And don't forget, Nintendo are well aware that the only resource scarcer that players money is players time. If people are enjoying full access to their entire back catalogue, where is the time to be enjoying their new games?

I, like many others, can only dedicate a few hours a week to playing video games. That's one of the reasons Nintendo never swamp us with all the old titles at once, because greater revenue per minute of playing time can be derived from new, full price titles.

Hence, the trickle of VC titles, intended to supplement, not cannibalise their main revenue streams. Nintendo is all about pacing (not that it always gets this right!)

And yes, copyright infringement is not really 'theft' or 'stealing', but that doesn't stop people terming it as such - hence the organisations in the UK; FACT (Federation Against Copyright Theft) and FAST (Federation Against Software Theft)

Hmmm... if I become the victim of identity theft, where someone has stolen my identity, does that mean I have no identity?

Does the fact that TV shows and movies are available to buy, stream or rent mean that there's no piracy of said TV shows and movies?

Could Nintendo stop piracy of their old games dead in its tracks by releasing all their old games to buy on VC? Did the games available on VC on Wii stop being downloaded illegally?

@Crono1973 What about stealing someones ideas? They still have those ideas...

@bolt05 I think the copyrights will expire, 95 years after publication!

@Crono1973 And they'll no doubt release it again and again when the time suits, because it's easy for them to do so and people will buy it.

Mother 3 is a niche title, that had no English translation been done previously would probably sell pretty well. I think it would still sell pretty well, but you could understand Nintendo's doubts. And I don't think translating these games is straight forward (you could argue it's been done already, but I don't think Nintendo would use the fan translation, it's like losing their moral high ground)

@Jokerwolf And there are games far newer that are public domain or freeware. And there are games that aren't, that you have to pay for.

@Caryslan You could argue that the fan-translation of Mother 3 (although well intentioned) may have destroyed any chance of an official translation.

Most people who REALLY wanted to play in English have had the chance to for a decade.... How many willing punters are left? (probably enough, but you can understand Nintendo's doubts).

@Crono1973 Oh, thought you meant new games. I don't think they would for retro games. Having those games looking expensive in the marketplace probably helps them to justify charging extortionate prices when they do get re-released!

@Jokerwolf But Mona Lisa is long out of copyright and da Vinci is long dead. If people were giving away identical copies of his paintings while he was alive and trying to sell paintings I'm sure he would have been peeved!

@Crono1973 I suspect it will be achieved with DRM before any change in the law comes about.

Or, we'll see the death of physical releases altogether.

@Crono1973 Yes, I think so! There have been some half-hearted efforts in that direction already, but I suspect it won't happen without a change in the law. I think it succeeded as far as physical PC games are concerned.

@SBandy I think he's trying to say that game designers can learn a lot from the games of yesteryear, and the only way to experience many of these is through piracy as they're no longer easily available.

It's a good point, but makes it no less illegal...

@Caryslan As far as I can see, Emuparadise has removed ALL roms. I just tried a few TG-16 links for 'research purposes' and they're no longer available when you attempt to download.

@carlos82 I hope so, I never owned a Gamecube so there are undoubtedly some classics I've never had the chance to play! fingers crossed

@Crono1973 Hence my bad analogy comment above! And drinking tap water isn't theft

A really bad analogy I can think of is tap water.

People won't pay for tap water (old games), when they can get it for free out of the tap (ROM sites).

They may pay for bottled water (ROMs bundled in a SNES Mini console), but only because they think they're getting something superior.

I did say it was a bad analogy!

@Crono1973 While that's admirable (I think?), you will find that for the majority of people, if something is available for free then they won't pay for it.

@Crono1973 There are very few games I've bought twice, in fact I hardly bought any VC games because I'd played them all in emulators back in the late 90s...

@Crono1973 Yes, I agree - Nintendo chose not support Gamecube games. A bad decision!

EDIT: Although I think the reason they dropped physical support is due to the cost difference in the drive for supporting the smaller disc format (very few slot loading blu-ray drives support that size, if any did in 2012).

I suspect they gave some consideration to making Gamecube games available for download but decided against it for whatever reason...

@Jokerwolf "I think all of this talk is pointless because people like me will still buy games that I already own that I also have all the roms of as well"

I suspect there are fewer like you than you believe!

@Crono1973 Nothing from a hardware point of view, except for the Wii U not supporting the Gamecube disc size! (obviously wouldn't affect downloads)

I wish they had supported the Gamecube I guess the controller differences would also have been a consideration....

@carlos82 Nvidia Shield's CPU is clocked at ~1.9GHz, Switch's at only ~1GHz. The bottleneck in the emulation would be the CPU emulation which is very CPU intensive (GPU is less intensive, as it would wrap graphic calls to the Switch GPU with not a huge CPU overhead).

There were some slight frame drops on the Shield emulation, if as I suspect this is due to a CPU bottleneck, this would be significantly worse on Switch.

@carlos82 I suspect one of the problems with Gamecube games on Switch, is that the Switch may not be powerful enough to emulate the Gamecube

@Crono1973 And it will continue to do so, and Nintendo will continue to fight parties who are offering their same products for nothing. C'est la vie.

@Crono1973 I suspect they saw that as adding value to the games, by bundling them into a desirable product.

For me, it was as much about the nice form factor as the games on it I expect they did better out of it than another VC relaunch...

@lemonjellydude From what I read, Nintendo issued a cease and desist to emuparadise last year, at which point they removed their first-party Nintendo ROMs.

I don't believe Nintendo has taken any action against them since, they're just worried because of Nintendo's litigation against the other ROM sites (who presumably ignored their cease and desist notices).

@Crono1973 @mikegamer So they should continue to allow them to be downloaded for free, whilst at the same time putting time and effort into making them available for purchase?

Why bother when people can download them for free?

@Crono1973 Anyway, back on subject. If taking down these ROM sites is the wrong thing to do from Nintendo, what should they be doing?

@Crono1973 That wasn't a claim, it was a question. What does it do to the value of their back catalogue?

You then followed up with a question, I said I don't know the answer (hence why I asked the question).

@Crono1973 I wasn't debating with Eightbitman, just calling out his behaviour...

@Crono1973 That's hard to prove one way or the other...

@ReaderRagfish The name may say Eightbitman, but the behaviour says eight-year old boy.

What's the alternative to taking down these ROM sites? If they continue to turn a blind eye and let people download these games for free, what does it do to the value of their back catalogue?

@Jokerwolf This has absolutely zero effect on you then, since you have all the games already? Why the complaining? And anyone who REALLY wants to get them illegally still can.

These ROM sites have been acting unlawfully whether Nintendo takes action or not, it's just that nothing would happen unless they do. They're certainly not innocent parties here, they're effectively criminal organisations!

Just a note... I ran a GBC ROM site back in the late 90s, releasing ROM images before the games had even hit the shelves in some cases. We had thousands of visitors per day. Was I right to do so? Was I hell...

@Jokerwolf I'm sure they've appointed lawyers for this, not web developers. Also, it's harder to promote the download of old games as a selling point when they're freely available all over the internet. If you want to make money selling something that only you have the right to sell or distribute, it makes sense to get rid of the illegal competition.

Don't get me wrong, in the past I've played pretty much every SNES game as an illegally downloaded ROM. I just don't believe I had any right to, and if anything I owe Nintendo, no vice versa as some people seem to think!

@nessisonett Unfortunately you're the exception rather than the rule. For every person looking for a backup of their purchased games, there are 10,000 looking to play something they haven't bought for free...

@Crono1973 I think they publicised it as theft to make it more understandable as a crime for the layman. But back in those days it was literally selling knock-off floppy disks and carts on market stalls...

If people want to break the law and download ROMs, that's their choice. I just don't understand their feeling of entitlement to do so....

@Rayquaza2510 Which bit made sense? About next doors shop selling computers?

@Crono1973 Well, they used to refer to copyright infringement as copyright theft here in the UK which served to blur the lines a little...

@Rayquaza2510 Erm, no... Those games have been purchased (perhaps on credit) by the distributor/shop so that would be stealing from the shop, causing them a loss. Not ok.

@Rayquaza2510 Nintendo are probably the only ones that DO have the right to download all their titles from ROM sites. No crime being committed by them there!

@Rayquaza2510 The difference here is 'buy a game'. That's kind of an important factor... And the copy for personal use is questionable where it means breaking copy protection.