Nintendos own emulators don't even distinguish between 'legitimatley' ripped copies and downloaded ones!
Maybe they should actually work on a legit solution to emulate these old games then instead of calling it the biggest threat in the industry.
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Frank Cifaldi GDC talk: "It's Still Emulation: Saving Video Game History Before It's Too Late"
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Nintendos own emulators don't even distinguish between 'legitimatley' ripped copies and downloaded ones!
Maybe they should actually work on a legit solution to emulate these old games then instead of calling it the biggest threat in the industry.
Jump to 13:20 of the talk in the OP. Get passed the rom header talk for a specific example with Capcom. (Though that is more of an example of the slightly better. The belief that Nintendo has to be involved or you can't legally use a Nintendo emulator is (was?) pervasive in the industry)
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For the MMLC and the Eclipse Engine? That also doesn't really reconcile since Capcom themselves (with contractors Atomic Planet and OeRSTED respectively) had emulated several SNES MM games on PS2 in 2 collections over a decade earlier. The idea that Nintendo's been terrorizing all other publishers out of emulation just feels sort of overblown and poorly researched.
I don't know what to tell you. Cifaldi is lying about legal concerns Capcom and other companies directly told him about specifically emulating Nintendo hardware?
No, he certainly may have been told that. It just doesn't appear to be reality based on the dozens of counter examples I'm sure we could both name.
It kinda doesn't matter whether it is or isn't true if the people controlling these legacy games believe it to be a risk and can't be persuaded otherwise.
I'm not as immersed in this conversation as people like Frank but in my experience, this sentiment has only spread as people who grew up in the emulation era with these apocryphal stories floating around brought them into the workforce and treated them as fact, so publicly and directly challenging these assertions is probably going to kill more of this sentiment than arguing directly with existing rights holders, especially Japanese ones who don't necessarily care to even listen.
Probably only if you're actively working on a project that absolutely requires them... the most famous example being Dylan Cuthbert's work on Starfox Command, which required access to the final, finished ROM of Starfox 2 (which is how we first learned of there being an actual, finished ROM that wasn't the already leaked beta prototype).
Nintendo know that most people will steal their ROMs and upload them online; so that's why they keep their content under such tight lock n' key. Hell, the previous Starfox 2 leaks came directly from former members of Argonaut! Dylan was incredibly lucky that Nintendo trusted him enough to not only continue to work with him, but even loan him the final Starfox 2 ROM.
They run a tight ship because they know exactly how leaky and untrustworthy most people in the industry are. Not just with ROM leaks, but with leaks in general (which makes it all the more baffling that they continue to work so closely with Ubisoft, when they are directly responsible for around 99% of all Nintendo related leaks!). Even amongst Nintendo's own internal staff, all information about their upcoming hardware and software is only given out on a need-to-know basis (there are countless accounts from Nintendo developers where they talk about this - many of them only find out what hardware they're working on when it gets announced at E3 even!).
Those weren't emulations, they were direct ports. AFAIK, the one and only compilation re-release that actually emulates a Nintendo platform on a non-Nintendo console out there is Rare Replay; and that came about as part of a deal between Nintendo and Microsoft (Nintendo got the rights back for the DKC, DKL and DK64 games so that they could return to the VC service - in exchange for MS getting the rights to emulate the NES and N64 for Rare's games in Rare Replay).
Do you know if Nintendo also keep the ROMs from all 3rd parties on their systems as well? I'd imagine that they probably would, since they'd need them in order to manufacture the original carts/discs and put them all through cert. Stands to reason that they'd hold onto a copy of each one as well, even after the hardware has been discontiuned, for archival/VC release purposes... and that would also probably include every single version ever published (including patches) and maybe even every single copy that has gone through cert as well (so beta versions of games too!)
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They don't want anyone to back up their games, regardless of whether or not anything can be done about it.
It's fucking infuriating.
Especially when it's about such an important topic.
Are you folks seeking for a "APOLOGIZE" this hard ? Especially when you know the story is more nuanced than that ?
It's time to let it go, Cifaldi is not worth your blunt pitchforks
Toxic Nintendo fans make up like 80% of the vocal users of this forum.
The emulation community and their work is not a Nintendo product. Emulation is a whole lot more than just dumping roms.
once gaming goes full streaming i dont see how there would be any other options to preserve games.
There are definitely way more examples of 8/16-bit Nintendo games being emulated on non-Nintendo systems: Ninja Gaiden Xbox emulated the SNES Trilogy, Sunsoft's PS collections were emulation-based, the Final Fantasy compilations for PS contained the original ROMs, EA's PSP compilation (the only one they ever did, sadly) had a few SNES games, etc and that's off the top of my head. Capcom wasn't breaking new ground.
Yeah, that was the first thing I thought about regarding the "steal from work" bit.
That leaked because it was uploaded to an unsecured directory, not stealing from work.
Agreed, and more so when Frank is one of the few voices actually talking about this
Are you sure they're actually using emulators though? The Final Fantasy compilations (including Chrono Trigger) for instance are not actually emulated; they are native ports that are pulling graphical and sound sample data out of the original SNES ROMs in real-time (which is one of the big reasons why they all have such horrible loading times; even on modern systems and emulators that remove the disc-seeking times).
Likewise, ALL of Capcom's ports are not emulated (including their arcade titles - outside of the recently released Street Fighter Anniversary Collection on current gen consoles; and probably the Capcom Beat em' Up Collection as well); they are actually all either native ports of the Capcom Generations series of re-releases that originated back on PS1/Saturn, or brand new ports compiled from scratch. Capcom Arcade Cabinet on PS3/360 is also a collection of native ports, despite being made by M2. The only previous Capcom re-releases that were emulated ROMs were the Virtual Console releases (though the Mega Man X Collection on PS2 runs the PS1 MMX games natively through BC IIRC; so that kinda counts too).
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Frank is basically gaming's David Attenborough. Our some other kind of historian or some shit. We need people like him around as a repository for game history stuff before any more of it is lost forever.
There are thousands of games on so many different platforms that this could be done for and no one would care. Shit, just setup a GOG-like store so devs would get their money, just leave the emulation aspect to whoever's buying the content.
This kind of makes sense. If they're not going to release it as something payable on a modern platform anytime soon, just throw the ROM dumps on a web store and say "have at it" (as far as saying "you asked for it, emulate/play it how you can". Just whack a "not for commercial use" disclaimer on it and be done, and pull it from online if you're planning on re-releasing it somehow.
There are thousands of games on so many different platforms that this could be done for and no one would care. Shit, just setup a GOG-like store so devs would get their money, just leave the emulation aspect to whoever's buying the content.
Has Cifaldi made any comments regarding his claims of Nintendo using downloaded ROMs of their own games for VC releases, after it was proven it wasn't the case?
Yeah it's a shame because this is an excellent topic worthy of discussion. Looking forward to when this talk is uploaded to the internet so I can see it myself. I have nothing but deep respect for Frank and the work he does.
Posts like these are toxic themselves and only contribute to creating a toxic enviroment
Yes--they aren't emulating 100% of the original game in every case but they are at the very least emulating game logic and other routines in real time (which is what MMLC did, incidentally). A lot of the Capcom collections you say aren't emulated are 100% emulated, too.
Even so, the supposed reason NES/SNES games were thought to be verboten on non-Nintendo systems had nothing to do with emulation per se and more to do with the data itself, particularly scaremongering around the games literally just containing the word "NINTENDO" in the data.
You're overthinking this by looking for examples and counterexamples of whether this has or hasn't happened before now--Frank's point is that a) "you're not allowed to emulate Nintendo games on non-Nintendo consoles!" has always been bullshit, and b) big rights holders are still afraid to do it nonetheless. Like, the reality of what has or hasn't been released before doesn't matter because there was never a factual basis for these fears to begin with and people were perpetuating a whole lot of nonsense.
A ROM dump of the uncensored prototype has found its way onto the net in the last years. Look it up.
No company could ever release legally it though. Many of the changes made to the game were to remove possible copyright infringing material, and it would still be the case today.
> Frank makes one mistake years ago, based on a scenario which looked likely at the time.
> Years later, runs another presentation on an incredibly important topic, one which he is one of the most knowledgeable people on.
Era: YEAH WHAT ABOUT THAT TIME HE WAS WRONG ABOUT NINTENDO THOUGH
There wouldn't be, outside of people literally breaking in. Anyone who cares about game preservation should be worried about projects like Google Stadia, and should be wanting the Streaming industry to take after projects like Shadow instead.
> Years later, runs another presentation on an incredibly important topic, one which he is one of the most knowledgeable people on.
Era: YEAH WHAT ABOUT THAT TIME HE WAS WRONG ABOUT NINTENDO THOUGH
There wouldn't be, outside of people literally breaking in. Anyone who cares about game preservation should be worried about projects like Google Stadia, and should be wanting the Streaming industry to take after projects like Shadow instead.
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This guy continues to fight the good fight. Unfortunately I can't imagine the folks who constantly shit up emulation threads will watch the entire thing, but I'm glad he's being spotlighted at GDC. This medium as a whole just has so little respect for it's legacy and it's past. Truly a modern medium in that way :|
Thanks to WarRock for the great summary
Thanks to WarRock for the great summary
Frank is doing such good work on preserving Video Game history, from actual magazines to unreleased games from the 8/16 bit era. Glad to have him with us.
Develop an itunes for roms and sell an official emulator to go with it.
Holy shit and it's been making the rounds for ~5 years. Thanks for the heads up! I see it has the Little Shop of Horrors reference (as seen in magazine previews) right off the bat and then has other references like Planet of the Apes. That's so cool.
If I was Sir David Attenborough I'd be insulted by this lol. Much respect to Cifaldi all the same.
User Banned (3 Days): Inflammatory false equivalencies
If this logic is valid, anti-vaxxers are totally off the hook for continuing to spread their dangerous information. They're not spreading misinformation or lies because they deep down believe they are right.
Yeah, it's been around awhile.
Here's the post I made about it at the old country.
There's also a hacked version that tries to re-create the original look seen in magazine scans.
http://www.gusstevenson.com/games/monsterparty/
MMAC emulated MM7 and MMXC emulated MMX1-2. Only the PS1 games were native ports.
Nintendo's stance on preservation is horrible. The fact that they abandoned Virtual Console makes it even worse.
I do my part to preserve games but I fear if a streaming only future becomes a reality it'll become impossible to preserve new games.
I do my part to preserve games but I fear if a streaming only future becomes a reality it'll become impossible to preserve new games.
First page has a bunch of stuff, but key points:
Here is where he posted in response
https://www.resetera.com/threads/to...nto-vc-updated-dec-1-2018.64755/post-13672366
And then further, from reddit, with a clarification on how this stuff can occur:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/fr...ory-before-its-too-late.107137/#post-19137321
Stay on topic
Official Staff Communication
This topic is about emulation and how it relates to video game preservation. Please stop derailing this topic with unrelated commentary about something else, thanks!
OP
OP
What sticks the most for me was the fact that none of the developers present at the talk are sure of the future of their current games. Little has changed since the 70s/80s.
Read like, the entire first page of replies.
Yes: https://www.resetera.com/threads/nintendo-"wins"-12-millions-in-lawsuit-to-rom-site.80618/page-19#post-14948660
Worth pointing out again I didn't write it, I just copy pasted from Patrick Miller's twitter to make for easier reading/discussion.
Nintendo has earned the tireless goodwill of of the people defending them. It's too bad that it's so at odds with game preservation tech, but if Nintendo continues their stunning output as they have this gen, it may have to be a sacrifice.
What? Hell no. "They make good games" has nothing to do with their stance on emulation.
Ah, sorry. I was on mobile and could only skim through the article. Sad to see the record hasn't been set straight.