I was gonna add about that exactly. The simple fact the FED/adjacent agencies are on the case for money laundering is a red flag that those big sales are beyond shady.
Emulation is amazing and a huge part of what makes me like the PC so much. But also the PSP, 3DS, Dreamcast and Raspberry Pi. I remember an earlier friend came to me with floppy with Pokémon Blue and SMYGB on it. The emulator ran like garbage - my Pentium 100 couldn't even handle it - but I was so amazed by it, these days I dump everything myself from my machines and media.
Funny, because my very first experience with Pokemon was in fact, on SMYGB, running Pokemon Blue on a Pentium 166MHz Packard Bell M415. Thankfully in my case, it ran well enough, though SMYGB's sound wasn't the greatest at the time I tried it.
@@lldjslim oh shut up kid you watch cinemassacre but James himself use emulation also nothing is forever old consoles can't survived that long lol even other popular retro TH-camrs use emulators and grow up touch some Grass will you
@@lldjslim you hate emulation but your subbed to retro dodo who reviews handheld emulators using by a Raspberry Pi, emulec, or Retro arch you make the retro community cringe and sound like a 12 year old
Consider your older games being altered due to copyright or changes in politics as well such as with the GTA remakes. Preservation means that original experience is there for the future
I love retro emulation. I hate the "we're still making money off it" attempts by megacorps to make "classic" systems with a handful of games to attack emulations. For modern systems, I'm less enthusiastic about it - but for older and out of production ones, absolutely essential.
I own a Switch and Zelda BOTW, it runs 30FPS and some parts of the map it drop well below that. Emulating that game on a PC can run 60FPS everywhere and can be modded to have higher resolution textures with some faux ray tracing added into the shaders. I understand the issues around piracy, but as you mentioned - I own the game (and console) I should be able to enjoy any way I see fit. I don't share my physical copy or even the rom, I simply want to play I game I bought and enjoyed in a manner that is new and exciting to me - which if that didn't happen, that game probably wouldn't have gotten any more attention from me.
yep, we even WANT Nintendo to put out a Switch Pro that could run some of these games at higher/steadier/smoother frame rates, etc, but alas, we continue to wait
Same I own a Wii U and BOTW on disk. I've never played it on the system though, I installed it and the patches and dlc, then ripped the ROM and played it on PC for a far superior experience.
I will never be amazed at the effort companies put in to stop emulation and the completely inverse amount of effort to give customers a legit way to get the same experience which could earn them some income. Literally that 'sticking a stick in your own wheel' scenario lol.
There's a reason for that, and it's because our copyright system (or at least the US version, which is what most companies bend over backwards for) is absolutely fucked. If companies don't litigate to protect their IP from potential infringement, then they run the risk of losing copyright on it and it can then fall into the public domain. Obviously it's more complicated than that, but that's the major thrust behind why Nintendo, Sony, Sega, SquareEnix, and other companies will go to such ridiculous lengths to fight even individuals in court with an entire team of incredibly expensive lawyers over a scenario they had no way to make money off of in the first place. It's just so broken.
Mednafen/Beetle is also a fantastic emulator for PS1. All the little cracks and other audio oddities (apparently emulating audio accurately, and with sharp latency is difficult) are pretty much gone, and looks a treat on my 4K tv with CRT-Royale.
@@MegaManNeo Near had already transferred Higan to the community about a year or so before his death. Ares was his own proprietary (CC-NC-ND, AFAIK) fork of it; but that's been relicensed to ISC and also forked/continued on by the community.
Not really. The rarities markets are quite strange. They are used as a savings and trade vehicle that is hard to trace/tax. It's a whole consipiracy of it's own. Like artwoks don't get valuable until after the artist is dead, and it doesn't depend of objective aethetics or quality of the work. Sure there has to be some of it, but the value comes for the rarity of such works, but the artist also had to produce enough unique works that they weren't too rare, and thus easily fungible and appraisal.
@@WorBlux Its absolutely a massive scam, as illegal as it can be. Artificially inflating the perceived value of retro games in order to squeeze a market that doesn't exist outside of this manipulation. Check out Karl Jobst (TH-cam) excellent reporting on this, another part published just days ago.
I owned a Wii U and Breath of the Wild, but you bet your ass I emulated it on my PC so that could play it in proper HD and 60fps. Oh, and then you can mod the hell out of it.
Just commented about the same thing then scrolled down and saw this. I own a Switch and BOTW - but PC emulation for that game is incredible, especially in the Korok Forest where the console drops to 10FPS or less.
I've finished games swapping my saves back and forth between flash carts, phone emulators and MiSTer. Sometimes just playing around with this stuff is more fun than the actual games
Preach 🙌 Software preservation through emulation is a great thing. Keeping media playable/viewable on modern platforms after companies abandon development allows future generations to experience history for themselves.
lol. Perfect video timing. I recently downloaded RetroArch and have been recently watching videos on emulation. Having owned metroid prime2 on my GC, playing it now on my laptop is pretty fricking sick. Awesome stuff!
You can thank Disney for why we can't have nice things, like things actually entering the public domain as they should have under the original intent of copyright law.
RCPS3 it’s the emulator that made me so happy when it came out like 8 years ago, but sadly it is still work in progress even though the ps3 is dead, I wish it was required to open source software of consoles when 10 or 15 years of his life have passed because the hardware in most cases die and they don’t even put new games or things anymore, practically it’s a dead console at that point
I appreciate everyone who steps up to demonstrate the reasons why we need to preserve this media. I doubly appreciate the fact that you said this should eventually be public domain. Our copyright laws need updates. I also want to be able to buy things like a BIOS instead of just buying a PS2 or something to dump it. I'm willing to do that and give them the money for that property so I'd at least always have a legal copy and don't need to worry about the dwindling supply of consoles that only keep getting older and they don't make any money off of after the life window is shut. I wish console companies would just get their heads out of the sand and realize this is not worth fighting. Most people still buy their games even if they've emulated them if the experience is good enough. I just don't get their mentality sometimes, especially Nintendo.
10:00 "Can the authors of Super Mario reclaim copyright from Nintendo" Probably not. Under US law they would almost certainly be considered work-for-hire employees and not authors, which means they never touched had copyright and thus have no standing to terminate assignment. Furthermore, while there is a *lot* of harmonization in terms of copyright law, that usually only applies to going after infringers. Japanese law would apply here (which I can't read - I can read Japanese and legalese but not both at the same time). I have no clue how the hell that body of law handles work-for-hire and if it has a termination provision, but my guess is that it would similarly have work-for-hire gate off any avenues for termination. 10:40 "If I buy (the game) what difference does it make if I emulate it" This is actually an open legal question. If you look at the history of MP3 players (RIAA v. Diamond), you'll see the courts more or less embracing a right to format shift despite clear technical mandates from Congress that consumers be denied DRM-free digital recording technology. On the other hand, we have DMCA 1201, which clearly prohibits any technology that lets you undo protection (which, btw, VHS tapes had). In the Team Xecuter charges, the US government outright argued that *SNES cartridges* constitute DRM simply because the cartridge is a nonstandard pinout, which is entirely insane even by Section 1201 standards. None of that matters if you're *streaming* the game, however, Even if you have a license to do so, that license can be conditioned upon pretty much anything, even and including a prohibition on things that would ordinarily be fair use. And most people don't have such a license, meaning that Nintendo can basically be as picky-choosy as it wants. Same for online play, too - if you're playing on Nintendo's servers with a modified Switch, even if it's just to boot into Android and Nintendo can't tell what you did, you're at the minimum in violation of some EULA, and at worst might be breaking CFAA (which can result in some really onerous penalties like jail time). This is why careful console hackers never sign into online. In the Geohot/Sony trial, Sony went one step further with the CFAA and argued that "the PS3" itself - as in, the abstract concept of a software platform, rather than any particular console or server - was a legally protected computer that Geohot had breached. In other words, hacking one PS3 is equivalent to hacking all of them. This is even more insane than the Team Xecuter thing, and would have obliviated even the meager 1201 exceptions regime that we have for this sort of thing.
I still don't understand why big console companies don't see emulation as a potential to make money, it's pretty easy. Example for Playstation: Step 1: Put ISO of Sony games for PS1 on PS Store for sale for low price (10-15$), notify their partners that had PS1 games that they can do the same - if store would fail losses would be really small and if its success it's literally free money. Step 2: If step 1 would be success they should create their own emulator (or cooperate with some of existing projects to create better, more accurate one), they can create console version of emulator too to boost sales even more. Step 3: Proceed to next system.
I couldn't afford much growing up, and there are SO MANY video games that I want to play and experience from my childhood, teens, and youth. Emulation is a god send for people like me. I just hope the legalities get easier over time. I sure as hell don't have space in my apartment to hold every console made since The FamiCom haha.
Neither do I! I have some retro consoles at home like my sega Genesis and SNES. I also have a Wii and ps3, but other consoles like the n64, ps2, nes, Xbox, I just emulate them
There's been countless times the original rights owners have taken from the emulation scene to fix their lack of care, and sadly countless times they squash communities to ensure they can cash in on the hard work. See Rockstar for both of these points
i've been painstakingly setting up a 50GB drive image for PCem that has windows 98 SE and tons of games and programs on it so i can play all the old games i remember playing, in the way i remember playing them and it is incredibly rewarding. Also its fun to benchmark the old simulated hardware and compare it against reviews written at the time for that hardware. These programs are incredibly accurate! Maybe the only thing that needs work would be memory and disk IO... but these are modern times and maybe those things shouldn't be EXACTLY as slow as a computer back then was, maybe theoretical max (or around there) for the platform is fine.
Thanks for the loud voice on this piece of software liberty we should defend. I kinda want an international court to rule that hardware emulation, software retro engineering or FPGA based ones are 100% legal and a safe harbor, but I know those companies will sue for decades to salt the earth and delay that potentiality. And the "million dollars Nintendo sealed box" sales are under investigation of money laundering since the auction house owners and staff are recurrent 'money liars' where the sale isn't really occurring in a legal way. Like mafia type of deals "Buy us this stupid thing for 1 million real cash and we will forget your debt of 10 millions blood money". Or even auctions where the auction house staff disguise as fake buyers to drive the price higher...
Copyright ought to expire after 15-20 years, This lets copyright holders extract 95% of the value from 95% of the works, while still letting you have a robust public domain.
Interesting video!! Check out Modern Vintage Players one of the last videos on this topic, the emulation is a bit disapointing on the switch, to say at least.
In Canada it is legal to rip media I own to my home server. The battle was fought and won when MP3 players became the norm. I have 4000 DVD's of movies on DVD that I have spent years rummaging through bargain bins looking for that are now on my home server. There are a few that you can not even buy a version of if you wanted to. If instead of ripping the disk I download an AVI I am still not breaking Canadian law. Even though I still get threats from Canadian ISP's from downloading like US law applies here. Media does have a legitimate legal reason to be available through torrents. I wish more legitimate services used torrents to spread their products. I wish I could buy media using a torrent service and enjoy it the way I want to enjoy it.
...doesn't Canada have identical anticircumention law to the US? MP3 players are different because CDs don't have encryption or DRM to circumvent. Ripping a CD and ripping a DVD have way different legal implications because of this.
very interesting what you said about programmers not getting their share when their work makes millions in profit. plenty game studios sure are milking workers rn
EA....cough, cough......Ubisoft,....cough, cough.......Bethesda....cough, cough. Everyone's going to buy up the new programmers fresh out of code monkey school, pay them as little as they can, then toss them out the door in 1-2 years for new ones so they don't have to promote them if they're actually good.
You're bringing up a great point with the right to private copy. I don't know how it is in the US but in here in Switzerland it's... Kind of allowed, but also kind of a grey area... It's a mix between legal precedent and some things being clear as per the written law. But it's generally considered ok to copy a DVD even if it has copy protection, as long as you own the original and the copy is only for safekeeping/personal use. I think all of this should fall under the same kind of thing as right to repair, it's about being allowed to keep what we bought alive/functioning.
THANK YOU!!! I bought a copy of Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening, why do I have to buy it for every console they rereleased it on with absolutely no difference to the game! I did buy the Switch version because there were visual upgrades to the game, and control changes, so it warranted actually buying it, but I did not buy it in the VC on any other console.
great topic. I would rather play a game on the original hardware for that time period but hardware fails eventually. It is so disappointing and sad when that happens and I dont think people realize it until they reach an age where their favorite games are 15 years old or older.
Best thing I seen regarding emulator are those spin wheels that show small videos with actual gameplay... All in one arcades machines are like best thing ever, they run a PC inside and all games are so easy to scroll with those wheel (thanks to SSD tech). CRT monitors, dedicated bottoms and joystick for that perfect retro look & perfect input lag, they are almost priceless. (LCD monitor are getting there) For everything else smartphones are second best thing, everyone has one and every single one can emulate most of retro-consoles. Sad that hard things to emulate require a Raspberry Pi to get that good compatibility with custom made emulator.
I think the best way to level the legal playing field is to introduce regulation that stipulates that neither party in the lawsuit can utilise resources which exceed what is available to other party. So if a giant megacorp wants to take a single indie dev who does emulation in their spare time to court, they can't use more lawyers and money than what the indie dev can. Would definitely shut down "make 'em bleed even if they're right/no real threat" suits.
Treat them like SLAPP suits. Make the prosecution prove that they have a legitimate case where they are directly suffering losses from that person's actions. Not future losses from their potential re-release that hasn't even been planned for yet, but current, actual losses. If they can't prove that, then they shouldn't be able to levy the suit.
@Wendell: BZZT. Vulkan does not translate between graphics APIs. Vulkan is an API itself, incompatible with other APIs. Mesa OTOH has several translation projects within it which can take the intermediate representation (IR) output from one API and translate it to an IR supported by the hardware of another API's physical layer, thus giving an appearance of translating between APIs, but in reality it is doing something much more low-level for performance reasons. It *can* translate for example OpenGL or Vulkan to Apple's Metal, but generally it will only translate the IR and pass it to the hardware, since translating the IR to Vulkan and then from Vulkan back to IR is a waste. The only time you would want to do that is if you don't have low-level drivers for the hardware, but it has a Vulkan API, so you want to feed it Vulkan drawing commands. Then performance will be terrible, but at least it will work until the low-level hardware interface becomes available. I think your assumption is that Vulkan is that low level interface... well... it's more low-level than OpenGL, but it's not as low level as NIR or SPIR.
Exactly this, if what they're selling is a license to play the game, then they shouldn't have the right to revoke it for any reason, be it wanting it in a different format or the game being removed from a store like steam/servers being shut down, if I paid for it then I own it/access to it now, so taking my access to it away is stealing.
I used to have Ps2, Gba, Psp, Xbox360 back in the day but it didn't survived long that's why I use Emulators on my phone or Pc with a Bluetooth controller plus old game's or arcade games doesn't exist already at my country its about new tech here
An interesting comparison is books. If you buy a book, you own it for life, you can resell it, etc. If you buy a e-book, you normally get DRM and is often forced to use specific applications to read it which again sometimes requires an internet connection to use. When the company goes out of business , say in 20 years time, you are easily in risk of loosing access to all of your books. And the only reason for that is because publishers want to have as much control over your access to the media as possible. And yet ironically, pirates do not need to worry about any of this bullshit.
You are still not allowed to make copies of that book and sell those copies, so it technically doesn't violate the copyright also reselling of certain books are prohibited.
@@Zephyrus0 The point being that you normally can't sell an e-book after you have finished reading it? Nor lend it to a friend because it is locked to an account you are not allowed to share?
@@Spillerrec yup, their platform so they get to make the rules. That's why I exclusively use Project Gutenberg, they allow me all fundamentals freedoms.
It would be great if the preservationist, gaming and tech communities could come together and fight these big companies regarding this issue. I own a PS1, and I own official copies of Lunar SSS, Star Ocean 2, Spyro, Twisted Metal 2 and so many more games on that platform. Sure, it doesn't give me the right to play remastered versions of those games, or definitive editions that come out on other platforms without buying those specific copies and platforms, but if I am specifically playing the PS1 versions of those games on PS1 emulators, that should NOT be an issue for these people, since they already got paid for that specific version of the game BY ME.
6:41 aaaaand Wendell has just been sued by Billy Mitchell. It doesn't matter that Wendell used the word "allegedly" because Billy doesn't care about little things like law and facts.
I have always wondered. What if you make a 100% copy of your DVD or game dicsc? Meaning that the copy will include copy protection and it will function as intended. This way you are not bypassing the copy protection.
you can't because those game discs aren't part of the disc standard but slightly proprietary and the copy protections aren't copied on consumer's disc burners. That's why the console still needs modchips and other hacks to trick the console to be able to run burned CDs or DVDs.
The Vita is still actually functional, they scrapped the plans to end the store service. Update servers are still up as well, and you can download any game you previously purchased, and buy new games using gift cards or store balance, just not paypal or credit card directly. Modding it does let people put other non-sony games on it though, like the various homebrew apps.
I'd say emulation is fine, and especially after the consoles are no longer sold. What if your XBox gets the red ring of death for instance then all your games are useless, and you can't go buy a new system. Or you like to play older games but don't want 10 consoles sitting around your living room. Cartridge games also have batteries die. Also, many retro game platforms for new systems (or new mini remakes) use modified versions of existing emulators, so even console makers benefit.
I enjoy playing real PS2 discs on PC. I like the upscaling. Other systems I play on original hardware like my Japanese Saturn. Emulation is great, as are ODEs and Everdrives.
ODEs, when the optical drive goes out, are the best. That piece is going break and now you prevented some e-waste and gain functionality. Everdrive is just nice for convenience and if you don't mind being a pirate saving space.
I read an article not too long ago about Disney lobbying right before the runout to keep Mickey Mouse copyrighted because MM is at or past the hundred year mark.
basically any console that uses a cd rom or newer is gonna need a bios dump. They are not to hard to find though.. It gets a little more complex with things like the ps3, 4 and I think the switch where you need a complete firmware dump for doing things like decrypting games to be able to run them if they haven't been decrypted and repacked already. Switch you should just need console keys which you can dump with a dongle but we are getting into the weeds here..
I remember having one of those "999 in 1" CDs for the PlayStation2 full of old Nintendo Games. There were a few dozen of good ones, over 100 wacky titles and the rest were slight variations of the originals. I don't know how a real N64 sounds like because at the time the PS2 dominated the market here.
I totally agree with you on this topic. But I feel I should point out something which you book analogy doesn't address. In the example of the book you never scanned or changed the format of the book, but you are not taking the cartridge you bought and plugging it into the Pi are you? That means you actually reproduce the content in a different format and that is where the grey area begins, for games and movie/video. But yeah I think we need to have a time in which the content does become public domain, I have re-purchased Mario games on newer platforms only because they are usually cheap enough and I will pay for the convenience of having it on the console in front of me, not fiddling with an emulator on a PC or pulling out the old console and hooking it up. I think Nintendo/PS etc can still make their money from that convenience factor and need not worry about the so-called emulator 'pirates'.
The laws around this are incredibly ambiguous, vary a lot from region to region, change frequently and are challenging to keep track of. I'm pretty sure I have the right in my jurisdiction to transfer any media I've legitimately purchased to another format. But I don't KNOW. The lack of clarity is the major impediment to progress.
i looooove the New School of emulation! first and foremost bsnes and Ares by the late, great Near/byuu (i'm excited to see how its PS1, N64 and now even Neo Geo emulation turn out!). i need to give Duckstation and Dobiestation some more love the next time i want to play Parasite Eve and FFX respectively. and my second love, RPCS3 for being able to some day play Gran Turismo 5 (lol, thanks Satan), TLoU1, RDR1, Uncharted (all of which are modestly playable now even). and i need to give MGS4 and Ni no Kuni a try again soon.
I have my original NES but I don't have any of the games for some reason. So I bought one of those 144 in 1 cartridges for it and I'm back in buisiness...lol
G'day Wendell, I have come across the problem of having a PS2 for playing my Playstation & PS2 games but had to buy a new TV because my old one died & the new TV doesn't have RCA input, so I cannot use my Genuine Hardware to play my Genuine Discs to enjoy my games because of evolution & I don't think that is fair.
Using blockchain tech and NFT's it's not only possible but highly probable we will see a re-emergence of console-like gaming. With an open and decentralized market for creators to fund/develop in. I imagine the console would contain one of say 10,000 unique public key hashes and every game created for this brand of console would contain a private key hash with each of the 10k public keys. The game in nft form could be minted in a limited release or infinitely with new unique private keys being generated with each mint. These nft's, containing all or part of the game program, could then be installed in to hardware cartridges designed for the respected console.
If you can't afford to go to court, you are neither free nor safe. I served time because it was cheaper than fighting the state that accused me of wronging it. Fighting power is far too risky and expensive in most cases and the law has a blank check to jail almost anyone they want that is not at least upper-middle class for almost any reason. It does not have to be illegal what you are doing it just has to seem illegal to the ignorant lackeys that arrest you. They can change their story, the charges, or add additional charges and threats later if the original accusations fall through. This is the legal reality we face. It is the reason fighting the good fight is nearly impossible for those of us just trying to make a living and avoid being noticed.
If you want the anti-consumer behavior to stop. We need government officials that are willing to go after these multi-billion dollar corporations, with billion dollar fines, when they use anti-consumer practices/marketing strategies. This is a really serious issue that bleeds down into everything we buy today, not just the gaming sector.
11:05 A better book analogy would be, what if you scanned every page of the book and read it on your PC/phone? Is that illegal?| Or what if you scanned every page of the book and re-packaged/re-bound it to have nicer paint, paper or binding material/technique. Is that illegal?
Depending on where you are, those are illegal right now because you were not given express permission to make a copy (you do not have ownership of a copyright). I think the general consensus is “good luck taking some of these guys to court for making their own backups, but if they’re trying to enable piracy, go after them with full legal force” with notable exceptions being Nintendo aggressively going after people who do not play games the way Nintendo wants you to.
All I know is that without emulation, I wouldn't be nearly as interested in gaming as I am today. I apparently own about 1400 games on Steam (yikes) along with 7 consoles and 3 handhelds so hearing argument like "emulation and piracy hurts the industry" straight up always made me laugh. Same deal with music piracy back in the day: it's by far the most significant contributor to be becoming a musician in the first place. It's just a bizarre culture shock seeing how much mainstream debate has swallowed up corporate propaganda around this topic. It shouldn't even be a question in the first place whether or not you have the legal right to use ROMs of games you own in any way you see fit in terms of hardware preference. There are a million reasons I'd rather boot up RetroArch with an accurate emulator instead of my PS1 when I want to play Resident Evil 3 or whatever. There is absolute no moral argument to apply there. Preserving (and consuming) culture should be a human right, not an "underdog" position demanding some sort of defense. Either way, good video and I'm always happy to see this issue being openly talked about.
11:45 The DMCA does not allow that, but that violates fair use, which is intrinsic to the Copyright Clause of the Constitution, so the DMCA's disallowal is unconstitutional. If you're doing it for your own use, you're not going to run into any problems. The problems start when you create a program to do it and distribute it to others. Even though that program is legal under a proper reading of the law, the courts haven't gotten there yet.
DMCA 1201 is specifically written with a lot of exceptions for basically any fair use Congress could think of. The problem is that 1201 comes in two parts: the anti-circumvention paragraph, and the anti-trafficking paragraph. The former prohibits individual acts of circumvention, and is subject to fair use and other exceptions. The latter, the anti-trafficking paragraph, is far more insidious. Because it prohibits circumvention technologies, which can be used for both lawful and unlawful copying, there are no exceptions for it. If you want to make a fair use of a work and need to circumvent in order to do it, you have to figure that out yourself and not tell a soul how you did it if you want to stay in the bounds of the law.
It has nothing to do with the content, it's consumer protection. It's anything that may either now or later prevent them from possible exploitable profit. This will always be an issue when art is monetized. They don't care what they got out of you yesterday, it's what can they get out of you tomorrow. It's like Apple slowing old phones and pretty much every appliance maker on the planet putting in planned failure after a certain amount of time after warrantee. All these corporations want to sell you entertainment as a service. They want you to rent every aspect of your life. Keep in mind Nintendo sued Blockbuster for renting legally purchased games. They don't want BB renting out their games cause they want you to rent from THEM. Especially in modern times where self distribution is relatively simple vs manufacturing millions of cartridges and shipping them around the world.
Emulation has been a bit of a Pandora's Box - now that I know how to do it, I can't imagine anything that could make me stop doing it. It's such a wildly unmitigated good that arguments about copyright law, the wishes of the creators, corporate profit margins, etc. seem completely insignificant and irrelevant to me.
While I don't agree with the statement about emulating current gen games the day after they come out, I don't think it's ok for console companies to attack players for finding other means of playing games for systems that THEY quit producing and are no longer making money from sales of. I can still purchase and play old PC games because they actually are backwards compatible or have work arounds. Console companies should not have the right to essentially bookburn and cut off access to things that they already profited off of and moved on from.
that's not entirely true for PC games. DosBox is often necessary to run vintage PC games. More than that, some 10 years old Linux native ports are not playable on updated systems.
Also those "sales" of retro games selling so absurdly high is mostly fraud and market manipulation by WATA games, not real value changes
I was gonna add about that exactly. The simple fact the FED/adjacent agencies are on the case for money laundering is a red flag that those big sales are beyond shady.
All those collectors can get lost. What's the point of you can't play the game.
@@iankester-haney3315 speculation and fiscal optimization. That's already what corrupted traditional art.
Wait a minute, didn't that exact same thing happen to comic books in the '90s?
Did not expect to see this video. Hell yeah!
Philosophies of Technology with Wendell could be a 30 part book series that I would happily read underwater, in bed or in a chair.
Couldnt agree more, without people saving games there would be many games lost to time.
Emulation is amazing and a huge part of what makes me like the PC so much.
But also the PSP, 3DS, Dreamcast and Raspberry Pi.
I remember an earlier friend came to me with floppy with Pokémon Blue and SMYGB on it.
The emulator ran like garbage - my Pentium 100 couldn't even handle it - but I was so amazed by it, these days I dump everything myself from my machines and media.
Funny, because my very first experience with Pokemon was in fact, on SMYGB, running Pokemon Blue on a Pentium 166MHz Packard Bell M415. Thankfully in my case, it ran well enough, though SMYGB's sound wasn't the greatest at the time I tried it.
@@SpinDlsc Interesting because it crashed on my machine all the time, so I'd have to play it on the computers in our computer science rooms at school.
Emulators suck real hardware better
@@lldjslim oh shut up kid you watch cinemassacre but James himself use emulation also nothing is forever old consoles can't survived that long lol even other popular retro TH-camrs use emulators and grow up touch some Grass will you
@@lldjslim you hate emulation but your subbed to retro dodo who reviews handheld emulators using by a Raspberry Pi, emulec, or Retro arch you make the retro community cringe and sound like a 12 year old
Consider your older games being altered due to copyright or changes in politics as well such as with the GTA remakes. Preservation means that original experience is there for the future
I love retro emulation. I hate the "we're still making money off it" attempts by megacorps to make "classic" systems with a handful of games to attack emulations.
For modern systems, I'm less enthusiastic about it - but for older and out of production ones, absolutely essential.
I own a Switch and Zelda BOTW, it runs 30FPS and some parts of the map it drop well below that. Emulating that game on a PC can run 60FPS everywhere and can be modded to have higher resolution textures with some faux ray tracing added into the shaders. I understand the issues around piracy, but as you mentioned - I own the game (and console) I should be able to enjoy any way I see fit. I don't share my physical copy or even the rom, I simply want to play I game I bought and enjoyed in a manner that is new and exciting to me - which if that didn't happen, that game probably wouldn't have gotten any more attention from me.
yep, we even WANT Nintendo to put out a Switch Pro that could run some of these games at higher/steadier/smoother frame rates, etc, but alas, we continue to wait
Same I own a Wii U and BOTW on disk. I've never played it on the system though, I installed it and the patches and dlc, then ripped the ROM and played it on PC for a far superior experience.
I will never be amazed at the effort companies put in to stop emulation and the completely inverse amount of effort to give customers a legit way to get the same experience which could earn them some income. Literally that 'sticking a stick in your own wheel' scenario lol.
There's a reason for that, and it's because our copyright system (or at least the US version, which is what most companies bend over backwards for) is absolutely fucked. If companies don't litigate to protect their IP from potential infringement, then they run the risk of losing copyright on it and it can then fall into the public domain. Obviously it's more complicated than that, but that's the major thrust behind why Nintendo, Sony, Sega, SquareEnix, and other companies will go to such ridiculous lengths to fight even individuals in court with an entire team of incredibly expensive lawyers over a scenario they had no way to make money off of in the first place. It's just so broken.
I'm glad there are cycle-accurate emulation options like Higan. They're ideal for preservation.
Has Higan been forked by now?
This project may not die like its creator.
Mednafen/Beetle is also a fantastic emulator for PS1. All the little cracks and other audio oddities (apparently emulating audio accurately, and with sharp latency is difficult) are pretty much gone, and looks a treat on my 4K tv with CRT-Royale.
@@MegaManNeo Near had already transferred Higan to the community about a year or so before his death. Ares was his own proprietary (CC-NC-ND, AFAIK) fork of it; but that's been relicensed to ISC and also forked/continued on by the community.
@@SuperSmashDolls That's news to me so it's great to read :D
@@MegaManNeo Retroarch has its own fork, BSNES Mercury, though it is poorly maintained.
the super mario copy that sold for 2m dollar was part of a market manipulation conspiracy to make retro games more valuable.
Not really. The rarities markets are quite strange. They are used as a savings and trade vehicle that is hard to trace/tax. It's a whole consipiracy of it's own. Like artwoks don't get valuable until after the artist is dead, and it doesn't depend of objective aethetics or quality of the work. Sure there has to be some of it, but the value comes for the rarity of such works, but the artist also had to produce enough unique works that they weren't too rare, and thus easily fungible and appraisal.
@@WorBlux Its absolutely a massive scam, as illegal as it can be. Artificially inflating the perceived value of retro games in order to squeeze a market that doesn't exist outside of this manipulation. Check out Karl Jobst (TH-cam) excellent reporting on this, another part published just days ago.
I owned a Wii U and Breath of the Wild, but you bet your ass I emulated it on my PC so that could play it in proper HD and 60fps. Oh, and then you can mod the hell out of it.
Just commented about the same thing then scrolled down and saw this. I own a Switch and BOTW - but PC emulation for that game is incredible, especially in the Korok Forest where the console drops to 10FPS or less.
Ive honestly been waiting for an emulation video from Level 1 for a long time. It just seems right.
I've finished games swapping my saves back and forth between flash carts, phone emulators and MiSTer. Sometimes just playing around with this stuff is more fun than the actual games
My modded PSVita and the good 12 hours of tinkering I sank on it definitely agree with you Wendell
Preach 🙌
Software preservation through emulation is a great thing. Keeping media playable/viewable on modern platforms after companies abandon development allows future generations to experience history for themselves.
lol. Perfect video timing. I recently downloaded RetroArch and have been recently watching videos on emulation. Having owned metroid prime2 on my GC, playing it now on my laptop is pretty fricking sick.
Awesome stuff!
Copyright should be limited to 25 years as originally intended. Just imagine the possibilities if that happened, it'd be a revolution in art!
You can thank Disney for why we can't have nice things, like things actually entering the public domain as they should have under the original intent of copyright law.
RCPS3 it’s the emulator that made me so happy when it came out like 8 years ago, but sadly it is still work in progress even though the ps3 is dead, I wish it was required to open source software of consoles when 10 or 15 years of his life have passed because the hardware in most cases die and they don’t even put new games or things anymore, practically it’s a dead console at that point
Completely agree. A lot of this will be lost in history if nothing is done and I enjoy many of these old games because they were from my childhood. ;)
I appreciate everyone who steps up to demonstrate the reasons why we need to preserve this media. I doubly appreciate the fact that you said this should eventually be public domain. Our copyright laws need updates. I also want to be able to buy things like a BIOS instead of just buying a PS2 or something to dump it. I'm willing to do that and give them the money for that property so I'd at least always have a legal copy and don't need to worry about the dwindling supply of consoles that only keep getting older and they don't make any money off of after the life window is shut. I wish console companies would just get their heads out of the sand and realize this is not worth fighting. Most people still buy their games even if they've emulated them if the experience is good enough. I just don't get their mentality sometimes, especially Nintendo.
10:00 "Can the authors of Super Mario reclaim copyright from Nintendo"
Probably not. Under US law they would almost certainly be considered work-for-hire employees and not authors, which means they never touched had copyright and thus have no standing to terminate assignment. Furthermore, while there is a *lot* of harmonization in terms of copyright law, that usually only applies to going after infringers. Japanese law would apply here (which I can't read - I can read Japanese and legalese but not both at the same time). I have no clue how the hell that body of law handles work-for-hire and if it has a termination provision, but my guess is that it would similarly have work-for-hire gate off any avenues for termination.
10:40 "If I buy (the game) what difference does it make if I emulate it"
This is actually an open legal question. If you look at the history of MP3 players (RIAA v. Diamond), you'll see the courts more or less embracing a right to format shift despite clear technical mandates from Congress that consumers be denied DRM-free digital recording technology. On the other hand, we have DMCA 1201, which clearly prohibits any technology that lets you undo protection (which, btw, VHS tapes had). In the Team Xecuter charges, the US government outright argued that *SNES cartridges* constitute DRM simply because the cartridge is a nonstandard pinout, which is entirely insane even by Section 1201 standards.
None of that matters if you're *streaming* the game, however, Even if you have a license to do so, that license can be conditioned upon pretty much anything, even and including a prohibition on things that would ordinarily be fair use. And most people don't have such a license, meaning that Nintendo can basically be as picky-choosy as it wants.
Same for online play, too - if you're playing on Nintendo's servers with a modified Switch, even if it's just to boot into Android and Nintendo can't tell what you did, you're at the minimum in violation of some EULA, and at worst might be breaking CFAA (which can result in some really onerous penalties like jail time). This is why careful console hackers never sign into online. In the Geohot/Sony trial, Sony went one step further with the CFAA and argued that "the PS3" itself - as in, the abstract concept of a software platform, rather than any particular console or server - was a legally protected computer that Geohot had breached. In other words, hacking one PS3 is equivalent to hacking all of them. This is even more insane than the Team Xecuter thing, and would have obliviated even the meager 1201 exceptions regime that we have for this sort of thing.
I still don't understand why big console companies don't see emulation as a potential to make money, it's pretty easy. Example for Playstation:
Step 1: Put ISO of Sony games for PS1 on PS Store for sale for low price (10-15$), notify their partners that had PS1 games that they can do the same - if store would fail losses would be really small and if its success it's literally free money.
Step 2: If step 1 would be success they should create their own emulator (or cooperate with some of existing projects to create better, more accurate one), they can create console version of emulator too to boost sales even more.
Step 3: Proceed to next system.
It made me remember The Accursed farms channel discussing dead games.
He still does occasionally.
Well said! Absolutely agree on Wendel's take.
I couldn't afford much growing up, and there are SO MANY video games that I want to play and experience from my childhood, teens, and youth. Emulation is a god send for people like me. I just hope the legalities get easier over time. I sure as hell don't have space in my apartment to hold every console made since The FamiCom haha.
Neither do I! I have some retro consoles at home like my sega Genesis and SNES. I also have a Wii and ps3, but other consoles like the n64, ps2, nes, Xbox, I just emulate them
That was a treat! Thanks Wendell!
There's been countless times the original rights owners have taken from the emulation scene to fix their lack of care, and sadly countless times they squash communities to ensure they can cash in on the hard work. See Rockstar for both of these points
I recently built a GameBoy build using Kite's CircuitSword. It's awesome and I highly recommend the guy's custom PCB!
i've been painstakingly setting up a 50GB drive image for PCem that has windows 98 SE and tons of games and programs on it so i can play all the old games i remember playing, in the way i remember playing them and it is incredibly rewarding. Also its fun to benchmark the old simulated hardware and compare it against reviews written at the time for that hardware. These programs are incredibly accurate! Maybe the only thing that needs work would be memory and disk IO... but these are modern times and maybe those things shouldn't be EXACTLY as slow as a computer back then was, maybe theoretical max (or around there) for the platform is fine.
Thanks for the loud voice on this piece of software liberty we should defend. I kinda want an international court to rule that hardware emulation, software retro engineering or FPGA based ones are 100% legal and a safe harbor, but I know those companies will sue for decades to salt the earth and delay that potentiality.
And the "million dollars Nintendo sealed box" sales are under investigation of money laundering since the auction house owners and staff are recurrent 'money liars' where the sale isn't really occurring in a legal way. Like mafia type of deals "Buy us this stupid thing for 1 million real cash and we will forget your debt of 10 millions blood money". Or even auctions where the auction house staff disguise as fake buyers to drive the price higher...
This was a great explanation thank you
I know want to make a media sever in the case of a jukebox. This is the best idea I've heard for no other reason than style.
Thank you for bringing awareness to this topic. Emulation is awesome!
Thank you so much for this video Wendell!
Emulation is the only way we can really preserve all of our games!
11:19 I remember playing Dead to Rights as a kid on my PS2. Wish they ported this franchise to PC. An underrated gem.
I mean, you could just fire up PCSX2 and play it right now if you wanted to.
Copyright ought to expire after 15-20 years, This lets copyright holders extract 95% of the value from 95% of the works, while still letting you have a robust public domain.
Excellent video! also I have been looking for a handheld like the PiBoy with 6 face buttons, how do you like this kit? I think it looks perfect.
Interesting video!! Check out Modern Vintage Players one of the last videos on this topic, the emulation is a bit disapointing on the switch, to say at least.
been waiting for you guys to do a MiSTer related video. I love mine :)
your taste of retro games are top notch
Remember watching something about cartridge hunting in a landfill. Interesting stuff. Be well and stay safe.
In Canada it is legal to rip media I own to my home server. The battle was fought and won when MP3 players became the norm. I have 4000 DVD's of movies on DVD that I have spent years rummaging through bargain bins looking for that are now on my home server. There are a few that you can not even buy a version of if you wanted to. If instead of ripping the disk I download an AVI I am still not breaking Canadian law. Even though I still get threats from Canadian ISP's from downloading like US law applies here. Media does have a legitimate legal reason to be available through torrents. I wish more legitimate services used torrents to spread their products. I wish I could buy media using a torrent service and enjoy it the way I want to enjoy it.
...doesn't Canada have identical anticircumention law to the US? MP3 players are different because CDs don't have encryption or DRM to circumvent. Ripping a CD and ripping a DVD have way different legal implications because of this.
But how are they going to survive without reaping the benefits of selling the same game over 6 times throughout different consoles? :((((((
very interesting what you said about programmers not getting their share when their work makes millions in profit. plenty game studios sure are milking workers rn
EA....cough, cough......Ubisoft,....cough, cough.......Bethesda....cough, cough. Everyone's going to buy up the new programmers fresh out of code monkey school, pay them as little as they can, then toss them out the door in 1-2 years for new ones so they don't have to promote them if they're actually good.
especially when you talk about vintage games where studios, editors or even console makers are long gone or swallowed in a large corp.
You're bringing up a great point with the right to private copy. I don't know how it is in the US but in here in Switzerland it's... Kind of allowed, but also kind of a grey area... It's a mix between legal precedent and some things being clear as per the written law. But it's generally considered ok to copy a DVD even if it has copy protection, as long as you own the original and the copy is only for safekeeping/personal use. I think all of this should fall under the same kind of thing as right to repair, it's about being allowed to keep what we bought alive/functioning.
Oh God… I just got a visual memory of the NESticle icon.
10 year old me thought it was hilarious... 33 year old me, having forgot about it for quite a while, even more hilarious - ROFL
@@paul.1337 I'm definitely taller now.
THANK YOU!!! I bought a copy of Legend of Zelda: Links Awakening, why do I have to buy it for every console they rereleased it on with absolutely no difference to the game! I did buy the Switch version because there were visual upgrades to the game, and control changes, so it warranted actually buying it, but I did not buy it in the VC on any other console.
We need a 1996 Telecommunications Act documentary!
great topic. I would rather play a game on the original hardware for that time period but hardware fails eventually. It is so disappointing and sad when that happens and I dont think people realize it until they reach an age where their favorite games are 15 years old or older.
Best thing I seen regarding emulator are those spin wheels that show small videos with actual gameplay...
All in one arcades machines are like best thing ever, they run a PC inside and all games are so easy to scroll with those wheel (thanks to SSD tech).
CRT monitors, dedicated bottoms and joystick for that perfect retro look & perfect input lag, they are almost priceless. (LCD monitor are getting there)
For everything else smartphones are second best thing, everyone has one and every single one can emulate most of retro-consoles.
Sad that hard things to emulate require a Raspberry Pi to get that good compatibility with custom made emulator.
I think the best way to level the legal playing field is to introduce regulation that stipulates that neither party in the lawsuit can utilise resources which exceed what is available to other party. So if a giant megacorp wants to take a single indie dev who does emulation in their spare time to court, they can't use more lawyers and money than what the indie dev can. Would definitely shut down "make 'em bleed even if they're right/no real threat" suits.
Treat them like SLAPP suits. Make the prosecution prove that they have a legitimate case where they are directly suffering losses from that person's actions. Not future losses from their potential re-release that hasn't even been planned for yet, but current, actual losses. If they can't prove that, then they shouldn't be able to levy the suit.
Bleem! was awesome
@Wendell: BZZT. Vulkan does not translate between graphics APIs. Vulkan is an API itself, incompatible with other APIs. Mesa OTOH has several translation projects within it which can take the intermediate representation (IR) output from one API and translate it to an IR supported by the hardware of another API's physical layer, thus giving an appearance of translating between APIs, but in reality it is doing something much more low-level for performance reasons. It *can* translate for example OpenGL or Vulkan to Apple's Metal, but generally it will only translate the IR and pass it to the hardware, since translating the IR to Vulkan and then from Vulkan back to IR is a waste. The only time you would want to do that is if you don't have low-level drivers for the hardware, but it has a Vulkan API, so you want to feed it Vulkan drawing commands. Then performance will be terrible, but at least it will work until the low-level hardware interface becomes available. I think your assumption is that Vulkan is that low level interface... well... it's more low-level than OpenGL, but it's not as low level as NIR or SPIR.
Exactly this, if what they're selling is a license to play the game, then they shouldn't have the right to revoke it for any reason, be it wanting it in a different format or the game being removed from a store like steam/servers being shut down, if I paid for it then I own it/access to it now, so taking my access to it away is stealing.
I used to have Ps2, Gba, Psp, Xbox360 back in the day but it didn't survived long that's why I use Emulators on my phone or Pc with a Bluetooth controller plus old game's or arcade games doesn't exist already at my country its about new tech here
An interesting comparison is books. If you buy a book, you own it for life, you can resell it, etc. If you buy a e-book, you normally get DRM and is often forced to use specific applications to read it which again sometimes requires an internet connection to use. When the company goes out of business , say in 20 years time, you are easily in risk of loosing access to all of your books. And the only reason for that is because publishers want to have as much control over your access to the media as possible. And yet ironically, pirates do not need to worry about any of this bullshit.
You are still not allowed to make copies of that book and sell those copies, so it technically doesn't violate the copyright also reselling of certain books are prohibited.
@@Zephyrus0 The point being that you normally can't sell an e-book after you have finished reading it? Nor lend it to a friend because it is locked to an account you are not allowed to share?
@@Spillerrec yup, their platform so they get to make the rules.
That's why I exclusively use Project Gutenberg, they allow me all fundamentals freedoms.
It would be great if the preservationist, gaming and tech communities could come together and fight these big companies regarding this issue. I own a PS1, and I own official copies of Lunar SSS, Star Ocean 2, Spyro, Twisted Metal 2 and so many more games on that platform. Sure, it doesn't give me the right to play remastered versions of those games, or definitive editions that come out on other platforms without buying those specific copies and platforms, but if I am specifically playing the PS1 versions of those games on PS1 emulators, that should NOT be an issue for these people, since they already got paid for that specific version of the game BY ME.
I actually purchased bleem for dreamcast on electronics boutique, off the shelf
6:41 aaaaand Wendell has just been sued by Billy Mitchell. It doesn't matter that Wendell used the word "allegedly" because Billy doesn't care about little things like law and facts.
I have always wondered. What if you make a 100% copy of your DVD or game dicsc? Meaning that the copy will include copy protection and it will function as intended. This way you are not bypassing the copy protection.
you can't because those game discs aren't part of the disc standard but slightly proprietary and the copy protections aren't copied on consumer's disc burners. That's why the console still needs modchips and other hacks to trick the console to be able to run burned CDs or DVDs.
What is the best emulation for PS1-3? I have allot of games but the consoles no longer work.
The Vita is still actually functional, they scrapped the plans to end the store service. Update servers are still up as well, and you can download any game you previously purchased, and buy new games using gift cards or store balance, just not paypal or credit card directly. Modding it does let people put other non-sony games on it though, like the various homebrew apps.
12:45 Where be'est de links below?
Damn straight. I'll take my Gameboy Pocket and Tetris (Original Cart) till I die. Still waiting on the Analogue Pocket to be widely available.
I'd say emulation is fine, and especially after the consoles are no longer sold. What if your XBox gets the red ring of death for instance then all your games are useless, and you can't go buy a new system. Or you like to play older games but don't want 10 consoles sitting around your living room. Cartridge games also have batteries die. Also, many retro game platforms for new systems (or new mini remakes) use modified versions of existing emulators, so even console makers benefit.
I enjoy playing real PS2 discs on PC. I like the upscaling. Other systems I play on original hardware like my Japanese Saturn. Emulation is great, as are ODEs and Everdrives.
ODEs, when the optical drive goes out, are the best. That piece is going break and now you prevented some e-waste and gain functionality. Everdrive is just nice for convenience and if you don't mind being a pirate saving space.
I read an article not too long ago about Disney lobbying right before the runout to keep Mickey Mouse copyrighted because MM is at or past the hundred year mark.
12:45 where are the links?
A Chip off the Ol’Block! Like a Psalm Tree, 19 feet Tall and only 6 inches wide. Then 2 Kings Turned a Round 3 times, and SaiD NanU 9 times!
2:52 that's right, still an accent there :)
basically any console that uses a cd rom or newer is gonna need a bios dump. They are not to hard to find though.. It gets a little more complex with things like the ps3, 4 and I think the switch where you need a complete firmware dump for doing things like decrypting games to be able to run them if they haven't been decrypted and repacked already. Switch you should just need console keys which you can dump with a dongle but we are getting into the weeds here..
That's not always the case. Some emulators like PCSX-rearmed have developed their own hle bios and they don't require any dump.
I remember having one of those "999 in 1" CDs for the PlayStation2 full of old Nintendo Games. There were a few dozen of good ones, over 100 wacky titles and the rest were slight variations of the originals. I don't know how a real N64 sounds like because at the time the PS2 dominated the market here.
Well N64 would have bene the generation before but yeah N64 was the last of its generation and PS2 was the second console release of its generation.
I totally agree with you on this topic. But I feel I should point out something which you book analogy doesn't address. In the example of the book you never scanned or changed the format of the book, but you are not taking the cartridge you bought and plugging it into the Pi are you? That means you actually reproduce the content in a different format and that is where the grey area begins, for games and movie/video. But yeah I think we need to have a time in which the content does become public domain, I have re-purchased Mario games on newer platforms only because they are usually cheap enough and I will pay for the convenience of having it on the console in front of me, not fiddling with an emulator on a PC or pulling out the old console and hooking it up. I think Nintendo/PS etc can still make their money from that convenience factor and need not worry about the so-called emulator 'pirates'.
The laws around this are incredibly ambiguous, vary a lot from region to region, change frequently and are challenging to keep track of. I'm pretty sure I have the right in my jurisdiction to transfer any media I've legitimately purchased to another format. But I don't KNOW. The lack of clarity is the major impediment to progress.
i looooove the New School of emulation!
first and foremost bsnes and Ares by the late, great Near/byuu (i'm excited to see how its PS1, N64 and now even Neo Geo emulation turn out!). i need to give Duckstation and Dobiestation some more love the next time i want to play Parasite Eve and FFX respectively.
and my second love, RPCS3 for being able to some day play Gran Turismo 5 (lol, thanks Satan), TLoU1, RDR1, Uncharted (all of which are modestly playable now even). and i need to give MGS4 and Ni no Kuni a try again soon.
Yeah, shout out to byuu's work! BSNES is such an excellent emulator. The footage of Soul Blazer in this video was captured on it! - Editor Grant
Get a MiSTer, Wendell. it's awesome!
Wooooooo! Emulation baby! I took some DMT,im emulating reality as we speak......
I caught that Beastie Boys Vinyl, good taste
I still play Dino Crisis and Soul Reaver....on my pc.....what a world....thanks emulators
At least the Legacy of Kain series got PC ports.
I have my original NES but I don't have any of the games for some reason. So I bought one of those 144 in 1 cartridges for it and I'm back in buisiness...lol
G'day Wendell,
I have come across the problem of having a PS2 for playing my Playstation & PS2 games but had to buy a new TV because my old one died & the new TV doesn't have RCA input, so I cannot use my Genuine Hardware to play my Genuine Discs to enjoy my games because of evolution & I don't think that is fair.
I know it doesn't change the fact but there's physical mods and converters to help you with that
Using blockchain tech and NFT's it's not only possible but highly probable we will see a re-emergence of console-like gaming. With an open and decentralized market for creators to fund/develop in. I imagine the console would contain one of say 10,000 unique public key hashes and every game created for this brand of console would contain a private key hash with each of the 10k public keys. The game in nft form could be minted in a limited release or infinitely with new unique private keys being generated with each mint. These nft's, containing all or part of the game program, could then be installed in to hardware cartridges designed for the respected console.
Wendell the blue Shirt archaeologist
If you can't afford to go to court, you are neither free nor safe. I served time because it was cheaper than fighting the state that accused me of wronging it. Fighting power is far too risky and expensive in most cases and the law has a blank check to jail almost anyone they want that is not at least upper-middle class for almost any reason. It does not have to be illegal what you are doing it just has to seem illegal to the ignorant lackeys that arrest you. They can change their story, the charges, or add additional charges and threats later if the original accusations fall through. This is the legal reality we face. It is the reason fighting the good fight is nearly impossible for those of us just trying to make a living and avoid being noticed.
If you want the anti-consumer behavior to stop. We need government officials that are willing to go after these multi-billion dollar corporations, with billion dollar fines, when they use anti-consumer practices/marketing strategies. This is a really serious issue that bleeds down into everything we buy today, not just the gaming sector.
11:05 A better book analogy would be, what if you scanned every page of the book and read it on your PC/phone? Is that illegal?|
Or what if you scanned every page of the book and re-packaged/re-bound it to have nicer paint, paper or binding material/technique. Is that illegal?
Yes and yes
Depending on where you are, those are illegal right now because you were not given express permission to make a copy (you do not have ownership of a copyright). I think the general consensus is “good luck taking some of these guys to court for making their own backups, but if they’re trying to enable piracy, go after them with full legal force” with notable exceptions being Nintendo aggressively going after people who do not play games the way Nintendo wants you to.
All I know is that without emulation, I wouldn't be nearly as interested in gaming as I am today. I apparently own about 1400 games on Steam (yikes) along with 7 consoles and 3 handhelds so hearing argument like "emulation and piracy hurts the industry" straight up always made me laugh. Same deal with music piracy back in the day: it's by far the most significant contributor to be becoming a musician in the first place. It's just a bizarre culture shock seeing how much mainstream debate has swallowed up corporate propaganda around this topic. It shouldn't even be a question in the first place whether or not you have the legal right to use ROMs of games you own in any way you see fit in terms of hardware preference. There are a million reasons I'd rather boot up RetroArch with an accurate emulator instead of my PS1 when I want to play Resident Evil 3 or whatever. There is absolute no moral argument to apply there.
Preserving (and consuming) culture should be a human right, not an "underdog" position demanding some sort of defense. Either way, good video and I'm always happy to see this issue being openly talked about.
"The old [...] people" ...sheesh... thanks x3
just awesome
11:45 The DMCA does not allow that, but that violates fair use, which is intrinsic to the Copyright Clause of the Constitution, so the DMCA's disallowal is unconstitutional. If you're doing it for your own use, you're not going to run into any problems. The problems start when you create a program to do it and distribute it to others. Even though that program is legal under a proper reading of the law, the courts haven't gotten there yet.
DMCA 1201 is specifically written with a lot of exceptions for basically any fair use Congress could think of. The problem is that 1201 comes in two parts: the anti-circumvention paragraph, and the anti-trafficking paragraph. The former prohibits individual acts of circumvention, and is subject to fair use and other exceptions.
The latter, the anti-trafficking paragraph, is far more insidious. Because it prohibits circumvention technologies, which can be used for both lawful and unlawful copying, there are no exceptions for it. If you want to make a fair use of a work and need to circumvent in order to do it, you have to figure that out yourself and not tell a soul how you did it if you want to stay in the bounds of the law.
It has nothing to do with the content, it's consumer protection. It's anything that may either now or later prevent them from possible exploitable profit. This will always be an issue when art is monetized. They don't care what they got out of you yesterday, it's what can they get out of you tomorrow. It's like Apple slowing old phones and pretty much every appliance maker on the planet putting in planned failure after a certain amount of time after warrantee.
All these corporations want to sell you entertainment as a service. They want you to rent every aspect of your life. Keep in mind Nintendo sued Blockbuster for renting legally purchased games. They don't want BB renting out their games cause they want you to rent from THEM. Especially in modern times where self distribution is relatively simple vs manufacturing millions of cartridges and shipping them around the world.
Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
Emulation is necessary. Just think of all those old Java games we used to play on our old phones. You can't play them anymore. Only through Emulation
Yea,i tried playin Old School on Pc. The Hound needs moar chickens...
Should do a follow up on mister hardware emulation.
Emulation stand up arcades are becoming popular
Emulation has been a bit of a Pandora's Box - now that I know how to do it, I can't imagine anything that could make me stop doing it. It's such a wildly unmitigated good that arguments about copyright law, the wishes of the creators, corporate profit margins, etc. seem completely insignificant and irrelevant to me.
PS3 emulador does not require a copyrighted bios
While I don't agree with the statement about emulating current gen games the day after they come out, I don't think it's ok for console companies to attack players for finding other means of playing games for systems that THEY quit producing and are no longer making money from sales of.
I can still purchase and play old PC games because they actually are backwards compatible or have work arounds. Console companies should not have the right to essentially bookburn and cut off access to things that they already profited off of and moved on from.
that's not entirely true for PC games. DosBox is often necessary to run vintage PC games. More than that, some 10 years old Linux native ports are not playable on updated systems.