Microsoft formally bans emulators on Xbox, Windows 10 download shops • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft formally bans emulators on Xbox, Windows 10 download shops

#111

Post by pryelluw » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 3:21 PM UTC

pmarreck wrote: post #46

TelmoMenezes wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why the parent is being downvoted. Perhaps people don't like the read the truth, perhaps they are too young to remember a time of more computational freedom and openness. The majority of "computers" people own are already locked down, and it seems clear that things will only get worse -- hardware is increasingly opaque and designed to do things against the interest of the user (or, to say the least, without…

It's getting downvoted because there will always be open source OS'es that can run open-source emulators. Since all computers are also Turing machines. Dystopian reasoning in the 2 parent comments is slippery-slope fallacy.

I dont think there will always be open source software. All it takes is a new law to be passed and then become illegal.

Re: Microsoft formally bans emulators on Xbox, Windows 10 download shops

#112

Post by Dylan16807 » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 3:25 PM UTC

pjmlp wrote: post #108

Dylan16807 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% of people are only buying one copy or the other copy. Your question is just as valid with the way nintendo chose to do things, and already has an answer. They don't make a meaningful amount of money by requiring some people to buy two copies on the same account. They make a marginal amount of money as a tradeoff for being visibly customer-hostile. > So all digital assets are supposed to be pay one take two model?…

So the next time you buy lets say a game on Steam, do you also feel entitled to have the same game for free on Wii U, Switch, PS4, XBox ONE, iOS and Android, regardless of the development costs and amount of people that worked across all those devices?

If this is a game where they are traditionally going to sell no more than one copy to me, and it's 99.9% the same across all those platforms, and it wouldn't cost them money to do so because of clunky licensing agreements, then yes I would want my copy of the game to be portable across those devices.

Re: Microsoft formally bans emulators on Xbox, Windows 10 download shops

#113

Post by systems » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 3:26 PM UTC

ihuman wrote: post #95

systems wrote: post #88

bad publicity for the upcoming scorpio system

How is this bad publicity? Why would someone spend >$400 just to play emulators on a TV?

why would anyone ins 2016 not have an internet connection, and dont take advantage of online play

when there was a rumor or intention to make the xbox one require a net connection (a not so unreasonable requirement) most people took it negatively

anything that give the perception of limiting your freedom and choices, will be viewed negatively, even if those limits wont really hurt you

and i think you are correct, most people wont use emulators, most people dont even know what emulators are, so why ban them .. it is just bad publicity

Re: Microsoft formally bans emulators on Xbox, Windows 10 download shops

#114

Post by Dylan16807 » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 3:27 PM UTC

vlan0 wrote: post #91

Lev1a wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can only imagine from their apparent course that they'll lock out Win32 apps at some point and only allow installation/execution of software from the Windows store (and maybe some "partners", i.e. some companies that are too big to just lock out, like Valve, although they would probably have to pay a "fee" to have access to the Win10 audience). Blocking of Win32 apps/apps not from the Windows Store already exists t…

It's questionable whether this is currently a slippery slope. There is no precedence for this move on the PC platform. That alone weakens the argument that Microsoft will eventually make that move. To be clear, it is still possible, but there is not enough evidence to build a case that guarantees your conclusion. Edit: You could argue that the ChromeOS platform is an example of a completed locked ecosystem. I've neve…

Under what context would a Chromebook not be a PC?

Re: Microsoft formally bans emulators on Xbox, Windows 10 download shops

#115

Post by and0 » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 3:32 PM UTC

I made a 3D NES emulator for the HoloLens about 8 months ago http://n3s.io and I pleasantly surprised that a few MS employees reached out. Some were doing internal hackathons and wanted assistance, others even contributed to the code base, but I was particularly shocked when a HoloLens dev that helped run their tutorial + social media reached out to encourage (and offer resources) to get the app on the store.

My response was "no way that'd get through", but they insisted on me trying anyway and said they could try to push it through. I didn't bother for a couple other reasons (the open source libretro core I was using would need to be reworked for their managed app environment, and HoloLens performance was actually pretty crap no matter what I did), but a few days later the other emulator controversy started.

I was expecting this outcome and really don't blame MS. Glad I didn't try to port my own app over (which would also work on Xbox and desktop).

Re: Microsoft formally bans emulators on Xbox, Windows 10 download shops

#116

Post by the8472 » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 3:57 PM UTC

pryelluw wrote: post #111

pmarreck wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's getting downvoted because there will always be open source OS'es that can run open-source emulators. Since all computers are also Turing machines. Dystopian reasoning in the 2 parent comments is slippery-slope fallacy.

I dont think there will always be open source software. All it takes is a new law to be passed and then become illegal.

You don't have to make open source illegal, all it takes is a requirement that all devices sold must come with secure boot keys by a government-approved vendor. And of course the vendor can't hand out descendant keys to open source projects because those could be modified to do anything that could get the key yanked by the government.

Re: Microsoft formally bans emulators on Xbox, Windows 10 download shops

#117

Post by FeepingCreature » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 4:15 PM UTC

the8472 wrote: post #109

Dylan16807 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can use any rendezvous server in the world. Even without free ones, you could buy access for $1 per decade. There is no third party in charge. There is just a requirement to use some party anywhere .

Imagine you're in china. Do you really want the basic ability for two devices to talk to each other depend on something that goes over the internet? And they still have to agree on the same server, that provides a certain lock-in or inertia. Ultimately it means you have less control over your network connections than with real sockets. And for the purpose of discussion this about the freedom of running software on yo…

> Do you really want the basic ability for two devices to talk to each other depend on something that goes over the internet?

Set up your hosts file or edit the js to point at a local server.

Of course, if you're in China you'd get in trouble making connections to an outside STUN server but if you're in China you're in trouble making connections to the outside anyways, and the STUN connection is probably the least of your worries.

> just to use those poor imitations of sockets

... that work across NATs without issues, as opposed to real sockets...

---

In any case, WebRTC doesn't strictly speaking need discovery servers at all. See http://blog.printf.net/articles/2013/05/17/webrtc-without-a-... It still uses STUN for public-ip discovery, but comments indicate that can be bypassed by just configuring the connection to use a local IP for STUN. Unsurprisingly, not many people seem to actually care about that.

Re: Microsoft formally bans emulators on Xbox, Windows 10 download shops

#118

Post by Fej » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 4:24 PM UTC

watty wrote: post #5

Fej wrote: post #2

It's not surprising, but still disappointing. Emulators preserve games of eras past.

So do "Virtual Consoles" which are releasing more and more past games on different platforms and charging for it. I'm guessing if emulators weren't so rampant on the PC then companies like Nintendo would have or would think about creating a Virtual Console on PC for NES/SNES/N64, etc.

Not to mention that Nintendo took the iNES header for their own use, despite it being a product of the emulation community they espouse to hate.

Re: Microsoft formally bans emulators on Xbox, Windows 10 download shops

#119

Post by Declanomous » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 4:44 PM UTC

asveikau wrote: post #74

pmarreck wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's getting downvoted because there will always be open source OS'es that can run open-source emulators. Since all computers are also Turing machines. Dystopian reasoning in the 2 parent comments is slippery-slope fallacy.

Do you remember the days when it was hard to get Linux on a machine? When I started using it a majority of modems didn't have Linux drivers, so your average PC user could not get on the internet with Linux unless they very carefully selected a replacement. Then the same issue repeated itself with WiFi drivers in the following decade. We are at the mercy of hardware vendors to run open source OSes - they can giveth an…

Yeah, about WiFi. I wanted to bring my desktop somewhere where I wasn't sure I'd have ethernet.

"No problem," says I, "I'll just buy a USB adapter."

I have 802.11ac in my house, and it's pretty nice, so I thought I'd get an 802.11ac adapter. So I run down to the store, and pick up an adapter that says it works on Linux ON THE BOX. I look online, and it is using the RTL8812au, which people have reported working in Linux.

Turns out none of the drivers compile on Linux 4.4+. I managed to mess around with the makefiles and the code a bit to get most of the compile errors to go away, but it was still hanging on a few files that I couldn't make heads or tails of. So I went on Github and downloaded a version that had been updated to account for this device in the past 4 days. No dice.

All told, I probably spent 6 hours trying to get the stupid adapter to work. I would have returned it after hour 1 and bought a more expensive Atheros or Intel adapter, but they literally only make 802.11ac adapters in the mini-pcie form factor.

On one hand, the device was USB 3.0 instead of USB2, was made by Tenda (who kind of cut corners), and all the fixes were either for Ubuntu or Arch, and I'm using Fedora. On the other hand, it's 2017, 802.11ac has been out for a while now. I kind of expect to be able to find at least one 802.11AC adapter that works. Most of the 802.11ac adapters that other people had gotten working only worked in 2.4ghz mode, or only worked with 802.11n.

So that was pretty disappointing. It felt like it was 2006 all over again. (It really would have felt like 2006 if Xorg had broken during this process.) It's not like I bought "outdated" hardware either. The FCC approval is dated December 19, 2016. So you'd expect the driver to compile on a recent kernel.

I think I'm just going to buy an 802.11ac router, run it in client mode, and velcro it to the top of my case.

Re: Microsoft formally bans emulators on Xbox, Windows 10 download shops

#120

Post by the8472 » Thu, Apr 06, 2017, 4:53 PM UTC

FeepingCreature wrote: post #117

the8472 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine you're in china. Do you really want the basic ability for two devices to talk to each other depend on something that goes over the internet? And they still have to agree on the same server, that provides a certain lock-in or inertia. Ultimately it means you have less control over your network connections than with real sockets. And for the purpose of discussion this about the freedom of running software on yo…

> Do you really want the basic ability for two devices to talk to each other depend on something that goes over the internet? Set up your hosts file or edit the js to point at a local server. Of course, if you're in China you'd get in trouble making connections to an outside STUN server but if you're in China you're in trouble making connections to the outside anyways , and the STUN connection is probably the least o…

> that work across NATs without issues

You say that as if stun didn't exist in the udp/tcp realm. bittorrent clients in fact engage in serverless stun by using mutually reachable peers. real sockets are strictly more powerful than webrtc, period. Also, that argument is becoming more and more obsolete as ipv6 adoption increases.

And again, this is not about utility, it's about control and freedom.

> In any case, WebRTC doesn't strictly speaking need discovery servers at all.

Even if you don't use a server you need to exchange one-time connection tokens out of band. You can't re-establish connections at a later point either. And it does not support multicast either. So no, you can't just have devices talk to each other.

Anyway, you're not even responding to my central argument. Web content is not a substitute for unfettered native access because you need native access to things (e.g. running a server) to even be able to run web content.