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Show HN: Play multiplayer and singleplayer NES games online

nescat.gcubed.co

71–80 of 89 posts

Re: Show HN: Play multiplayer and singleplayer NES games online

#71

Why doesn't Nintendo port old NES/SNES/GameBoy games to smartphones and sell them for $1-$2 each? They're so much more fun than all these compulsive microtransaction games.

Because Super Mario Bros would be an absolutely terrible experience on a touchscreen. The game is hard enough on the original console with a zero-latency CRT. Put it through an emulator and a bunch of layers of abstraction to a comparatively glacial LCD, then try to control it with non-tactile onscreen buttons? No, thank you.

Re: Show HN: Play multiplayer and singleplayer NES games online

#72
post #51

Why doesn't Nintendo port old NES/SNES/GameBoy games to smartphones and sell them for $1-$2 each? They're so much more fun than all these compulsive microtransaction games.

Cause without buttons they suck :)

This is the real answer. Nintendo don't want to sell $1 games, because that would re-anchor Nintendo customers to lower price-point expectations, in contrast to the $5/$15/$30/$70 pricing tiers they have right now. But Nintendo just don't (or rather, didn't, until Super Mario Run) have the in-house experience working with mobile form-factors to produce even original games that would stand out enough from the dreck on the app store to be "worth" more than $1 to consumers. So they just didn't bother with mobile.

Re: Show HN: Play multiplayer and singleplayer NES games online

#73
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cause without buttons they suck :)

They could design a classic bluetooth controller and sell it for cheap. I'm using the expensive, but awesome Switch Pro Controller on my Android's SNES emulator.

People have their phones with them in a lot of cases where they just can't or won't bring any accessories: at a nightclub, in the toilet, etc. If this is the majority of time when you'd want to kill time on your phone, controller-requiring games would be pointless for you.

Mind you, if you can force people to bring the accessory wherever they bring the phone, the calculus shifts. The Switch essentially is a Pro Controller duct-taped to an Android tablet; and it's a lot easier to convince people to buy one. :)

Re: Show HN: Play multiplayer and singleplayer NES games online

#74
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-digital.html "Under section 117, you or someone you authorize may make a copy of an original computer program if: the new copy is being made for archival (i.e., backup) purposes only; you are the legal owner of the copy; and any copy made for archival purposes is either destroyed, or transferred with the original copy, once the original copy is sold, given away, or otherwise tra…

IANAL, but: Someone else can do it with the legitimate copy you own, e.g. I take my cartridge to the copy shop and the tech copies it to a floppy for me. The fact that someone online could send me exactly the same data is irrelevant. Legally I'm pretty sure that lending a physical copy and making a digital copy are incomparable. And to be sure, a copy is made when the server sends you the ROM.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/117

"(a)Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.—Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided: (1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or (2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful."

Where does it say that the copy must come from your original? If two people own the program, one may make a copy of his/her original for the other because the others original may have been destroyed. Remember, this law was written in the days of cds, records, etc.

It is clear that you can lend an original copy but not an archival copy. If you lend the original copy, you physically cannot be using it(needless to say, you cannot legally use your archival copy while you are lending you original copy).

Re: Show HN: Play multiplayer and singleplayer NES games online

#75
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IANAL, but: Someone else can do it with the legitimate copy you own, e.g. I take my cartridge to the copy shop and the tech copies it to a floppy for me. The fact that someone online could send me exactly the same data is irrelevant. Legally I'm pretty sure that lending a physical copy and making a digital copy are incomparable. And to be sure, a copy is made when the server sends you the ROM.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/117 "(a)Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.—Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided: (1) that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of th…

>one may make a copy of his/her original for the other because the others original may have been destroyed

But then how would you prove you owned the original in the first place?

I could claim to have at one point owned every Sega Genesis game but unfortunately set the box down while moving and ran it over with a truck while backing out the driveway. I of course did not keep this box of now shattered carts and I also bought it with cash from a man on Craigslist so there really isn't a paper trail.

Is there a court case within the last 10 years we can reference that dealt with this kind of situation of once owning the original but it ended up destroyed?

Re: Show HN: Play multiplayer and singleplayer NES games online

#78

No sound...but awesome stuff \o/

Thanks. I've managed to get the sound working somewhat locally. Since this is based on JSNES (https://github.com/bfirsh/jsnes/), I'm gonna submit a pull request to that repo and push the latest commit to my repo.
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