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Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

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Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#141

Post by prmoustache »

Kwpolska wrote: post #136
prmoustache wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Steam will drop Windows7/8 support January 1, 2024[1], Vista and XP support got dropped a long time ago. Meanwhile they still sell Win95/98 games on the Steam store, which won't run well or at all on a Windows10/11. Why wouldn't they work well? Every time backward compatibility is mentionned, Microsoft Windows is praised as the best example of it and people brag they can still run everything they used to run in 199…

Microsoft has great backwards compatibility, but it isn't perfect. Those games might be coded to 1990s standards, e.g. using old graphics APIs that don't support modern GPUs.

Which ones? Apart from DOS games and windows 3.x which I would treat separatly the only graphics api I could think of was Glide for which there are modern wrappers like nglide.

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#142

Post by prmoustache »

Flux159 wrote: post #2

This seems like it's only going to get worse many games need online services to function at all. Super Mario Maker as mentioned in the post is one of them, but there are countless others on 3DS and PC that won't function properly. Ideally it would be possible to archive the games (like ROMs or what the Internet Archive does for websites and files) and also the server / database so that the games could be playable in…

> Super Mario Maker

What happens concretely if you start Super Mario Maker while the 3DS console is offline? Can't you play it on a plane?

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#143

Post by indigo945 »

prmoustache wrote: post #141
Kwpolska wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft has great backwards compatibility, but it isn't perfect. Those games might be coded to 1990s standards, e.g. using old graphics APIs that don't support modern GPUs.

Which ones? Apart from DOS games and windows 3.x which I would treat separatly the only graphics api I could think of was Glide for which there are modern wrappers like nglide.

Parts of DX5 and previous, such as the "retained mode", are missing from current versions of Windows entirely. Much of the remaining implementation is buggy and introduces render artifacts.

Open source projects such as dgVoodoo offer a solution to run old games, by re-implementing old DirectX and Glide on top of current DirectX [1], similar to how Wine runs DX games on Linux on top of OpenGL or Vulkan.

[1]: https://github.com/dege-diosg/dgVoodoo2

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#144

Post by temac »

prmoustache wrote: post #114
grumbel wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steam will drop Windows7/8 support January 1, 2024[1], Vista and XP support got dropped a long time ago. Meanwhile they still sell Win95/98 games on the Steam store, which won't run well or at all on a Windows10/11. So not exactly perfect either as far as backward compatibility is concerned. [1] https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/4784-4F2B-1321-80...

> Steam will drop Windows7/8 support January 1, 2024[1], Vista and XP support got dropped a long time ago. Meanwhile they still sell Win95/98 games on the Steam store, which won't run well or at all on a Windows10/11. Why wouldn't they work well? Every time backward compatibility is mentionned, Microsoft Windows is praised as the best example of it and people brag they can still run everything they used to run in 199…

People brag about a lot of things and windows compat is better than e.g. macOS but recent windows actually can't even run a good number of other MS software of the 95 era.

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#145

Post by Dalewyn »

Aerroon wrote: post #122
Dalewyn wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>in which case you’re screwed until you buy new hardware. Windows 10 runs on anything that will emit a clock signal, and Windows 11 can be forced onto hardware it doesn't officially like. I don't like Windows 7 support being dropped either, in large part because the dropping comes due to CEF used by Steam, but it's not like the hardware concerned becomes useless with no way out.

> Windows 10 runs on anything that will emit a clock signal It runs extremely poorly on low power hardware. Poorly enough that I consider it unusable. Windows 7 ran fine on the same hardware previously.

Seeing as we're talking about games, low power hardware isn't necessarily relevant.

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#146

Post by nottorp »

slowhadoken wrote: post #79
Rebelgecko wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They recently dropped support for MacOS 10.12. They're cutting it close since many Valve games only work on MacOS versions <= 10.13

Apple hasn’t support MacOS 10.12 for four years. That Steam still supports it is amazing to me.

Have you actually used steam lately? They did something to it on Mac that made it reset to the store page every time it loses focus and gains it back. Including when you try to read the code in your mail to be able to login, or when entering 3d secure codes for a purchase.

Basically you can't use it without another device to check your mail/texts.

It's been going on for at least 2 months.

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#147

Post by averageRoyalty »

herbst wrote: post #137

I still own the first steam game I ever bought and sometimes play it. Nearly every game I own just works on any machine I own. Interface is my choice. At this point I could even argue that the console they offer has more bang per dollar. I don't really get why people willingly joined walled gardens like that.

Steam is still a walled garden that can arbitrarily take away games at any time they want. Everyone who sells via Steam (including Valve) can and do sometimes turn off online services.

Your garden might be wider, but there's still walls.

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#148

Post by manymatter »

zamadatix wrote: post #71
noirbot wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure that hasn't stopped Hollywood accounting for the last century, and I see no reason why EA can't pull off the same things that Warner Brothers has been doing.

Hollywood accounting is about hiding profit by making it look like all of the revenue was used for expenses. Hiding all of your revenue outright is a different ballgame and if it were easy to do legally Nintendo wouldn't be paying billions in taxes on it already.

This is unrelated to the thread. The point was obfuscation of the fact that the profit is from a specific copyrighted work. I.e. selling 600 versions of a game each with a different default skin hides no income from tax authorities.

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#149

Post by nkrisc »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #54
acdha wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish there was some way to tie it to copyright where if you want to lock the rights up, you have to provide the game in a playable form at a reasonable price. I’ve seen proposals which would implement that as a kind orphan works tax with a threshold so a small indie game wouldn’t be expected to provide unlimited support.

I don’t know why this would be a tax? If you’re going to go down this path, why wouldn’t you just require that the title needs to be purchasable on a primary market and usable on hardware/software that is currently supported in order for a copyright to be enforceable. If I can’t purchase and enjoy a copyrighted work legally, the copyright is unenforceable. In response to sibling comments, I don’t know why you’d do a…

So if you can’t find a distributor for your copyrighted work or you’re not capable of distributing it yourself, you lose the copyright? You’re compelled to sell your work? Sounds pretty backwards to me.

Re: Nintendo Network shutdown – The beginning of the end

#150

Post by ripdog »

Dalewyn wrote: post #95
spookie wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it a Valve problem, or a Microsoft one at that point? Nevertheless, you could still download your game and remove the thin DRM layer (tools available to do so), and then play them on your Windows<10 machines.

Valve problem. Selling merchandise you know/stated the customer can't use is negligent at best, malicious at worst. Obligatory IANAL.

Valve offers a generous refund policy. If the game doesn't work on your system, refund it.
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