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Nintendo's Wii U and 3DS stores closing means game over for digital archives

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Re: Nintendo's Wii U and 3DS stores closing means game over for digital archives

#71

Post by andrepd »

asdff wrote: post #5

What a shame the article spreads some fud about roms and diminishes the community, making it seem like a futile individual effort: "In order to play a game on an emulator, you need a copy of the original title, commonly saved as a ROM (or read-only memory) file. Depending on how the title is copied, what the condition of the cartridge or game disc is in, or the geographic region the game is locked to, you can find yo…

It's funny he gives those examples in particular, as Pokemon Crystal and SMB3 both have commented source code (by disassembly ofc), let alone bit-perfect roms.

Re: Nintendo's Wii U and 3DS stores closing means game over for digital archives

#72

Post by AdmiralAsshat »

dfxm12 wrote: post #34
ajmurmann wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are the statements about the quality of the copy true as well? I had always assumed, it's digital, so it either works or it doesn't. I know there are problems emulating some games well, but I always thought that was because of shortcomings in the emulator or things like chips on the game cartridge that also need to be emulated.

I'm not sure exactly what statements you're referring to, but consider if you've ever seen a [b] in a rom filename, that means it's known to be a "bad dump". Compare this to roms with [!] in their filename, which signifies a "verified good dump".

Damn. I wonder how many games I fully played through back in the day against a known "bad" dump.

EDIT: Now I'm even more confused as to why some of those "good sets" would even contain known bad dumps.

Re: Nintendo's Wii U and 3DS stores closing means game over for digital archives

#73

Post by asveikau »

actionablefiber wrote: post #39
asveikau wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You need to create your own copy, It's funny because custom electronics are way more cheap and accessible than they used to be. In the 90s, I wished I could dump my game carts and saves. I saw someone posted PCBs to do it over ISA bus but I didn't have the skills or ability to do it myself. Recently, I found this open project that can dump that era: https://github.com/sanni/cartreader

One issue with dumping, even if you have the equipment for it, is that in some cases you will still need to patch it to defeat the copy protection.

Those can be distributed as patches. This is typically how people distribute fan translations, for example.

Re: Nintendo's Wii U and 3DS stores closing means game over for digital archives

#74

Post by WillAdams »

It also kills the value of used machines --- I've always regretted not getting a Wii U, and actually have two games for it which have not yet been ported to the Switch: (Twilight Princess HD and Xenoblade Chronicles X).

XCX has a datapack on the Wii U shop which when downloaded allows the game to play much faster, with much less time spent on loading screens --- there's no way I'm buying a Wii U now without the ability to download that.

Re: Nintendo's Wii U and 3DS stores closing means game over for digital archives

#75

Post by FeistySkink »

bentley wrote: post #24

It doesn’t have to be this way. I’ve been buying games on Steam for 15 years. Even my earliest purchases are still downloadable and playable, and have been on every PC I’ve owned, including most recently the Steam Deck. The same is true for my GOG library. Even more so, since I can (and do) save the DRM‐free installers of the games I buy. Don’t reward hostile media platforms with your money or your attention!

AFAIK, Steam delisted and removed the option to download purchased games in the past. Devotion springs to mind.

Re: Nintendo's Wii U and 3DS stores closing means game over for digital archives

#76

Post by bakugo »

ticviking wrote: post #53
bakugo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good idea for older systems, but 3DS flashcarts are basically obsolete and pure software methods are better.

How is the ease of use Though? If I can set up a flash cart and send it to him that’s much better than walking him through jailbreaks I would rather spend money than time and the limited patience of a young man who is struggling :)

Flashcarts on the 3DS aren't the same as flashcarts on older systems, where you just put in the cart and it acts like a normal game. It requires special software on the console itself to accept the fake cart, and they fell out of use so many years ago that I don't think the software is even compatible with any recent 3DS firmware.

The pure software approach available nowadays is much easier and more convenient, as long as whoever uses it after it's hacked can follow some basic instructions (how to install games, how to not update the firmware if nintendo releases an update without first updating the hack, etc)

Re: Nintendo's Wii U and 3DS stores closing means game over for digital archives

#77

Post by qrio2 »

kotaKat wrote: post #4

The only good thing is the WiiU and 3DS were blown so wide open by developers that the eShop is almost practically archived as it is.

lol yeah, there was a period of time where you could download the files directly from the official nintendo eShop CDN directly without paying

Re: Nintendo's Wii U and 3DS stores closing means game over for digital archives

#78

Post by [deleted] »

WillAdams wrote: post #74

It also kills the value of used machines --- I've always regretted not getting a Wii U, and actually have two games for it which have not yet been ported to the Switch: (Twilight Princess HD and Xenoblade Chronicles X). XCX has a datapack on the Wii U shop which when downloaded allows the game to play much faster, with much less time spent on loading screens --- there's no way I'm buying a Wii U now without the abili…

[deleted]

Re: Nintendo's Wii U and 3DS stores closing means game over for digital archives

#79

Post by FullyFunctional »

bentley wrote: post #24

It doesn’t have to be this way. I’ve been buying games on Steam for 15 years. Even my earliest purchases are still downloadable and playable, and have been on every PC I’ve owned, including most recently the Steam Deck. The same is true for my GOG library. Even more so, since I can (and do) save the DRM‐free installers of the games I buy. Don’t reward hostile media platforms with your money or your attention!

While not a "PC", I have games in my Steam library and from GoG that I can't play on a modern mac anymore because they removed 32-bit support post Mojave, so I keep an increasingly-difficult-to-use MacBook Pro on Mojava.

So, Steam didn't save me :(

Re: Nintendo's Wii U and 3DS stores closing means game over for digital archives

#80

Post by lozenge »

ClassyJacket wrote: post #46

Does anyone have any 3DS Eshop game recommendations I need to buy before the closure? Unique stuff that can't be obtained on other platforms?

Shovel Knight looks stylish with the 3d effect and your inventory on the touch screen, but it's definitely available on other platforms.
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