Nintendo's Stance on Emulation is Stupid. Here's Why:
Corporations and Greed are Synonymous
The title of my blog is “Rare and Expensive Video Games”. Though I’m not talking about any specific games today, I think this discussion needs to be had. When it comes to letting fans do things like emulation (the process of downloading a game and playing it on things it wasn’t meant to be played on, like a PC), Nintendo genuinely makes some of the most idiotic, braindead decisions imaginable. Everything of theirs is under lock and key. If you do any of these things and they find out… cease and desist, buddy. I haven’t even mentioned what they do to fan creations like fan games. But, that’s a discussion for another day. Before I stray too far and go off on a tangent because I’m fired up and filled with Mountain Dew, let’s dive right into the meat of this.
Emulation
(Me playing Pikmin on Dolphin Emulator)
Let’s get one thing out of the way. I am an advocate for emulation. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it at all. Sometimes, it’s the only way for the average person to experience a game like, say Pokemon Black/White 2 for the Nintendo DS which, according to pricecharting, are to this very day, $110 loose each. ($135 in box)! Who wants to pay that much for an authentic copy? (Me. The answer is me). Most casual gamers don’t want to spend anything over 60 dollars for their games, and 60 is pushing it, since that’s the price of most brand-spankin’ new games.
Plus, we haven’t even considered the argument of: “This game is like 25 years old and I don’t want to go out of my way to find the original console and the original game to enjoy it”, which makes perfect sense! You’re not gonna stroll into your Walmart and find them just selling brand new Nintendo 64s with every single game ever made for it right there on the shelf! We are long past that point!
So, fans emulate the game for free, right at home, just for their own enjoyment. How is that wrong? Well, let’s hear what this official Nintendo legal information document has to say, because I’m sure they’ve got a very good reason for why it’s wrong. Let’s hear em’ out.
People making Nintendo emulators and Nintendo ROMs are helping publishers by making old games available that are no longer being sold by the copyright owner. This does not hurt anyone and allows gamers to play old favourites. What's the problem?
The problem is that it's illegal. Copyrights and trademarks of games are corporate assets. If these vintage titles are available far and wide, it undermines the value of this intellectual property and adversely affects the right owner. In addition, the assumption that the games involved are vintage or nostalgia games is incorrect. Nintendo is famous for bringing back to life its popular characters for its newer systems, for example, Mario and Donkey Kong have enjoyed their adventures on all Nintendo platforms, going from coin-op machines to our latest hardware platforms. As a copyright owner, and creator of such famous characters, only Nintendo has the right to benefit from such valuable assets.
Bruh. I- I shouldn’t even have to say anything. The sheer brainlessness speaks for itself. But you know what? I will say something about this.
This sucks.
I’m gonna break it down bit by bit for you.
“The problem is that it's illegal.”
What an awful response. Instead of giving any credence to this very valid argument, they shoot it down with “Erm… but it’s illegal tho…..” Let’s continue.
“Copyrights and trademarks of games are corporate assets. If these vintage titles are available far and wide, it undermines the value of this intellectual property and adversely affects the right owner.”
Okay. How? You literally made the effin’ game. If the game is 25 years old, you’ve made your damn money. You aren’t gonna be adding to the units sold of the Virtual Boy anymore. The traction for these old games is gone at this point. Some 14 year old kid in his basement isn’t gonna take away any traction to the latest consoles for emulating friggin’ Bubble Bobble. He’s not gonna convince huge swathes of people to stop buying whatever is out and selling currently. This argument is so stupid because it’s verifiably wrong. Look at this shit: The Nintendo Switch alone has sold 110.8 MILLION copies. It’s literally number freakin’ 5 on this list. It’s not losing anything!
(The bane of Nintendo’s existence)
I really think the only place this argument holds any water is when it comes to emulation of current games, which I do not advocate for. If they’re still selling it in stores and it ain’t hard to find, then you shouldn’t steal it. But I think it’s safe to say most people who emulate games aren’t stealing modern games. They’re probably attempting to play something that’s over 10 years old. Let’s keep going.
“Nintendo is famous for bringing back to life its popular characters for its newer systems, for example, Mario and Donkey Kong have enjoyed their adventures on all Nintendo platforms, going from coin-op machines to our latest hardware platforms.”
This argument is annoying, but they’re right in most cases. Yes, Nintendo does bring new adventures with their characters to their current systems. Most of the time. What about F-Zero or the Mother series, though? They haven’t had releases on systems since the GameCube and Gameboy Advance respectively. (Especially poor Mother. That game I mentioned, called Mother 3, only got released in Japan all the way back in 2006 and Nintendo knows damn well people still want an English translation. They’ve even directly made fun of fans who want Mother 3 in a in a press conference, and yes, this is real.)
Well, whatever, they’re not always going to get to every game series, I understand that. So what about old games with these characters? Maybe I don’t want to play the new Mario Tennis because the one on the GameCube is inherently better. So why not just re-release older games onto your system? Easy enough. They’re your games, so make them available.
The Wii, and then the Wii U and 3DS actually did a really great job with this in a service called “Virtual Console” that let fans officially emulate old games on their newest console at that time. I myself have bought quite a few virtual console games on my Wii U. It’s not perfect… GameCube games are noticeably absent, but Wii games are there, which is odd, but it does the job. My Wii U, at this point, is my virtual console machine. Since then, though, Nintendo made a brand new console, the Switch. So, the solution is easy enough. Do the exact same thing here.
(I found the official Wii U and 3DS eShop list on the UK Nintendo site. There are literally hundreds of virtual console games. Take a look here.)
What do you think Nintendo did?
A - Put a library of NES and SNES virtual console games on the Switch as an incentive to continue paying for a shitty online subscription service
B - Wait two years to make 3 games that should have been available on the switch to begin with and do it in the dumbest way possible
C - Make a third library of Nintendo 64 games and Sega Genesis games locked behind yet another subscription service with some of the worst emulation to date
All of the above, of course.
While I love the libraries of NES and SNES games and it’s such a great way to play legacy content that it makes paying for that garbage online service tolerable, I cannot say the same about the Nintendo 64 library. The normal online service is 30 dollars a year, which is reasonable enough. But then, they introduced a new plan with Nintendo 64 games and Sega Genesis games added on that is 20 dollars extra.
(It was bad to begin with, and then this.)
No, no, no, the incentive was the games, Nintendo. You made the quick cash grab that was a forced online subscription (which you didn’t have before) worth it in the end. You cannot add more legacy content and expect people to pay extra for what should have been included in an already shitty situation you forced fans into. On top of this, the Nintendo 64 emulator is notoriously bad. It’s buggy, there are graphical errors, and there are a slew of other problems I won’t even get into. Here’s an incredible video by Nerrel about how insultingly awful this emulator is if you’re interested in learning more.
And what about B? Enter Super Mario 3D All-Stars. This game was made to commemorate Mario’s 35th anniversary in 2020, and boy, they did not give a shit. There are 3 games in this collection, (when there should have been four, Mario Galaxy 2 is excluded) the music from said games, aaannd that’s it. How much is it? Full price. 60 dollars. Literally a re-release of old games running crappily on an emulator. These games weren’t previously available on the Switch, either, so if you wanted to do it “legally”, this was your only option. On top of this, they did a forced time limit thing where these games would only be sold from September 2020 to March 2021. Why? What was the point? On top of this, it took them several months to patch out bugs that weren’t in the original versions and offer actual GameCube controller support.
(The 3D All-Stars Mario Sunshine port with exposed developer textures, a common sign of a poor emulation job. Full Nintendo Life article about that here.)
It almost feels like whoever is choosing to do this hates legacy content and is purposely making it difficult to obtain.
So, no, Nintendo. Not only do you not have every iconic character represented on your console, you make older media with said characters a bitch to obtain officially and when you do, it sucks ass.
“As a copyright owner, and creator of such famous characters, only Nintendo has the right to benefit from such valuable assets.”
Which is it, Nintendo? Keep everything in a vault and take legal action against people who try to take it out for their own enjoyment or make your “valuable assets” available in the most dogshit quality possible?
Wrapping Things Up
I’ve gone off on this one section of a document that is pretty garbage throughout for way longer than I should, but someone had to say it.
I am a collector. There’s nothing I love collecting more than video games. So when even I tell you that unofficial emulation is a good thing, you know I’m serious. Unofficial emulators like Dolphin and Project64 are often of a better quality than current official releases and have way more options like mods and keyboard support. In my case, I have an adapter I can plug into my PC which lets me use the original controller on these games. I have played entire games this way.
People aren’t pirating to get at Nintendo and stick it to the man. People are pirating because Nintendo won’t give them any great options to experience legacy content.
(Our boy Gabe).
I’m gonna close with a quote from Valve CEO Gabe Newell, (A multibillionaire whose company has made some of the greatest games of all time like Half-Life and the Portal series and who has given his blessing for fan creations with his IPs to be officially sold on his service Steam), because it’s what I always think of when talking about this subject:
“One thing that we have learned is that piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue. The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. It’s by giving those people a service that’s better than what they’re receiving from the pirates.”
(Source for that here.)
What do you guys think? Leave a comment and try out the poll feature.