Version: 2008

Comments on: CES vendors showing off shady old-school console emulators

This year a handful of companies showed off questionably legal console emulators, passing them off as safe to sell.

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by rwbuck January 12, 2009 11:11 AM PST
"simply because a patent is expired doesn't mean protection of the patent has also expired" - actually it does. The article cited makes no such statement. You could say that "simply because a patent is expired doesn't mean protection of the product has also expired." As the IP attorney pointed out...there are some patents that haven't expired, there are foreign patents that haven't expired and there are copyright and trademark protections for other intellectual property interests. But when a patent expires...it does actually expire...that is sort of the point...
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by i8246i January 13, 2009 5:28 AM PST
The patent has expired, and so has the ability for Nintendo to protect those patents, but Nintendo still has copyrights to certain parts of the NES console and its cartridges, and COULD sue these third parties into oblivion and win.

The real issue here is: why would Nintendo care? The Virutal Console's library (while being very slow to update), contains many old classic games for the NES, SNES, N64, Genesis, Master System, Turbographix, etc...and all you need to play all of these old great games is a Wii (and possibly one extra accessory if you don't own a Gamecube controller). No dragging out old components that may or may not work anymore (like my 7800 [r.i.p. old friend]), dealing with cartridges that might be missing or damaged (HAL hole-in-one golf, I barelly knew ye)...and then there's the ever-popular problem of dust entering the cartridge or system (and the original NES having troubles with its cartridge loading springs and locks that held the games in their place...if those went bad you weren't playing anything!)...and then you have to find a way to get yet another legacy machine to work with newer components (coax adaptor my old friend....I've come to speak with you again). Oh, and you also have to make sure you can FIND a copy of the old game you want to play, and hope that you can AFFORD IT (local slackers was selling Secret of Mana for $45...now you can get it for about $10 and not have to worry about the useless multi-tap adaptor for the SNES to play with 3 people!).

And as for other cartridge systems and their companies...well, only Sega still really exists at this point, and they've ported their old games onto just about every other system imaginable (Sonic the Hedgehog has so many variants.....there's even a standalone device you can plug straight into your tv!). All the other systems either totally died out, or were bought by or merged into another entity that no longer cares about their rights belonging to their own system.
by DIY-Rom-Arcade January 22, 2009 7:47 AM PST
I feel as though fans that are likely to still own the original cartridges needed to use these systems would probably own the original console system as well. It?s part of the whole experience. For those who do not, they are probably gaming on their Wii, or PC with Emulators as the user above mentioned.
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by forestryee January 26, 2009 2:26 PM PST
Actually, I can see an aftermarket forming. I have all above mentioned systems, but I like the idea of new controllers and not using the actual systems. It just saves the actual systems from being over used. Also, It might encourage aftermarket development for games for these systems.
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