Legality of Emus on Consoles *feather split*

[Cyan]

Scorpio is going to be launched with the universal apps feature built-in, so it is going to include the capability to play GBA, SNES, Lynx, Genesis, etc etc emulators. I purchased some of those for my wp and I certainly would love to play those emulators in a proper console with a proper gamepad.

https://rashbandicoot.com/2016/07/05/gameboy-advance-emulator-is-coming-to-xbox-one/

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I can't imagine Nintendo being happy about that.

 

[Globalisateur]

I can't imagine Nintendo being happy about that.

Well if they provided a way to play all their retro games with a unified account and at a decent price, I am sure many wouldn't want to use an emulator. Also you can play non-Nintendo games using emulators.

That must be hard to copy roms of their games and make them available on their VC, without trophies and such added.

Well sure they have bigger fish to fry like pay guys to watch all youtube videos and make sure they take all the miserable pennies from the youtube ads streamers who had invested time, energy and hundred of dollars of Nintendo goods and made free and positive advertisement for their games.

 

[milk]

Thank god for nintendo this won't last long. After all, this whole multi-purpose console thing with a robust OS and downloadable apps is a fad. No need to even acknowledge that red ocean.

 

[Cyan]

I can't imagine Nintendo being happy about that.

those emulators work for free but with certain limitations, and I have paid for them. They are legal, and I have my roms on the cloud, so it should be safe. The fact that those emulators are going to work forever in several devices including Scorpio is a known fact, or so they should.

A cool gif on the new console.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Well if they provided a way to play all their retro games with a unified account and at a decent price, I am sure many wouldn't want to use an emulator. Also you can play non-Nintendo games using emulators.

And no doubt if Nintendo released an OG Xbox emulator for the NX Microsoft will totally be cool with that. You know Microsoft could just release their ancient shit for Nintendo's upcoming console and if they don't, well that's an effective defence right?

Let the emulation games begin!!!

 

[Shifty Geezer]

those emulators work for free but with certain limitations, and I have paid for them. They are legal,

Can you provide confirmation of that?

http://mobilesyrup.com/2015/03/15/emulate-this-are-game-emulators-legal/

Is game emulation legal?
The short answer to this question is no.

Also Nintendo's (somewhat hyperbolic) viewpoint: https://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#emulator They note that software copies aren't legal, so even if you ripped your ROMS from hardware and stored them in the cloud, you probably aren't entitled to unless some court has ruled otherwise.

Part of the USP for Nintendo consoles is to play old IP, sold to you for the fourth time p). Being able to play those games on another brand machine is in direct violation of Nintendo's IP and business potential. I don't think they'll let it slide if it becomes a noteworthy feature.

That said, they've allowed emulators to persist on the likes of Sony's handhelds and Android, so maybe it is legal and all the legal la-de-da in the above Nintendo link is just impotent posturing?

I definitely agree with DSoup that if a Nintendo or Sony console could play XB games, MS would bury them.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I definitely agree with DSoup that if a Nintendo or Sony console could play XB games, MS would bury them.

Not just Microsoft, but in that specific case Nvidia would attempt to bury them also. Nvidia is one of the prime reasons that Microsoft doesn't offer BC for original Xbox games. They either pay Nvidia to provide BC on Xbox games or get taken to court.

Regards,
SB

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Nvidia would fight Microsoft for the right to fight Nintendo!

 

[Cyan]

Can you provide confirmation of that?

http://mobilesyrup.com/2015/03/15/emulate-this-are-game-emulators-legal/
Also Nintendo's (somewhat hyperbolic) viewpoint: https://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#emulator They note that software copies aren't legal, so even if you ripped your ROMS from hardware and stored them in the cloud, you probably aren't entitled to unless some court has ruled otherwise.

Part of the USP for Nintendo consoles is to play old IP, sold to you for the fourth time p). Being able to play those games on another brand machine is in direct violation of Nintendo's IP and business potential. I don't think they'll let it slide if it becomes a noteworthy feature.

That said, they've allowed emulators to persist on the likes of Sony's handhelds and Android, so maybe it is legal and all the legal la-de-da in the above Nintendo link is just impotent posturing?

I definitely agree with DSoup that if a Nintendo or Sony console could play XB games, MS would bury them.

They are being sold at a price, whether Nintendo rip some of the benefits for each emulator which is "legally" sold..it's their responsibility, I purchased SNES 8x, My Boy!, Purple Cherry X, VBA8, vNESLight, VGBC8, WVBA, NesBox Emulator, WSnes, EmiGens Plus (free version, not actually prchased, maybe some of the others too, I don't remember buying all of them, but most), Lynxtalgia Mini and SNESTalgia Mini for my widows phone. Emulators exist to compensate for obsolescence of the hardware. Do you think that's not legal?

Regarding ROMS if you have your original copy you should be entitled to have a backup because you are the owner and paid for it and Nintendo aren't going to go after you and create a court case.

Following your link it says:

Can I Download a Nintendo ROM from the Internet if I Already Own the Authentic Game?

There is a good deal of misinformation on the Internet regarding the backup/archival copy exception. It is not a "second copy" rule and is often mistakenly cited for the proposition that if you have one lawful copy of a copyrighted work, you are entitled to have a second copy of the copyrighted work even if that second copy is an infringing copy. The backup/archival copy exception is a very narrow limitation relating to a copy being made by the rightful owner of an authentic game to ensure he or she has one in the event of damage or destruction of the authentic. Therefore, whether you have an authentic game or not, or whether you have possession of a Nintendo ROM for a limited amount of time, i.e. 24 hours, it is illegal to download and play a Nintendo ROM from the Internet.

Does it mean it is legal? The bolded proposition doesn't look very realistic. In fact there are some Capcom arcade machines whose memory started to fail after a few years and only ROMS caused them to survive somehow.

Gotta add that I don't play emulators of modern machines like Dolphin or the other new WiiU emulator whose name I can't recall now. But emulators are BIOS loaders and games loaders, people could copy their roms to a pendrive and have the X1 or Scorpio to load the games via emulator from the pendrive.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I think in the face of a legal battle microsoft would probably just remove the app from the store. Probably rather fight the creator of the app in court than fight Nvidia, Nintendo or some other corporation.

 

[Nisaaru]

Not just Microsoft, but in that specific case Nvidia would attempt to bury them also. Nvidia is one of the prime reasons that Microsoft doesn't offer BC for original Xbox games. They either pay Nvidia to provide BC on Xbox games or get taken to court.

Regards,
SB

I thought they use DirectX and not some custom low level driver or allow games to access the HW directly in the old XBox.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I thought they use DirectX and not some custom low level driver or allow games to access the HW directly in the old XBox.

It was a very low level Xbox specific version of DirectX that used a lot of Nvidia specific graphics IP calls. Without reworking every single game, there's no way to provide backwards compatibility without using those Nvidia specific graphics IPs. Basically they'd have to remaster every single game to avoid having to pay Nvidia royalty/licensing fees for every game that ran in BC.

Regards,
SB

 

[Nisaaru]

And that specific NV IP contains patented functionality and isn't just some support code they can replace themselves easily or functions which are part of future DirectX APIs?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

They are being sold at a price, whether Nintendo rip some of the benefits for each emulator which is "legally" sold..it's their responsibility, I purchased SNES 8x, My Boy!, Purple Cherry X, VBA8, vNESLight, VGBC8, WVBA, NesBox Emulator, WSnes, EmiGens Plus (free version, not actually prchased, maybe some of the others too, I don't remember buying all of them, but most), Lynxtalgia Mini and SNESTalgia Mini for my widows phone. Emulators exist to compensate for obsolescence of the hardware. Do you think that's not legal?

Hard-core drugs can be bought, but that doesn't mean they're legal. Just because the emulators haven't been stopped, doesn't mean intrinsically that they are legal - could just be that no-one's done anything about it.

Regarding ROMS if you have your original copy you should be entitled to have a backup because you are the owner and paid for it and Nintendo aren't going to go after you and create a court case.

Following your link it says:

The bolded part is explicit that you are entitled to make a copy from your own source. You're not entitled to grab a copy someone else has made, as I understand it.

Gotta add that I don't play emulators of modern machines like Dolphin or the other new WiiU emulator whose name I can't recall now. But emulators are BIOS loaders and games loaders, people could copy their roms to a pendrive and have the X1 or Scorpio to load the games via emulator from the pendrive.

I think the emulators themselves are legal, as they are just software. What's illegal is the access to games you haven't copied yourself, as I understand it. But with all that said, there's a thriving 'industry' of nostalgic hardware that no-one's stopping, perhaps because it's more trouble than its worth, like Prohibition?

But definitely, any of the console companies can come down hard on a rival supporting emulation. Play PS1, 2 and 3 games on your Scorpio? Never gonna happen (never say never! PSX on Windows 10 on Scorpio! ).

 

[BRiT]

Where most emulators fail from a legal perspective is not the copying of the game ROM but the copying of the Console Boot ROM that is embedded in the console. If an emulator ships with a boot rom it violates copyright unless they have explicit permission from the copyright owners. This is how all the major players have won their lawsuits or granted injunctions.

That is also how some emulators have been able to still exist and thrive (if the game roms or game cds or dvds include the boot code needed). An early PSX emulator won their defense against Sony, Bleem! emulator by Connectix. Despite that win for Connectix, Sony continued to file legal actions against them until they ran out of money to defend themselves.

Today's current Gen consoles have this boot rom as part of the system partition on the hard drive. To legally emulate this, each user would have to still own the physical console.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

I think the emulators themselves are legal, as they are just software. What's illegal is the access to games you haven't copied yourself, as I understand it. But with all that said, there's a thriving 'industry' of nostalgic hardware that no-one's stopping, perhaps because it's more trouble than its worth, like Prohibition?

But definitely, any of the console companies can come down hard on a rival supporting emulation. Play PS1, 2 and 3 games on your Scorpio? Never gonna happen (never say never! PSX on Windows 10 on Scorpio! ).

Emulators are legal as long as they do not contain any code or microcode from the emulated device. Hence why the BIOS of a machine isn't included with any legal emulators.

And as you mentioned, ROM images are only legal if they were created by the owner of the game and the owner must maintain ownership of the game. If they were to sell the game after making a backup of the game, then they are no longer legally entitled to use the image they created. This applies to the BIOS of the emulated device as well.

In most countries this means playing games on emulators is completely legal as long as the above rules are followed.

The reality, however, is that very few people actually make their own images (of the games or the BIOS) as that often requires specialized hardware. And hence, most people are illegally running emulated games.

And as you mentioned, it isn't worth it for companies in general to go after people doing this. The cost is far too high (legal and court fees) in the case of individual users. What they'll go after are image repositories and distributors.

Regards,
SB

 

[Silent_Buddha]

And that specific NV IP contains patented functionality and isn't just some support code they can replace themselves easily or functions which are part of future DirectX APIs?

Basically. It would mean emulating the hardware of the Xbox in order to run the unmodified games. Emulating the Xbox either means Microsoft have to come up with a clean room implementation of whatever graphics calls/hardware that is patented by Nvidia for the GPU they licenced to Microsoft.

The other option is to modify the games such that they no longer use any propriety graphics features or calls of Nvidia hardware in the original Xbox.

Both options are likely more costly than any related benefit they might get from spending the time and money to do it.

However, what is entirely possible is for a 3rd party to come up with a clean room (legal) Xbox emulator for UWP which could be run on Xbox machines. I haven't kept up with emulators for the past few years, so I'm not aware of whether any Xbox emulators have made significant progress, or if there's even any interest in making an Xbox emulator anymore.

Regards,
SB

 

[Riddlewire]

https://www.youtube.com/user/pcmaker2/search?query=xqemu

None of the games are "playable" with the best current emulator. I'm guessing the developer(s) will die of natural causes before XQEMU ever achieves widespread "playable game" status.

I emailed Robbie Bach after he left MS to ask him about their agreement with Nvidia on providing emulation for the X360. He said he "couldn't remember". Yeah, ok.
Nvidia was far less helpful when I asked them, curtly refusing to speak about the matter.

It's as if both parties wish the original Xbox would be wiped from the pages of history.

 

[BRiT]

Nvidia was far less helpful when I asked them, curtly refusing to speak about the matter.

It's as if both parties wish the original Xbox would be wiped from the pages of history.

And soon enough Nintendo will experience some of this Nvidia 'joy' through the Nintendo NX project.

I still would like for an Xbox Original emulator to be available on the Xbox One (and Win10 PC).