The only thing you need is a way to read out your cartridges, much like making security backups of optical discs.
Like many others said, its not only a piracy tool, but a preservation method. Since copyright insanity often even prevents rights holders of re-releasing their own content (My favorite example: MegaMan Legends 2 couldn't be re-released for the longest time due to a single voice actor contract), its often the only way to preserve these libraries.
And the most ironic thing about all this ? There are quite a few VC games that Nintendo themselves got off of illegal ROM sites, identified by a custom file header that made older ROMs compatible with certain emulators.
And since i had such a discussion many times: Yes, Flash Cards are a gray area because they circumvent a systems security checks and often use(d) reverse-engineered code, which is illegal. Dumping your own ROMs / ISOs for safekeeping and preservation however is something completely different. Which is why "commercial redistribution" is highlighted in every copyright disclaimer.
Bottom Line: Don't make money off of other peoples work and don't share content bought with a "single owner license" (a.e. entertainment media). Heck, if you'd want to get nitpicky, you'd need a license to show a BluRay movie on a party exceeding a certain number of attendees here in germany... Or we even had kindergartens being fined for singing songs they didn't had the license to reproduce for !
We have a saying here that if you take these rulings too seriously, you might as well never leave your room again, because somewhere, there is a law against you leaving the house and treading on state owned ground.
@Artwark "Nintendo should've bought Rare" Rare was a 2nd party inhouse dev team of nintendo. Nintendo sold them to microsoft. Microsoft bought 51% of rare and nintendo was somewhat forced to give them up. Turned out that it was a good decision, since their initial talet was long gone. Even without Rare, i doubt that Segas peripherals could have beaten the SNES. The SNES had so much other stuff going for it (Nintendos 1st party games, Square and Enix in the RPG department etc), Rares games were just the cherry topping and the whole SNES cake And if you ask me, nintendos "repetition" is one of its biggest strong points. Look at modern game franchises: Every single modern CoD game is basicly a carbo copy of the last one. They even start to recycle cutscenes and just replace the character models and nobody really seems to have a problem with that. And now look at, say, mario games. Very few games share the same mechanics. You have your direct sequels like the original SMB and the lost levels, the NEW series, galaxy 2 and to some extend, 3D land and 3D World. But i wouldnt call SMB3 a carbon copy of SMB, Every new major installment was a fresh, new game based on the same formular. Sure, they use the same pool of characters over and over, but i cant find anything wrong with that. People dont seem to care that modern game casts almost completely consist of either generic military men or hulking space marines. Normally i would say "never change a running system" but its quite the opposite here. Nintendo almost always changes something about their games and still, they get accused of "doing the same thing over and over" while other companys literally recycle their games, slap a new number on the cover and call it a day and people are fine with it.
From almost hardware designer to shovelware producer. The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Working for microsoft must be creativity poison. They are in no way as bad, evil, rotten and downright dangerous to the industry as EA, but still, many (first party) studios working for them take their eventual leave or wither under them. Rare was once a studio that was capable of putting nintendo in its place. The only safety net nintendo had at the time was, that it all happend on their consoles. And now ? Wii Sports rip offs for a non working spy camera. Didnt some of the older core stuff plan a reunion under nintendos wing ? I remember reading something like that quite some time ago. Anyone up to date with that ?
@ICHIkatakuri Dont ask Sega for that, ask "From Software", the makers of the Armored Core series Sega just published this one. Although i would love an Armored Core game on the WiiU simply to see how overboard they could go with the gamepad. Maybe have some dials and switches to tune your mech on the go via the gamepad
Antdickens, you are not alone I also really liked that game. It had some nice idas here and there and was overall really "ok" And to be honest, it could have been anything, and people would still find something to complain about
Comments 8
Re: Flash Carts Could Be Slowly Killing Your Retro Consoles
@Kalmaro There is. You can always rip them yourself using something like this:
https://www.dragonbox.de/en/313-retrode2-with-all-plugins-retrode-4260416651043.html
The only thing you need is a way to read out your cartridges, much like making security backups of optical discs.
Like many others said, its not only a piracy tool, but a preservation method. Since copyright insanity often even prevents rights holders of re-releasing their own content (My favorite example: MegaMan Legends 2 couldn't be re-released for the longest time due to a single voice actor contract), its often the only way to preserve these libraries.
And the most ironic thing about all this ?
There are quite a few VC games that Nintendo themselves got off of illegal ROM sites, identified by a custom file header that made older ROMs compatible with certain emulators.
And since i had such a discussion many times:
Yes, Flash Cards are a gray area because they circumvent a systems security checks and often use(d) reverse-engineered code, which is illegal.
Dumping your own ROMs / ISOs for safekeeping and preservation however is something completely different.
Which is why "commercial redistribution" is highlighted in every copyright disclaimer.
Bottom Line: Don't make money off of other peoples work and don't share content bought with a "single owner license" (a.e. entertainment media).
Heck, if you'd want to get nitpicky, you'd need a license to show a BluRay movie on a party exceeding a certain number of attendees here in germany...
Or we even had kindergartens being fined for singing songs they didn't had the license to reproduce for !
We have a saying here that if you take these rulings too seriously, you might as well never leave your room again, because somewhere, there is a law against you leaving the house and treading on state owned ground.
Re: The Retro VGS Wants To Revive The Glory Days Of Cartridge-Based Home Consoles
Did someone say Ouya ?
Re: Feature: Say Hello To The CPS Changer, Capcom's First And Only Attempt At A Home Console
So, based on its hardware concepts...its basically a console with "infinite potential" as the game itself brings all the hardware with it ?
Not all that different to an actual arcade cabinet.
But yeah...the golden age, when Capcom ruled the gaming world.
I miss them so darn much...
I guess the system itself is impossible to track down for a mere mortal ?
Even more reasons to finally build my own, dedicated MAME machine :3
Re: Rare Nearly Took On The Nintendo Game Boy With Its Own "Playboy" Handheld
@Artwark "Nintendo should've bought Rare"
Rare was a 2nd party inhouse dev team of nintendo. Nintendo sold them to microsoft. Microsoft bought 51% of rare and nintendo was somewhat forced to give them up. Turned out that it was a good decision, since their initial talet was long gone.
Even without Rare, i doubt that Segas peripherals could have beaten the SNES. The SNES had so much other stuff going for it (Nintendos 1st party games, Square and Enix in the RPG department etc), Rares games were just the cherry topping and the whole SNES cake
And if you ask me, nintendos "repetition" is one of its biggest strong points.
Look at modern game franchises: Every single modern CoD game is basicly a carbo copy of the last one. They even start to recycle cutscenes and just replace the character models and nobody really seems to have a problem with that.
And now look at, say, mario games. Very few games share the same mechanics. You have your direct sequels like the original SMB and the lost levels, the NEW series, galaxy 2 and to some extend, 3D land and 3D World. But i wouldnt call SMB3 a carbon copy of SMB, Every new major installment was a fresh, new game based on the same formular.
Sure, they use the same pool of characters over and over, but i cant find anything wrong with that. People dont seem to care that modern game casts almost completely consist of either generic military men or hulking space marines.
Normally i would say "never change a running system" but its quite the opposite here. Nintendo almost always changes something about their games and still, they get accused of "doing the same thing over and over" while other companys literally recycle their games, slap a new number on the cover and call it a day and people are fine with it.
Re: Rare Nearly Took On The Nintendo Game Boy With Its Own "Playboy" Handheld
From almost hardware designer to shovelware producer. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Working for microsoft must be creativity poison. They are in no way as bad, evil, rotten and downright dangerous to the industry as EA, but still, many (first party) studios working for them take their eventual leave or wither under them.
Rare was once a studio that was capable of putting nintendo in its place. The only safety net nintendo had at the time was, that it all happend on their consoles. And now ? Wii Sports rip offs for a non working spy camera.
Didnt some of the older core stuff plan a reunion under nintendos wing ? I remember reading something like that quite some time ago. Anyone up to date with that ?
Re: Feature: The Short Life And Untimely Death Of Robotech: Crystal Dreams
@ICHIkatakuri Dont ask Sega for that, ask "From Software", the makers of the Armored Core series Sega just published this one. Although i would love an Armored Core game on the WiiU simply to see how overboard they could go with the gamepad. Maybe have some dials and switches to tune your mech on the go via the gamepad
Re: Feature: The Short Life And Untimely Death Of Robotech: Crystal Dreams
What we REALLY need is a sequel to Gotcha Force, THATS a good robot game !
Sadly, it belongs to capcom, former super developer gone rogue.
Re: Feature: The Making Of Star Fox Adventures
Antdickens, you are not alone I also really liked that game. It had some nice idas here and there and was overall really "ok"
And to be honest, it could have been anything, and people would still find something to complain about