Calm Down Cody | June 2024 | Nintendo, the Emulation Question is your Game to Lose
So, if you are not up with the news on Big Tech, the iPhone can finally play emulated games for retro consoles. (Do not @ me, Android users. I know you guys have been able to do it since the beginning and are freer than we, Apple Sheep. I do not want to get into the extremely tired phone wars.) This is partly because the European Union has forced Apple to open iPhones to third-party app stores, and Apple is trying desperately to dissuade anybody from using them. So, Apple responded by relaxing the rules in their App Store. It has been marvelous playing classic Gameboy games that I played as a kid on my smartphone. This change in Apple's rules has made the iPhone a better product.
With that said, I understood why Apple forbade emulators on iOS. It is an application of questionable legality that plays software that, chances are, you acquired illegally. (Look, I am not judging. Sometimes, you have to play 30-year-old Gameboy games to make it through life as an adult.) Emulators are a legal hot potato, and because of their tight-fisted control over the app ecosystem, Apple did not want to open themselves up to that kind of legal liability, especially for something as nonconsequential as playing old video games.
Nintendo has perhaps been the most notorious for combatting pirated games. Ever since Hollywood screwed them over with the 1990s Mario movie, they have tightly controlled and fiercely protected their core IP (Mario, Kirby, Zelda) and have created a walled garden so fierce Apple is looking at them with envy. The issue is that it is not Nintendo's first-party games that I want to play; Switch Online does a pretty solid job of bringing classic Nintendo games to the Switch. It is the third-party developers where the games become lost to history and are most prone to emulation. Legal or otherwise.
The general rule for the legality of emulators is that they are generally legal, provided that you own the game legally somewhere. So, if you still have your old Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow cartridges, emulate them to your heart's content. While Nintendo is always game to continue to make money on new ports of games going back to the NES, the other developers who developed for those platforms have less of a financial incentive to continue updating and renegotiating the license for a game that was a moderate success in 1998 for the Super Nintendo. So much of video game history is lost to contractual limbo, leaving fans of those games to either scour the used marketplace on eBay or procure those games by less-than-legal means. So, Nintendo, you could either use the blunt instrument of the legal system and continue to cast yourself as the villain in these fights, or you could help to be a part of the solution.
I propose that Nintendo develop a device which can convert an old game on an old console to a playable digital file without having to renegotiate a new contract with third-party developers.This proposal would have several benefits for both Nintendo and Gamers alike.
(1) Nintendo would have another piece of hardware to make money on since their prior consoles are a proprietary file format; they would have to develop all new hardware to get this working.
(2) It would DRAMATICALLY increase the potential game library for the Switch. The Switch (or Switch 2) would potentially have all of Nintendo's history at its disposal. This increases the Switch's competitiveness now that Windows, Steam, and mobile phones are beginning to encroach on the handheld space.
(3) If Nintendo provided a means to make the original files on the original cartridges workable on the Switch, it could spur those developers to bring those games back for sale on the Switch Store. This device would almost automate the porting process and thereby you could direct players away from the second-hand market on eBay and Amazon and to the Switch store.
Now, realistically, this will never happen. Nintendo is way too risk-averse to create such a bold and audacious product. Also, I know nothing about product design and creation so there might be a technical limitation that I am unaware of. However, the conversation needs to be had so that decades of work and history do not become lost to time or forced to engage in quasi-illegal activity in order to play them. Most gamers want to play these games legally and in good faith, but it is up to the developers and console makers to provide the means. Nintendo has the most extraordinary history in gaming to draw from bar none. They are the reason that Video Gaming hit and maintained their place in mainstream society. Use that history to make the Switch the greatest console of all time. Until that day, I will be here playing Harry Potter and the Sorcerror Stone on the Game Boy Color on my iPhone. I totally still have my cartridge from 2001 and did not procure the file from a less then reputable website. You can trust me on that.
- Cody, Calmer
