Sbox Homemade Console 131
Anonymous Coward sent in: "I just ran across a very cool homemade emulation console. It emulates multiple machines, plays movies, plays mp3s, and uses Intel's new wireless gamepads to control everything. It's also cased in plexiglass and uses its own menuing software. The best I've seen yet!" His remote has a docking station.
What's so great about this? (Score:1, Insightful)
Come to think of it, It's much like the xbox [xbox.com] Only with a worse video card, and more plexi.
No news here, people. move along.
Just an opinion... (Score:2, Insightful)
... but doesn't this kind of glorify the piracy of ROMs? I mean - I know SOME people get them legit, but most, for sure - don't. Putting stuff like this up just kind of makes everyone think how cool the "emu" scene is, and away they go, downloading....
Just an opinion, though.
Re:What's WRONG with those controllers. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Just an opinion... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is my beef with anyone who knocks down emulating classic systems: getting the darn games is nearly impossible because companies hoard them until they release a re-hash or a bundled emulator (like Namco Museum). If I could get ahold of legal roms, if they were being sold, than at least this kind of argument would be revelent, in much the same way the file-sharing debate is relevant to labels and artists. But Spy Hunter?!
IANAL, but I believe this kind of work can only become public domain after 75 years, if the original creator does not renew copyright. The problem is, that law was created before arcade and console games, which have a tendency to become obsolete much faster than, for example, The Fellowship Of The Ring. For printed literature this makes perfect sense, but surely there is a more reasonable way we can govern interactive gaming copyright issues.
Re:Bring out yer dead... (Score:5, Insightful)
Costs aren't always monentary.
Take for example Super Mario Brothers Advance. SMB Advance is essentially just SMB2 with some new stuff thrown in. It will now make for a really nice hand-held title, but do you honstly think Nintendo could resell the title as an N64 remake, or a Gamecube remake? It can sell as a handheld title, simply because at the moment not everybody has a handheld PDA that will effectively emulate the GBA.
Do you honestly think Nintenod could sell SMB1, SMB2, and SMB3 all on one disc as a collection for the Gamecube? No, probably not. Most likely not, due to the fact that a large percent of the market that still loves those games already has them illegally on their PCs.
If Nintendo COULD get away with doing it, it's only because there isn't a larger number of people pirating roms. The number of ROMZ pirates grows ever day. For the moment, it's still not nearly as mainstream as MP3 piracy. If we're lucky, it'll stay fairly obscure and won't draw any real legal attention.
Also one must consider that games aren't like music. People consume them like food and move on. Someone can very easily justify buying a CD when they already have the MP3s, just to have the physical medium. Video games, for whatever reason, haven't felt like "physical medium" since the first ROM image got pulled off of a Cartrige and uploaded to the 'net.
I still buy my video games. I still spend more money on video games than any other expense I have, and one could say that's almost obsessive. (I wonder sometimes myself). But I also know that not everybody buys their PC titles, fewer still buy old games, and even less go out looking for rare SNES, GENESIS, or N64 carts to add to their collections.
As much as I enjoy going to Classic Gaming [classicgaming.com] and snatching down a rom image or two, I fully understand why some companies such as Nintendo and Sega don't want their ROMS being distributed. I also understand why they make a good point in "some cases".
And that's just the thing. "Some Cases". Some games have much higher replay/resell/remarketability value than others. Some of the publishers are gone, others strive on today. But it's those few gems that could resurface as modern products that set the argument for Copyright holders keeping a tight grip on their titles. Nintendo is about to show exactly what they "want to do" with those old titles" when they re-release them on the GBA.
I was all over Super Mario All Stars when it came out on the SNES. Do you think such a thing is ever going to surface on the Gamecube with piracy all but having destroyed the marketability of older titles? Dream on.
I think THAT alone should answer the question "why wouldn't they"?
Re:whoa, watch out for the law (Score:2, Insightful)
`lynx -dump | grep -A 10 -e "Funny"` just doesn't cut it... at least maybe slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=newest would make it easier... hey, I know I'm not the only one out there