Virtual Console Offers 100 Games, 4.7 Million Sold

GameDaily reports on new numbers from Nintendo, discussing their ongoing success with the Wii's Virtual Console offering. According to the piece, there are now over 100 games available on the service, and some 4.7 Million downloads have been transacted since the system's launch late last year. "Nintendo has been updating the Wii Shop with new Virtual Console games every Monday. The top five downloads worldwide to date have been Super Mario Bros. (NES), Super Mario 64 (N64), Mario Kart 64 (N64), Super Mario World (SNES), and The Legend of Zelda (NES). 'With an Internet connection rate reaching 40 percent, Wii owners have more options than ever to find the kinds of games they love to play,' says George Harrison, Nintendo of America's senior vice president of marketing and corporate communications. 'Beyond the Wii Shop Channel, all types of people are getting connected and checking out the information and entertainment options available on the Wii Menu. Whether voting, creating a Mii or just checking the weather, everyone has a favorite channel.'"

Re:Blame me.

[AdamWeeden]

Well you are actually an anomaly. I've only bought 2 VC titles so far, and going by the sale totals [wikipedia.org] it looks like 7.4 million Wiis sold compared to 4.7 million VC downloads which actually mean that on average there are about 2 VC downloads for 3 Wiis.

Re:Original carts

[AKAImBatman]

Making a copy for use and keeping the original as a backup is legal.

This is not strictly true. The decision in the Atari v. JS&A [patentarcade.com] case was that cartridges were not susceptible to accidental damage in the same way that magnetic media was. As a result, there was no need for an archival copy of the software.

A modern judge might see things different given the age of many cartridges, but you should be aware that they are currently NOT covered under the "archival" clause. (Now if only Nintendo would figure out that CDs/DVDs *are* volatile media and stop printing that stupid "backups are not authorized" warning in their manuals.)

Re:Blame me.

[Tofystedeth]

The summary said connection was approaching 40%

Re:Original carts

[AKAImBatman]

Legally, a backup is different from a space-shifted copy. A backup for "archival purposes" as defined by copyright law is to protect against media failure. In the Atari v. JS&A case, the court referred to the original report that Congress used to draft the archival exception. The report had focused on the volatility of magnetic media as a key concern, and pointed out that copying of software could be done for nearly no cost in comparison to the huge cost of developing the software. Since cartridges could not be cheaply copied, nor were they at risk of failure, the court decided that a backup was unnecessary.

The court *might* have found JS&A's cartridge copier legal if there was a substantial use for it beyond piracy. JS&A tried to publish 9 of its own carts that were free for copying, but the judge didn't buy it. The decision was that there was no fair use argument for the device.

Now copying your cartridges for emulation is a different ball of wax. Just as you can legally space shift your music into MP3s, you should be able to space shift your ROMs into images for emulators. The roots of this definition of fair use come from the Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. case, also known as the "Betamax case". The Supreme Court later held that the betamax case applied to space shifting of MP3 players, CD burners, and other new technologies in the MGM v. Grokster case. (In applying the test, they found that Grokster was NOT a party to that standard and was intentionally trying to circumvent copyright law.)

These cases should pave the way for emulation to be legal. However, there is a catch 22. In order to space-shift your legally-owned games, you must rip the image yourself. If you download the games from a ROM site, you are in violation of copyright law. Ergo, 95%+ of people who use emulators to play games they own are actually violating the law.

And now you know... the rest of the story. Good day! </Paul-Harvey>