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Emulation (Games) Classic Games (Games) Entertainment Games

ROM Rental Service To Launch 70

Posted by Zonk from the beginning-of-the-end dept.
Neon Spiral Injector writes "Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. (TBS, Inc.), a Time Warner company, just put up a website for their new GameTap service. It appears to be a flatrate, all-you-can-play program that will allow ROMs to be downloaded to a PC and run through their software. Today's press release says that there are 17 publishers onboard with nearly 1000 games (300 available at launch)." This could be the first gauntlet into the ring a major media company. Who will be the next into the industry?
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ROM Rental Service To Launch More

ROM Rental Service To Launch

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  • Heh (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mrbaggs ( 864520 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @04:17PM (#12364681)
    Scary thing is, I bet this will do far better than Phantom could ever hope to.

  • DRM? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Nos. ( 179609 ) <andrew@nOSPAm.thekerrs.ca> on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @04:18PM (#12364687) Homepage
    I wonder what sort of techniques they're going to incorporate to stop people from sharing/keeping the games and "programming" that are available. I'm guessing someone will come out with a freeware client and we'll start seeing torrents of their software before too long.

  • Gauntlet? (Score:4, Funny)

    by American AC in Paris ( 230456 ) * on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @04:22PM (#12364738) Homepage
    This could be the first gauntlet into the ring

    Pssh. Atari already had theirs in the ring in 1985 [klov.com].

  • So how are the users to run these ROMS? MAME's current licensing allows distribution of derivative works only if the source code is freely available. If Turner made the source for their product available, it would presumably be possible to work around the DRM that they're using..?

    • Re:MAME? Licensing? (Score:3, Informative)

      by someguy456 ( 607900 )

      And where does it say anything about MAME? Did you read the article?

      This is a private company with full access to legit games and presumable game system internals, I am sure their code would not necessarily have to be based on MAME.

      • Yes, but have you looked at MAME? There's a tremendous amount of development that has gone into it, and with the high number of ROMS they are promoting, they're going to need something similar.

        All the commercial emulation packages I've seen have handled only a dozen or so games at most.

    • MAME isn't the only emulator out there. With access to the companies that own the games, they likely have access to more advanced development tools and information specific to the systems than freeware emulator developers do. Thoseo tools could very well include emulators, and if not, will probably include enough specifications to make high-accuracy emulation easier.

      • Sure, but not for 1000 different pieces of hardware. That's a hell of a lot of development (and debugging), especially when you have to be accurate down to the register level on this stuff.

        • There's not going to be a thousand different pieces of hardware to begin with. They have a thousand GAMES, not hardware systems. Doubtful they'll cover more than a dozen hardware systems. MAME doesn't cover a thousand different pieces of hardware either, for that matter. Furthur, all of the development that's gone into MAME has gone into other emulation projects. MAME is only the most ambitious emulator out there, trying to emulate several dozen (not several thousand) different platforms, but there are stil

          • Same goes for the DS. So far, all that's been accomplished is two screen GBA emulators that don't yet support the DS hardware, but guess what? Nintendo probably has emulated it already because they're far more knowledgable about the system.

            Your point is well made. However, the Nintendo DS emulators are progressing faster than you think.

  • Target market (Score:5, Insightful)

    by keeleysam ( 792221 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @04:30PM (#12364834) Homepage Journal
    I don't think this is targeted at the /. crowd, more towards the people that buy those Pac-Man joysticks at the mall because they think it will bring them back to childhood.


    We, on the other hand, have grown to know and love MAME, so this isn't all that exciting, UNLESS they get some ultra-rare game that us MAME'ers don't have yet


    P.S. The icon for this is a X-Arcade controller, the ULTIMATE MAME controller!

  • Short on details... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Reignking ( 832642 )
    As we've all figured out, this web site so far is high on hype and low on details.

    I find it quite interesting that "TBS" is doing this, though -- why them? This just doesn't sound like something TBS should or would be getting into. I mean, this is the company and station the bring you the Braves and The Real Gilligan's Island.

    As a Time Warner company, wouldn't this have made sense as part of something else, maybe that albatross named AOL?
    • Based on their track record, I bet they are doing it, but it either won't work well, will work but will be too much of hassle to use, or be cracked within 15 minutes.

    • It actually makes perfect sense for Turner to be doing this. TBS, TCM, TNT, these are all carefully branded channels of previously-released content. TBS gets comedy, TNT gets drama, TCM gets classic movies. This is basically syndication for video games, and Turner's in the business of syndication.
      • Actually, TBS is yet another station that is trying to provide more original content, but TNT's L&O reruns do excellently in the ratings. So you're basically right (insightful) about TBS being all about old content. Maybe they are launching it under "TBS" because people trust that brand, as opposed to AOL or Time Warner?
    • TBS has made a mint on aquiring relatively high-valued IP for relative pennies and then milking it for every cent. It was the essence of Ted Turner's cable TV model -- buy rights to every Western/John Wayne film/WWII drama/Law and Order episode/Walker:Texas Ranger and then spread the content over a massive distribution network. It works sort of like the long tail [wired.com] distribution model -- there are non-trivial markets out there for almost EVERY IP, so if you can get the rights to it cheaply and get the word o

  • Bad emulators? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Guspaz ( 556486 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @05:07PM (#12365253)
    The press release says that they're writing their own emulators for these games. While this could be interesting for newer platforms that still don't have very good emulation (They'd be the only people to make emulators licenced by Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft), for older platforms (SNES or older, perhaps even N64 or older) this would be a step backwards.

    Using SNES as an example, current emulators are very advanced, highly optimized, and about as good as they're generally going to get. This new company would have to reproduce many years of work that has already been done.

    They'd go much further (appeal to a wider audience) renting regular unencumbered ROMs that work with any emulator. If ease-of-use is an issue, they could have their "client" program set up and launch the emulator for the user.

    My point is, I don't see this company suddenly producing multiple emulators that are half as good as the opensource emulators that have been in development for years.

    • Re:Bad emulators? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by GameNutz ( 556033 )
      FCOL. Doesn't anyone read anymore? Nowhere in that press release did they state they were writing emulators. Client side software to run host based games is not emulation. This will, most likely, be a client/server based model that had a portion of the execution always sitting on the server (and this demands that you have broadband.) Almost every online game today that works across dialup is doing all of the render/execution locally so the amount of bits that need to be pumped are smaller. This means t
      • I don't think the goal here is to prevent piracy. More like, they are trying to make money.

        Except they really need to emulate PS1 games at the least to have a chance. They don't make oldie games anymore. So a year after your joined the service, and played every game... that's it. No one is making anymore new games.

        • MAME has over 4000 games. If you played one game a day it would take you 10 years to go through the library. Compare that to the PS1 library.
      • You are completely wrong. The press release specifically says that the games reside on the local PC and not over a network: "Because games reside securely on the PC, not across a network, they act just as if they were still on the console or at the arcade."

        Furthermore, considering they have 300 launch titles and have 1000 total planned, emulation is the ONLY way to get that many arcade and console games running on a PC: porting that many games would be impossible without an enormous investment.

        The site do

        • so the PC games could be delivered in a STEAM-like system and run directly without emulation.

          "PC games" != "Windows XP games". A lot of classic games for DOS would have to be run in a virtualizer, which is like an emulator but runs a lot of the code natively, especially computation loops that do not access hardware registers.

          • Virtualization != emulation, and a STEAM-like system could still be used. But my original point stands; for all but the PC games, emulation must be used for a realistic service, as manually porting hundreds or thousands of console and PC games would be impossible for one company to do in such a short span of time.
    • Um, I didn't read anything like that in the press release, but I wouldn't be surprised if they "allocated" some of the existing work...
      • It says they wrote their own client software. It (Their site) says they're running "original games in their original formats". It says that the games include "arcade and console games". I says that they will launch with 300 and have plans for 1000 total, a number too large to port directly without resorting to emulation.

        I think it's pretty obvious and extremely implied that they are (and have to) use emulation.
    • Using SNES as an example, current emulators are very advanced, highly optimized, and about as good as they're generally going to get. This new company would have to reproduce many years of work that has already been done.

      They could pull a "Cherry OS" and just steal the source-code for ZNSES...
      • I doubt Time Warner could get away with that as easily or cleanly as a nobody company like Maui Xtremes, or whatever they're called. If word leaked out that they were stealing code, the resulting backlash would probably cause any number of problems for such a large corporation, which would then have to either develop their own emulator, or shut down the service. I can't see a company like Time Warner being so short sited.

  • I'm in. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by black mariah ( 654971 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @05:11PM (#12365280)
    Look, as long as it is reasonably priced and keeps me from having to deal with dumbass rom sites then I'm all for it. If they can give me the same bullshit-free service that the sorely missed mame.dk once did, then I'm going to sign up.
  • I would be willing to bet that some code similarities will appear between MAME and this new services' client software.
    But I'm all for it. Now it will be much easier to find ROMs of my favorite games. Their encryption will be cracked sooner than Ted Turner can call Jane Fonda to whine about it.
  • I was the first to say it.

  • I Call Bulls**t (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Donoho ( 788900 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @06:29PM (#12366170) Homepage
    This bullshit service is a preemptive strike against free emulators. Do the publishers have the right to do this? Hell yeah! But I've also got the right to tell them to f**k off and make some decent new games.

    If I play Zelda (I still have that gold cartidge somewhere) on my Treo 650 using an emulator and the original rom I believe its fair use. If I play the Adventures of Bayou Billy (shiver) which I rented once but never owned, not so much. Take equally or more obscure games and you get the same result. Who's going to throw a fit over me playing Atack of the Killer Tomatoes... unless someone has the brillant idea to pitch to publishers, lets take all the games most people don't even remember and resell them as a pay to play service. That way no matter the game, we can sue anyone that doesn't use our service to play these games, and since you originally published the game I'll cut you in... As in individual publisher, it really wasn't worth you time to pursue this alone, but if we ban together you might squeeze a couple more cents out of this game.

    Nintendo had it's classics collection for the GBA. For $20 I could play the original Mario Bros (which if I remember correctly I at one point ripped out of the console, flung across the room and proceeded to jump up and down on. @#$$ world 8). All I could think was You Greedy Money-Grubbing Asshats. I don't need you to play this game. I would pay $20 for all the classics they released on one cartridge, but what they pulled was in my opinion obscene.
    • What the heck are you talking about?

      This isn't a strike against free emulation. If you want to use ROMs of games that you have lying around and emulate them, this isn't a strike against that. It's also not a strike against you buying collections of old games.

      This service offers about a THOUSAND games, for a wide variety of platforms. They plan on constantly expanding the number of games they offer, providing everything from pong to fairly modern PC games. The monthly fee lets you download and play whi
      • I beleive the parent was referring to the fact that this move suddenly removes the "not available anymore" justification that people tend to use for abandonware, and works as a launching point for more lawsuits. In that, he may have a point, even if it is a bit on the tinfoil hat side.

        As to the greedy, money-grubbing asshats, it seemed to me he was talking about the "NES Classics" GBA games. And on that, I agree with him. They are selling 1 cartidge with 1 game for $20. Once GBA cartridge can probably hold

  • Get it? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by soniCron88 ( 870042 ) on Wednesday April 27, 2005 @08:05PM (#12367105) Homepage
    I'm reading a lot of talk about how it'll be a step backward, the emulators can't be as good as the ones already out there, it'll only be good if they release some ultra-rare games, etc. I suppose most are missing the point: It would be legal to play the ROMs.

    And, cmon, don't do any of this "but I own a copy of [blah-blah], but I'd rather play it in MAME". If you've got an arcade cabinet, I DOUBT you'd be playing it in MAME (not to say there aren't plenty of reasons to). Point is, the major malfunction with the emulation scene is that it's by and large an illegal community. Unfortunately, though, this is gonna be somewhat similar to these boxes and boxes of 1930's DVDs you find at Walmart. Most people won't even think twice about looking at them, the few that do will be happy to get to play a copy of Super Mario Bros., etc. But to top it off: they can now claim that distributing ROMs on the internet is stealing sales. (Ie. prosecuting in heavy numbers the distributors of ROMs, similar to how they are doing with movies, music, etc. My 2 cents.

    • If you've got an arcade cabinet, I DOUBT you'd be playing it in MAME (not to say there aren't plenty of reasons to).

      Even if you have a PCB without a cabinet, or you have one of Namco's "Namco Museum" emulator+ROM discs, you are still the owner of a copy, and if you manage to dump your ROMs subject to 17 USC 117 or foreign counterparts, you can emulate them.

      Point is, the major malfunction with the emulation scene is that it's by and large an illegal community.

      Accent on the "by and large". There do

    • Yeah, I'd _much_ rather pay a legitimate service to get access to a healthy library of games than have to scrape the internet to build my own waste-of-time library illegally.

      Unfortunately, I suspect this service will not have very good depth, and won't run on Linux. But here's hoping.
    • BTW, I don't know how the rest of those CDs are, but I recently got a copy of D.O.A, a old Film Noir clssic, from that stack. The quality is terrible. I had raise my system's volume all they way up to hear the actors, then deal with all the white noise hissing. On top of that, the video was really bad. I realize that they don't always have the original masters for those older movies, but I know that at least AMC has a cleaned-up version that they show.

      Even at 2.99, I expect more.

  • This will work because most people arent willing to scour the internet looking for free roms instead of just going somewhere simple and reliable and getting them for a small price..time is money and the cost of convinence and being trustworthy is important to non techies...lets face it, do you want your kid going to roms sites...their filled with all kind of weird porn advertisements.

  • um. (Score:3, Funny)

    by ultramk ( 470198 ) <ultramk@pacbel l . net> on Thursday April 28, 2005 @12:43PM (#12374136)
    This could be the first gauntlet into the ring a major media company.

    Main screen turn on.

    m-
  • Although I seriously doubt there's going to be Linux support, so I guess I'll pass.

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