I wanted to test Wario Ware Twisted with the gyroscope of one phone and some emulatores like MyBoy! allow you to do so. But got me wondering, since they have paid versions, how come Nintendo hasn't done anything? I don't go for paid emulators this way, other emulators were profiting and got shutdown.
I get a GameBoy Advanced emulator isn't recent stuff but you could pay for N.S.O. instead.
I'm just confused on why some things can exists but others don't. This isn't a Patreon or anything similar, we're talking direct profiting.
We are those faux Reddit layers? (OK that was a bit of joke).
Posted by FixedFun1
12 Comments
Nintendo can’t do anything unless they’ve explicitly stolen code or something from them. There’s nothing anybody can do to stop you from building your own software that just happens to run games built for another system.
they cannot. There are just too many of them for Nintendo and app stores/tick tok can realistically shutdown.
Emulators on their own don’t break a single law or copyright, as long as they’re not using propietary Nintendo code specifically.
Emulator are not illegal… only distributing roms and those emulators don’t do that ..
Because emulators themselves are in some sort of gray area that make them ok
The big nono comes from the roms themselves
They aren’t using copy righted Nintendo code and instead have developed code that is able to read and interpret Nintendo game cartridge data. That’s the fundamental difference between emulators that get shut down and those that are fine. Since it’s their own work that’s why they can sell it if they want, there’s nothing wrong with that.
Emulators usually only get shut down if they’re using their proprietary info from the system, the BIOS, the operating systems.
So if the emulator doesn’t use that copyrighted info, if they made their own, or if they tell the user to get their own bios – then there’s nothing illegal.
Usually when an emulator site or company gets shut down. It’s for including ROMs.
If they’re not infringing on Nintendo’s copyright by using proprietary code or selling unreleased games or anything like that, then these emulators are completely legal. It’s why emulators like Dolphin have been around for years as well.
It’s also possible that they’re simply not all that popular, so Nintendo either hasn’t found them yet or they’re not a worthwhile target. Taking down these sites/apps costs time and money so they generally don’t go after small fry and tend to stick to the larger, more popular ones.
Emulators are legal. It’s all about the attitude, really. If your material shows you’re doing stuff to actively suppress sales of official, then they’ll take you down and make you pay 20% of your income to them for the rest of your life. If you’re actually a fan and saying ‘this is available but buy official when you can’ in your materials, then they leave you alone.
The simplest answer is that emulators are legal.
It only becomes complicated when we talk about how emulators are used, but that’s not the creator’s problem.
Read up on about the Google vs Oracle case which went to the Supreme Court. To break it down the very core question was that is it legal to write software to provide compatibility with other software? Well the SCOTUS said yes
The Nintento Tax incorperates that