Nintendo continues crusade against ROM sites

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gauauu
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Re: Nintendo continues crusade against ROM sites

Post by gauauu »

8bitMicroGuy wrote:
gauauu wrote:
8bitMicroGuy wrote: What do you say?
There's lots of projects doing that sort of thing. But we're here because we like writing code for the NES. I don't WANT to write my game for some new niche console, that takes the fun out of it for me.
There is??? Can you give me some examples? Hopefully not being some GPL crap.
Most of these don't have real hardware implementations currently, but I'm not sure if that matters or not (maybe it does to you, and that's the distinction).

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Re: Nintendo continues crusade against ROM sites

Post by Banshaku »

You should add some text before the list of links. At first I was sure some spam-bot was on a rampage or something :lol:
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Re: Nintendo continues crusade against ROM sites

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DRW
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Re: Nintendo continues crusade against ROM sites

Post by DRW »

8bitMicroGuy wrote:So I have an idea. How about we all make OUR OWN console?
If you want to work on a system without restrictions by a company who owns the system, there is already such a thing: It's called a PC.

The reason why we don't create our own console is because it would be pointless. NES developers are NES developers specifically because they want to create games for the NES, the console that they played on when they were children.
I doubt that any developer here simply said: "I want to create a game for any console" and then simply chose the NES by closing his eyes and pointing to an entry on a list of several console names.

Instead, it was a conscious choice.

Just like a specific person is interested in NES development, but not in Master System development, the same person wouldn't be interested in development for a random new console.
If he didn't care about the platform in the first place, but would simply want a system that's not owned by a company, he would have used a PC right away.

A new dedicated console has the disadvantages of both worlds:
It doesn't have the nostalgic value, the history, the popularity and the aura of accomplishing something that you wanted to do since you were a child that the NES has.
But it wouldn't be limitless like a PC either.

So, what would be the point of a new console?
If you want to do authentic retro stuff, then you also want the authentic retro device and not a generic no-name modern-day thing.
If you simply want to program games and don't care for that authenticity, why limit yourself by the hardware of a dedicated console at all instead of doing the game any way you like and being able to reach billions of potential customers instead of the 200 guys who bought that one obscure new console?
My game "City Trouble":
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Re: Nintendo continues crusade against ROM sites

Post by tepples »

DRW wrote:
8bitMicroGuy wrote:So I have an idea. How about we all make OUR OWN console?
If you want to work on a system without restrictions by a company who owns the system, there is already such a thing: It's called a PC.
1. Because the average PC is stuck at a desk, not in the living room, it's not nearly as common for players to own multiple gamepads as on a console
2. Players expect PC-exclusive games to look photoreal
3. Inadvertent reliance on implementation-defined, unspecified, or undefined behavior causes crashes, unless you have a huge budget to buy a large cross-section of PCs on which to test
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Re: Nintendo continues crusade against ROM sites

Post by niconii »

tepples wrote:1. Because the average PC is stuck at a desk, not in the living room, it's not nearly as common for players to own multiple gamepads as on a console
Sure, but this is also why PC games usually opt for online play.
tepples wrote:2. Players expect PC-exclusive games to look photoreal
Indie games exist.
tepples wrote:3. Inadvertent reliance on implementation-defined, unspecified, or undefined behavior causes crashes, unless you have a huge budget to buy a large cross-section of PCs on which to test
You're greatly exaggerating the impact of this problem, especially for indie games. Even if there is some computer configuration that causes your game to crash, chances are pretty good that you'll hear about it and can patch it. Keep in mind that a lot of games don't write their own engines from scratch anyway.
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Re: Nintendo continues crusade against ROM sites

Post by zzo38 »

There is also the possibility you may not want the game to alter your system configuration
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Re: Nintendo continues crusade against ROM sites

Post by tokumaru »

DRW wrote:A new dedicated console has the disadvantages of both worlds:
It doesn't have the nostalgic value, the history, the popularity and the aura of accomplishing something that you wanted to do since you were a child that the NES has.
But it wouldn't be limitless like a PC either.
I couldn't agree more. None of the emotional appeal, and none of the convenience. That's a tough sell.
tepples wrote:1. Because the average PC is stuck at a desk, not in the living room, it's not nearly as common for players to own multiple gamepads as on a console
Anyone that uses a PC for gaming either has these issues figured out, or doesn't care about them. The PC is a gaming platform just as viable as any console.
2. Players expect PC-exclusive games to look photoreal
It depends on the cost, really. Some cheap/free games may even look photorealistic due to the number of game-making tools that exist today, but they usually suffer from other constraints that place them below AAA titles. Cheap/free games are expected to be simpler than AAA games in one or more areas, be it originality, story, length, replayability... or graphics/audio, as is the case with pseudo-retro games.
3. Inadvertent reliance on implementation-defined, unspecified, or undefined behavior causes crashes, unless you have a huge budget to buy a large cross-section of PCs on which to test
If you use well established frameworks/engines/libraries, you're not the one that has to worry about this, and even if you aren't, the requirements for pseudo-retro games are so low that you can often go for the lowest common denominator, greatly improving compatibility.
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Re: Nintendo continues crusade against ROM sites

Post by calima »

DRW wrote:NES developers are NES developers specifically because they want to create games for the NES, the console that they played on when they were children.
I doubt that any developer here simply said: "I want to create a game for any console" and then simply chose the NES by closing his eyes and pointing to an entry on a list of several console names.
That does apply for most folks here. I never had a NES as a kid though, I mainly follow the market. If someone paid me to do Dreamcast things, I'd do Dreamcast things. "Any console that's sufficiently un-pc-like is interesting enough" ;)
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Re: Nintendo continues crusade against ROM sites

Post by NovaSquirrel »

DRW wrote:I doubt that any developer here simply said: "I want to create a game for any console" and then simply chose the NES by closing his eyes and pointing to an entry on a list of several console names.
I actually pretty much did. I had a bunch of consoles in my childhood (and growing up I had desires to make a platformer game for the GBA, DS, NES, Genesis, Pokémon Mini, and MegaZeux, several of which I actually had started on an engine for) and picking NES was pretty arbitrary. Now I'm doing Game Boy Color for a bit and that was an arbitrary decision too.

What I do care about is if it would be interesting (consoles where you just write C/C++ and OpenGL aren't) and if there's an audience (which something new and obscure wouldn't have).

The NES already pretty much belongs to hobbyists now anyway. Its patents are dead, we know how it works almost entirely, the CIC is cloned, we have a large library of hobbyist games being produced on real cartridges, and even our own NES-compatible consoles. And this is all already completely legal.
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Re: Nintendo continues crusade against ROM sites

Post by tokumaru »

I didn't have an NES as a kid either, but I did have an interest in video games in general, from reading magazines or playing at various friends' homes. I was already interested in how they worked, but there was no way for me to research this back then. Once emulation became widespread, I could finally do my research, and I chose the NES basically because it was the easiest to study due to the debug tools in Nesticle. So yeah, Nesticle is probably the reason why the NES is my retro console of choice.
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Re: Nintendo continues crusade against ROM sites

Post by tepples »

Nicole wrote:
tepples wrote:1. Because the average PC is stuck at a desk, not in the living room, it's not nearly as common for players to own multiple gamepads as on a console
Sure, but this is also why PC games usually opt for online play.
Online play works when there is one gamer per household. More than that, and a family would need to buy two to four PCs and two to four copies of each game, or members of the same family will have no way to play together.
tokumaru wrote:Anyone that uses a PC for gaming either has these issues figured out, or doesn't care about them.
See that's the problem: people don't care about them and instead choose to settle for excluding their roommates from their gaming sessions, or they choose to settle for the limited selection of games on a modern console.
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Re: Nintendo continues crusade against ROM sites

Post by rainwarrior »

tepples wrote:
tokumaru wrote:Anyone that uses a PC for gaming either has these issues figured out, or doesn't care about them.
See that's the problem: people don't care about them and instead choose to settle for excluding their roommates from their gaming sessions, or they choose to settle for the limited selection of games on a modern console.
I'll just say this: I have a PC hooked up to my TV, and I've played a lot more local multiplayer games on it in the past few years than I have any of my other consoles. I have a lot of games on steam that have local multiplayer on PC. I have several friends that also have PCs hooked up to their TV like this.

You've often insisted in the past and here that people don't do this, for some reason. Tons of people do this. I do this. Why do you think "people" don't? Some don't, some do. It's a good, very viable option.
Last edited by rainwarrior on Sun Aug 12, 2018 11:34 am, edited 3 times in total.
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tokumaru
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Re: Nintendo continues crusade against ROM sites

Post by tokumaru »

People who are not gamers probably don't do this, like that great-aunt that only uses Facebook and Pinterest but has actually been using her phone/tablet much more often than the PC, which's mostly forgotten in the corner.

People who don't use their PC for gaming won't buy/download your game anyway, and people who do game on a PC already have everything figured out. The specific ways in which people game on their PCs is not your concern, for you it should only matter that they DO play games, regardless of whether you think their setup is interior to what you consider would provide the ideal experience.
Last edited by tokumaru on Sun Aug 12, 2018 10:59 am, edited 1 time in total.
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