Emulation (open discussion)

[ZTC]

I haven't seen a topic like this posted, so I thought I might start one.
I bascially want this thread to be an open discution about emulation and roms.
Subjects that come to mind(but not limited to) are as following:
Your thoughts in general
Public domain roms
Have you downloaded any?
ect, ect

One thing I'm curious about is this(to start the discussion):
would it legal to have a Sega CD emu that can play the Sega CD discs?

[NESLolo32]

I'm planning on building a MAME cabinet from my scratch design..

[*b*]

it's the games that are illegal, not the player, so no, Cyborg, it's not illegal to play official disks with an emulator... or is it? I'm pretty sure it isn't, but don't hold me to it

[ZTC]

it's the games that are illegal, not the player, so no, Cyborg, it's not illegal to play official disks with an emulator... or is it? I'm pretty sure it isn't, but don't hold me to it

Heh, I won't hold you to it, but something comes to mind:
bleem! Who remembers that program that allows a person to play PS1 games on the PC?
Eh, oh well.

Thoughts on public domain roms?
(and would it be alright to post links to them, as long as there are no 'indecent' links or illegal roms/links with them?

[DarkDragoonX]

Heh, I won't hold you to it, but something comes to mind:
bleem! Who remembers that program that allows a person to play PS1 games on the PC?
Eh, oh well.

Well, there's also Magic Engine, which allows you to play PC Engine and Turbo Duo games on your PC. They charge money to register it, and haven't been shut down.

Sony DID get into a legal battle with bleem!, but as I recall, bleem! won, and were allowed to keep selling their product... I think bleem! had to shut down simply because of a combination of legal fees and the fact that they really weren't making that much money.


Here's a snippet of an article I found about the subject:

Bleem launched its PlayStation emulator just over two and a half years ago, only to be instantly sued by Sony for a mix of copyright infringement, intellectual property violation and brand degradation.

Sony's case against Bleem followed a parallel action targeting Connectix, which launched a PlayStation emulator of its own earlier in the year, for the Macintosh. Unlike the Connectix case, however, Bleem won the support of the court, beating a temporary injunction against sales of its emulator and later defeating Sony's demand to ban the sale of the emulator permanently.

Sony's failures in court went to its head, Bleem later alleged in a countersuit of its own. The emulation company claimed that the Japanese giant's US operation had initiated a dirty tricks policy which, in part, involved attempting to have Bleem thrown out of the May 1999 E3 show, one of the world's largest games industry shindigs.

May 2000 saw the announcement of the Dreamcast version of Bleem - Bleemcast - at which point Sony sued the company again. Once more, Sony alleged that Bleem was violating its patents.

Now, as we all know, bleem! shut down shortly after the Bleemcast announcement. I think that they just weren't making enough money to pay the legal fees to deal with all of Sony's lawsuits, and were thus forced to give up.

[Pangolin]

I dotn agree. Its rips off the company. Well, if its a new game at least.
Nes, Snes, N64 and Gamboy are all ok now, as there are no gfames selling anymore. Byt GBA, GC etc is wrong methinks.

[ZTC]

yeah.
right now emulation for old/outdated systems is kind of a grey area for me.
new systems/games is completely out of the question
it's just not right

[Feasul]

I think that morally (not legally) it's ok to download new games if and only if you are doing it just to try it out, like a rental. And if you like it then you buy the game. After all, it's usually better to play a console game on the console, right?

[Kairyu]

I think that morally (not legally) it's ok to download new games if and only if you are doing it just to try it out, like a rental. And if you like it then you buy the game. After all, it's usually better to play a console game on the console, right?

Well, sure, it's like a rental, except that instead of a rental place buying 1+ copies which are rented out to a few individuals temporarily, one person gives permanent copies to 1000+ individuals.

But yes, unless you've got a controller or modified one of your own, it's not even close to the origional experience. Ever play a 6-button fighting game with a keyboard? Hadoken suddenly becomes DIFFICULT. So when you want to do something complex like, say, Somersault Justice... I mean, I suck pretty bad on my own, but it's like some sort of joke to watch me play on a keyboard.

BTW, there's a post in one of the Sticky topics on this forum about posting ROM links: NO. Emulators are okay, but if there are ANY roms on the site which aren't PD, then NO. And if you need to ask, then NO, your rom is NOT PD.

[Masamune]

There's nothing I love more than downloading fresh PS2 isos and playing them on my PS2. Or pulling the old rent, rip, burn is also tons of fun. I rented about 7 PS2 games from the local video rental store, and the clerk asked me "Are you gonna play all those games in 5 days?" "Hell no, buddy, it'll take me atleast a few months." So in conclusion... Yes I think it's wrong. No I do not care. If I can obtain 30 - 50 dollar software for free, then I'm not going to hesitate. =p

*note to mott- it just came in today, and i don't even need the damn card! XD*