Wesley Hilliard

Emulation is a complicated topic. It isn't as simple as piracy versus history. There's lots of legal gray areas. If you're interested in learning more there is an entire foundation dedicated to preserving video game history. They've even discovered that 87% of classic video games have become inaccessible to all but the most ardent collectors. It's actually quite a big problem and there's a reason why I said game companies seem uninterested in tackling the issue. They've gone to court and proven via the DMCA that they're doing enough to preserve video game history despite data showing otherwise.

foregoneconclusion said:

Wesley Hilliard said:

robjn said:

The article comments “ It removes a potential revenue stream (one these companies seem to have no intention of pursing anyway)”

I for one pay a subscription to Nintendo just to be able to play all the old games. Software piracy costs Nintendo. It’s a crime, plain and simple.
 

It's a complicated topic. Yes, Nintendo has a small library of old titles available via a subscription. Sony and Xbox have similar efforts. But these are but a subset of the available games on the market. Of the 393 N64 games that were released, only a paltry dozen or so are on Nintendo's online services.

https://www.gameinformer.com/feature/2024/01/12/nintendo-switch-online-every-nes-snes-game-boy-n64-sega-genesis-and-gba-game

Looks more like they've got close to 30 N64 titles at this point. 101 NES titles. 78 SNES titles. 21 Game Boy. 15 GBA. Even 45 Sega Genesis games. So I don't really think you can say Nintendo's "proven they have no interest in such a formula". 

It's crumbs compared to what's available. I appreciate that they've made these titles available via a subscription I also pay for, but it is indicative of the problem I'm talking about. Beyond what Nintendo deigns to allow it's user base to access, there's tons of IP that will never be allowed to exist on Nintendo's online service because of how copyright transferred between entities over the past decades of the game industry.

9secondkox2 said:

Nintendo has a right to not allowing their IP to be pirated. 

I agree from this perspective, but it still doesn't address the issue that emulation is totally legal. What users decide to do with the emulator and how it affects copyright law is totally outside of Apple's or the developer's control.

I don't think people should be out here pirating things. But what I do think is that we learned something important from the 2000s and music piracy. Make something readily available and people will be less likely to pirate it. The iPod and $0.99 songs was huge for the music industry until Spotify commoditized it to the brink of being a fraction of what it used to be.

Make these games available for a price and people will pay. Hiding them in a secret vault like Disney and people will resort to piracy. Not because they are thieves, but because they want to play their beloved games.

It's a problem our legal system isn't equipped to handle, but Nintendo and Sony are also not doing much to fight against the problem either.

robjn said:

The article comments “ It removes a potential revenue stream (one these companies seem to have no intention of pursing anyway)”

I for one pay a subscription to Nintendo just to be able to play all the old games. Software piracy costs Nintendo. It’s a crime, plain and simple.
 

It's a complicated topic. Yes, Nintendo has a small library of old titles available via a subscription. Sony and Xbox have similar efforts. But these are but a subset of the available games on the market. Of the 393 N64 games that were released, only a paltry dozen or so are on Nintendo's online services.

Emulators are about more than piracy, they are about preserving gaming history. These companies could place a financial interest in actually preserving this history rather than throwing their hands up at silly copyright battles. There's nothing stopping Sony and Nintendo from building their own emulators for iPhone and charging for the emulator and optimized versions of ROMs while keeping the door open for user-provided ROMs.

22july2013 said:

Apple's upcoming AI might not require a remote server to process its AI logic, but it will require an Internet connection to find many kinds of answers. Contrary to what many people seem to think, LLMs do not contain an entire copy of the Internet within them.

I think that is a misconception too. People hear "AI" and think "smart search engine." That isn't the case. A good local model can function entirely on device with no need to reference anything from the internet.

The idea is that the model will be able to perform actions and make decisions without internet connections or privacy violating calls. Instead, the user will be able to perform actions to analyze requests, data, or other input and rely entirely on the logic of the AI.

Now, if you want to ask a question or have an image generated, that's where server-based AI comes in. And it seems Apple has no interest in developing one, at least not yet.