7on said:
Actually, according to
http://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp emulators are in fact ILLEGAL. Nintendo argues there are no legal uses for emulators and that downloading ROMs regardless of cartridge ownership is illegal.
Interesting link. And after reading that, no, they're not saying that emulators are illegal--that's just plain wrong unless they utilize a copy of copyrighted ROM code from the console. This was determined conclusively by the the VGS case where Connectix cleanroom reverse-engineered the Playstation ROM. They are, however, saying that they have no legitimate use, since a ROM in any form, including of a game you already own, is illegal.
I believe that second assertion is arguable under US copyright law, but in any case the argument that ROMs of archaic games in all forms are bad, while 100% understandable from a legal standpoint, is asinine in reality. It may be technically illegal for me to play 10 Yard Fight on my computer instead of using the cartridge I own, but any reasonable person can see that it's not doing them any good to stop me. And the simple fact is NOBODY is getting any value from a lot of games that have been out of print for over two decades (and, in some cases, even the publisher is out of business), and there would be functionally no interest in reviving them were it not for the ROM scene.
Now, once the Wii ships with "legit" ROM/emulator support, that's going to change completely, espeically if they start offering a wide selection of obscure old games and not just the "classics". At that point, there is a very real economic loss happening.
But a have a question: Do you really think that, were it not for emulators, anybody under the age of 20 would even REMEMBER the NES, let alone have a desire to play games for it? No. As it is, there's a whole new generation that's been introduced to classic gaming through emulation, and I'm sure some of them (like me) are hungry for a legit console and easy way to support their existance financially, which is exactly what the Wii is.
It's like those "system-in-a-controller" dodads they sell at mall kiosks with several classic games built in--they've helped revive interest for some of the classics, but no support for the literally hundreds of more obscure NES and SNES games that exist.