It doesn’t feel right that you should be entitled to break the law just because someone decides they don’t want to sell you something.
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Apple Removes Game Boy Emulator iGBA From App Store Due to Spam and Copyright Violations
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Yes. Some of them are packed with malware or other kinds of data trackers.
Doubtful. Nintendo only cares about the Switch hardware and software related specifically to the device. While they offer select GBA titles on their NSO Expansion Pack service, they haven’t been targeting any emulators on discontinued hardware. If they were interested in snuffing that out, then Analogue wouldn’t be able to release their Pocket device that can play GB, GBC and GBA games, plus the ability to emulate games off an SD card.
Nintendo would most likely not send lawyers after Apple the way they would some random emulator developer in his house. It would be a conversation with Apple and Nintendo leadership.
Analogue Pocket only plays games off the game carts, can’t play roms off the SD card.
Nintendo wants people to buy their hardware to play their games. They are never going to do that.
You could very easily disprove ops point by citing that emulator use is mostly legal. Having said that op did use the term mostly, which is opinion based.
This. That Nintendo online subscription would see a lot more signups if those apps were available on mobile platforms, not just the Switch, and as it's old games, they're not cannibalising hardware sales.
Guys - this has nothing to do with "Nintendo sending an army of lawyers"
It's due to the App jacking someone else's code and publishing it to the App Store
It's due to the App jacking someone else's code and publishing it to the App Store
Yikes -- not a good way to lose your life savings
View attachment 2368574Glad I downloaded when I did. I just got Pokémon emerald started
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Exactly what I've been saying the entire time!
Apple's App Store has MORE scams, not LESS, thanks to their atrocious rules and enforcement of them!
(Yes, scams exist everywhere, and it's not hard to find them anywhere, but Apple tries to argue that they're blocking them when really, they're just blocking legitimately awesome apps, apps like the legitimate version of this gameboy emulator, and instead they let in scammy crap like this.)
Not been the case for quite a while, can quite happily run roms off sd card with openFPGA support, which was announced before release even to be coming.
Nintendo has lawyers that focus entirely on protecting their IP rights. It is not a distraction to their engineering or product development efforts for them to send a take-down letter to Apple.
I suspect it's an ROI and in some cases licensing issue.
It's not as easy as just putting out roms and an emulator. Nintendo would be expected to deliver a bug free emulation experience; which costs money to implement and maintain; especially if it runs on platforms whose hardware capabilities are not as predictable as an iPhone. I also suspect the likely user is someone who played teh original and if teh emulator doesn't provide teh same gaming experience will be disappointed and not likely to buy more roms.
There could also be licensing issues where Nintendo may have licensed something to use in a cartridge game but would have to renegotiate to bring out a separate digital d/l.
It's also likely to be a relatively small market compared to their current offerings. Nintendo may have concluded any additional revenue would not be worth the cost.
The underlying code was open source licensed.
That seems the prevailing rational, along with "I wouldn't buy it so they lost no sale," for pirating software et. al. I simply disagree with that rationalization; but understand no one wants to view themselves as a thief.
It's a strange dichotomy, I sat in meetings at one place I worked where when I pointed out we were using copyrighted material in products, the response was "we found it on the internet so it's free." When I pointed out I can get our copyrighted material freely as well on the internet, they were upset that someone would be able to steal our stuff. Go figure.
When company dictates what you can install....yet another good example why .ipa sideloading is needed. At least Android is freedom respecting and no one tells that you cannot install this or that.
So, I downloaded this app. I don't see any ads and there was no question about tracking.
Also, *after* it was removed, I was able to download it to my iPad from my "Purchased" menu.
Can confirm it plays Roms shared from iCloud Drive.
I'm not much into emulators tho, so bit of a waste on me. However, this is all very interesting.
Also, *after* it was removed, I was able to download it to my iPad from my "Purchased" menu.
Can confirm it plays Roms shared from iCloud Drive.
I'm not much into emulators tho, so bit of a waste on me. However, this is all very interesting.
I also never see any ADs and never saw anything about tracking
I only have it on my iPad (like you)
I wonder if there was a difference related to that?
Yes it can play ROM files now through an SD card. Analogue opened up their hardware a while ago for it.
Oh I just meant put the existing "Classic Games" selection from the Switch on other devices with a subscription fee. It really is simple:
- These apps and thus the emulators are already running on ARM (Switch uses an Nvidia Tegra X1/X1+ which is massively under powered compared to modern smart phone SoCs)
- While there have been issues (particularly with their N64 emulator), these apps are mature and already feature a decent selection of first party and licensed third party games - and Nintendo controls which games are added
- I would argue that there is a _massive_ appetite for classic video games; Android-based portable consoles are an industry unto themselves (Aya Neo, Retroid, Anbernic and many others churn out new SKUs on a regular basis), then there are less legally dubious devices like Sega, Nintendo and Atari's miniature replicas
Nintendo have sold, what, 150 million Switch systems? There are _billions_ of active Apple devices between phones, tablets, computers and the Apple TV. Even at the conservative end, an official Nintendo app that offers a selection of classic titles would do very well in the app store if it was priced reasonably. That's not even counting Android.
What I am saying is that the law needs to change so that private citizens and charitable organisations can continue to experience and maintain lost pieces of artwork without recourse from the law. See also: taping songs off the radio and recording TV shows. Making copies of media for your own use has been part of culture for decades; why should games be any different?
You should consider thinking about this more and extrapolating it into various examples
It's flawed and unworkable logic
Apple doesn't have the source for the apps submitted.
How could Apple at all know, in the general sense, if an app violates som copyright somewhere?
Nintendo should just sell an app that costs what a Gameboy used to cost and then sell the ROMs in the app. It’d make a lot of sense and likely a lot of people would buy it. Clearly these apps have shown people want such a product so I don’t get why they won’t just give people what they want. It’s good for their revenue and Apple customers.