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The NES and SNES Mini are really nice little products. Plus you get the real controllers, which makes a big difference.
I don't think these are options since the SNES had 1757 official releases (721 in North America), and the NES a total of 714 known licensed game titles of which 679 were released in North America.

SNES Mini has 21 built-in games, and NES-Classic 30.

You can easily find all SNES/NES roms out there (since the contents won't take too much disk space), but you are confined to using non-practical alternatives to play with emulators.
 
I don't think these are options since the SNES had 1757 official releases (721 in North America), and the NES a total of 714 known licensed game titles of which 679 were released in North America.

SNES Mini has 21 built-in games, and NES-Classic 30.

You can easily find all SNES/NES roms out there (since the contents won't take too much disk space), but you are confined to using non-practical alternatives to play with emulators.

They're perfectly valid, and legal options. The SNES mini in particular has an excellent selection of games, hitting most of the SNES' high points. Its lack of Chrono Trigger is the only big omission.

If you want to buy all 700 carts for the NES and the same again for the SNES, just so you can load up a Raspberry Pie with ROMs then go ahead. Earthbound alone runs into the hundreds now. Personally I'm happy to pair a SNES Mini with a 8bit-Do wireless SNES pad and enjoy the cream of the SNES library in comfort, and without resorting to theft.
 
They're perfectly valid, and legal options. The SNES mini in particular has an excellent selection of games, hitting most of the SNES' high points. Its lack of Chrono Trigger is the only big omission.

If you want to buy all 700 carts for the NES and the same again for the SNES, just so you can load up a Raspberry Pie with ROMs then go ahead. Earthbound alone runs into the hundreds now. Personally I'm happy to pair a SNES Mini with a 8bit-Do wireless SNES pad and enjoy the cream of the SNES library in comfort, and without resorting to theft.
Copying is never going to be "theft", no matter how much the entertainment industry wants it to be. When Jesus multiplied the fish no one was "stolen".

Nintendo couldn't offer all NES/SNES games anyway, the same can be said about Netflix and all other streaming services alike (with movies/TV shows/documentaries). Suffice to say SEVERAL licensing issues (such as some companies not wanting to be a part of it, contracts not being renewed or a few of them wanting to do this with Sony/any other that wants to copy the idea), titles vanishing from the catalog, multiple companies distributing the same game (who should be paid? and what about the defunct studios, who owns the copyright?), geo-blocks (a title not available in certain countries - and please note this happens with Netflix and their own productions!) and a lot of $$$$$$ (asked from the subscribers or customers willing to pay for the "ROMs") would make this impossible.

Still... I see no benefit in playing a few games and that's it, no matter how good they are... this idea is appealing only if you don't want to make some effort to play (and why not: KNOW) more of them.

Nintendo could at least made the consoles compatible with old cartridges.

And make no mistake, there are many good games out there, the same can be said about movies/TV shows/documentaries. Restricting yourself to what Netflix or TV channels can give you makes no sense.

The difference here is that you can buy (or rent - if you can find a place, since they are all being closed anywhere, even for games) the VHS, DVDs, Blu-rays... but you can't do the same with ALL classic games (and to make matters worse most titles are NOW - they weren't at least 5, 10 years before - being sold for A LOT OF MONEY, it doesn't matter if some are bad - you can't find for regular prices), and another very important you are not considering, that in my opinion is the most important of all:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_scarcity

When I see (for example) Disney releasing only a few copies from their famous titles (in DVD) and then someone selling a rare disc for 200 $ in eBay I simply don't buy it. And don't support the company anymore, opting for others that respect me as a customer.

Also, the reason Nintendo is going after ROM sites is not due to losing money (why does it matter if someone is playing with ROMs from games that are not even sold anymore?), it's simply because they can't (or are not willing to) offer what everyone wants.
 
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Copying is never going to be "theft", no matter how much the entertainment industry wants it to be. When Jesus multiplied the fish no one was "stolen".

You can try to make peace with it anyway you like, piracy is theft. Always has been, always will be.

Personally I buy retro games from Yahoo Japan and eBay, then dump the discs myself if I like it so I can play them on my PC or Shield. With carts I buy them, then download the ROMs so I can put them onto my Everdrive. I also have a SNES and NES Mini, and I may well buy a Polymega too if they turn out well.

I don't steal because stealing is both wrong, and a crime. Maybe I'm old fashioned, or maybe I just have morals. if you don't, then bully for you.
 
You can try to make peace with it anyway you like, piracy is theft. Always has been, always will be.

Personally I buy retro games from Yahoo Japan and eBay, then dump the discs myself if I like it so I can play them on my PC or Shield. With carts I buy them, then download the ROMs so I can put them onto my Everdrive. I also have a SNES and NES Mini, and I may well buy a Polymega too if they turn out well.

I don't steal because stealing is both wrong, and a crime. Maybe I'm old fashioned, or maybe I just have morals. if you don't, then bully for you.
Now you're being naive.

You do know that what you just said can be considered even worse than "theft" according to Nintendo and several companies, right? If you don't think this is the case then I suggest you look into what happens when you ignore this thing here:

*********
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works (commonly known as digital restrictions management or DRM). It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet.
*********

In their eyes even if you buy the original cartridge you can't create a backup (which is perfectly legal in some countries, a single copy for private use, not to be distributed) and download a ROM like you just did.

You would have to abstain from that or pay whatever they want for a technology or product they invent or want you to swallow later. Even if it doesn't meet your needs.

In other words if I buy an ebook from Amazon and decide I don't want to risk losing my purchase (exactly what happened years ago in a famous case), removing the DRM, then I am a pirate in their eyes. Worse, if I distribute a software that can do this (with DVDs, Blu-rays, and why not, original cartridges/CDs) they will try to send me to JAIL (perhaps you never heard of Slysoft, DVDFab and similar companies...?).

I am not trying to tell you that you are right or wrong... I am simply letting you know that for many decades these companies have worked very hard to ban technologies, if that meant they would lose absolute control over the buyers. Don't believe me? Then look what they tried to do:
https://torrentfreak.com/the-copyright-industry-a-century-of-deceit-111127/

https://torrentfreak.com/thirty-years-since-betamax-and-movies-are-still-being-made-140118/ (this was the most blatant case):

*******
In 1984, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled 5-4 that the Sony Betamax recorder was legal, due to its significant non-infringing uses. This led to the consumer entertainment revolution of the last 30 years.

Everything from DVRs to tablets to MP3 players were made possible. Even the camera in your cellphone owes its existence to that ruling, as otherwise the ability to produce a copy of a copyrighted work (even of degraded quality) would have been enough to scupper its production.

*******

Not to mention bittorrent. Are torrent apps allowed in the Apple Store? No? Why not? Because someone thinks this technology is only used for spreading piracy.

Does that make any sense to you? It's like banning knives because some lunatic would use them for killing.

The mere existence of such technology doesn't mean everyone using is a pirate, or that (which is your case) haven't paid for the original contents. The thing is: it doesn't matter how much money you give to them, they want to control everyone and everything and we simply don't own what we have invested money.

The more I see this megalomaniac reasoning the less interested I am in paying for the official stuff.

I can find court decisions that prevented Microsoft from exacting a lot of $$$$$$ from companies that paid for Window$$ and wanted to install additional copies, and I can find many more where the judges sided with the copyright industry. What do you think is fair in this case? Doesn't matter, they have the mean$$$$ to decide what is right or wrong. The very laws we are forced to obey were never created with any consent from the voters.

Bottom line: next time you ask why can't play with classic games in your Apple TV remember the real reasons. I am not going to elabore further what is wrong with copyright (and the copyright industry), If I would then I would be explaining this forever. I also recommend searching for articles that explain why public domain expiring after 100 years is a bad idea.

Also keep in mind this has nothing to do with downloading for free or paying for the official stuff. For me it's just a matter of taste: I don't want to BAN physical media, books or games for the same reason I don't wish to see roms or rips extracted from these discs to vanish.

I opted to not buy more consoles, cartridges and discs. I want to play with roms, despite all limitations and differences. Or to put it better, I want to opt for the thing in digital format. If tomorrow all roms disappear or if I am limited to using my PC, then I will either stop playing or find this boring and give up.

What all these companies don't understand is that I will not start buying whatever is available in the market after they managed to crush the opposition. That won't change my mind.

That's why all these arguments about piracy mean nothing, since they all fail to realize how we all changed. The more concerned Nintendo and others are about this, the less they care about improving our alternatives. And the more they alienate themselves from their fanbase.

If I were to make a suggestion, why not release a game like this:


For iOS/ATV? How hard can it be? I mean THE EXACT SAME GAME, with no changes. If it's technologically possible, then why not release all this library gradually? I know I would pay for some. For me this is a better option than buying a SNES Mini. Or using some emulator that doesn't work properly.
 
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