Just in case you’d forgotten that the Ouya console can play emulated games, a major retailer’s advertisement in the UK is only too happy to remind you. GAME’s main Ouya page has a large image showing “a selection of free games” you can try on the Android-powered machine, and one of them is for Super GNES, an emulator that lets you play free (usually illegal) copies of Super Nintendo games.
On Android phones, this has long been the case. It’s something Nintendo has just had to put up with. But the Ouya is a home console, which is Nintendo’s home turf, and every reminder that the Ouya can play free copies of games Nintendo is trying to sell for money is going to cause problems. Especially when it’s coming from a major retailer.
At time of publishing GAME’s advertisement for the emulator was still live.
Comments
12 responses to “UK Retailer Promotes SNES Emulator In Ouya Advertisement”
Where is Nintendo trying to sell SNES games?
Virtual Console/eShop
There is nothing wrong with advertising an emulator as a feature! Emulators are perfectly legal and Ouya has done the right thing and is not supplying any ROMs on the store… The whole situation is perfectly fine!
^This.
Nintendo (and Sony – as there is a PS1 emulator, and Sega – as the is a megadrive emulator) are just going to have to suck it up, they may not like it, but thats hardly the point.
Emulators are 100% legal, the Roms are usually illegal, but they’re not selling Roms so there should be no issue for the retailer or for Ouya.
Yes! It is all legal and above-board and perfectly. Fine.
All the same… godammit guys, take that ad down or you will ruin it for everyone!
I guess to some people it’s like promoting a torrent site. While not technically illegal, the content that’s available on it is arguably not legal.
That’s a gross (and naive) oversimplification, so let me play the devil’s advocate here. While there’s nothing wrong with an emulator, advertising this feature is like a head shop selling bongs in the window for ‘tobacco only.’ It’s a technicality. We all know these (legal) emulators will be used to play (illegal) ROMs of games Nintendo still owns the license to and is still selling.
It’s the Nintendo DS thing with the R4 cards again. Yes, they can be used for perfectly wholesome and legal homebrew but they were overwhelmingly used to play pirated NDS games. If you looked at NDS torrents, I doubt one in ten R4 owners used their cards for homebrew.
So yes, it’s unfortunate that Nintendo is leaving money on the table by not making their older titles more accessible and cheaper, but this ‘legal emulator dude!’ thing is a canard.
Yup. I read @jordan_joyce ‘s comment as being entirely aware of your point, in a nudge-nudge, wink-wink kind of way. Maybe I was giving him too much credit. 🙂
gone now
If the copyright holders dont like it how about they actually release the content? I dont have a problem with piracy where the content is not readily available.
the thing is people are making games for these emulators in their bedrooms that have nothing to do with nintendo, one of the nes emus on the ouya comes pre loaded with some indie roms. nothing wrong with that, they have permission from the creators to use them.
Nintendo could do an awful lot to counter this kind of thing by making their old games available on the freaking Virtual Console/ 3DS shop at a REASONABLE price.
They put like 1-2 NES/ Master System games on the 3DS store every month and then charge $6+ for them! If they put SNES games on there I’d happily pay $3-4 each and I’d buy heaps of them. Or how about some N64 games? Hell I’m sure Nintendo could get quite a few Gamecube games running on there if they really wanted.
Instead we have amateurs happy to emulate them for free and put them on non-Nintendo machines. I really love those old games, I want to play them, I’m happy to pay a reasonable price for them. Nintendo only have themselves to blame for not making them available.
There are some true classics out there which no ROM library should be without… Hell, some of them are even better today than some of the options currently on offer. To the point that I would pay just as much for them as for any new similar-graphics indie stuff currently hitting Greenlight.
Examples of things worth buying as-is, TODAY:
Actraiser 1&2
Big Sky Trooper
Blackthorne
Choplifter 3
Crono Trigger
Demon’s Crest
Desert Strike / Jungle Strike / Urban Strike
Equinox
Earthbound
EVO (Shut up, it was awesome)
Final Fantasy (2 & 3, usually known as 5 & 6 – Mystic Quest if pushed)
Flashback
Front Mission
Ghoul Patrol (and its predecessor, Zombies Ate My Neighbors)
Harvest Moon
Humans
Illusion of Gaia
Jurassic Park
Kirby’s Dream Land
Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Lemmings series
Lost Vikings 1-2
Lufia games
Metal Marines
Ogre Battle / Tactics Ogre
Out of This World
Parodius
Pocky & Rocky 1-2
Populous 1-2
Robotrek (the ORIGINAL Pokemon! Look it up.)
Romance of the Three Kingdoms games
Secret of Evermore / Secret of Mana (I’m pretty sure these were different games though)
Soldiers of Fortune (The Chaos Engine)
Starwing / Starfox
Super Bomberman games
Super Metroid
SMASH TV. (“I’d buy that for a dollar!”)
Syndicate
TMNT (Turtles in Time. Not the 2D fighting game. Though that was OK I guess.)
Theme Park
Ultima series
Vortex
Where in the World/Time is Carmen Sandiago
Worms.
Indeed. I remember browsing the Virtual Console selection on Wii, and being flabbergasted at the prices Nintendo was charging for NES and SNES titles. Looks like nothing’s changed!
This is a world where top-notch games can be had for well under $5. Back in 2011 I remember buying a collection of 40 classic Megadrive games for something like $20 – no DRM, each effectively an executable packaged with a solid emulator for PC. Brilliant!
I’d love to give Nintendo some of my hard-earned for something similar. But SMB2 isn’t worth $5 on its own these days.