In other words, emulators are crucial for game preservation? This shows that Nintendo knows that, and when they say it’s not the case, they’re not simply wrong, they’re lying.
doctortran@lemm.ee 1 week ago
Just for the record, this is exactly what any museum would do, because they’re not going to actually run any of the older hardware. Because that hardware is part of their collection, and it behoves them not to put wear on them.
Also because emulators can be managed remotely.
Ultraviolet@lemmy.world 6 days ago
null@slrpnk.net 6 days ago
Have they said that’s not the case?
theblackpaul@lemmings.world 6 days ago
Not in so many words, but this is from their official website:
“While we recognize the passion that players have for classic games, supporting emulation also supports the illegal piracy of our products.”
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 1 week ago
This is a “Museum” run by Nintendo in Japan. Meaning they could have used or even created more original hardware to run the titles, but instead cut costs by using the same Emulators that they’re hoping to take down.
aesthelete@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Them being the original creator of the products doesn’t necessarily imply that they still have running production processes for everything they ever made.
finitebanjo@lemmy.world 1 week ago
If I obtain all the original schematics and software and make 1 Nintendo internals for commercial purposes wothout their permission it would be illegal.
If they do it, it costs them the price of a couple of dinners at most.
aesthelete@lemmy.world 6 days ago
This is all just speculation. I have no idea how much it would cost for them to build new systems for every playable game in the museum.
Aside from the could argument, I don’t really understand why they would do it.
DarkMetatron@feddit.org 1 week ago
That is highly depending on the type of Museum. Many Videogame and Computer Museums (at least in Germany) are showing the real Hardware running, some are even allowing the visitors to use and play at the old machines. And yes, they are often very used to repairing the hardware too.
cryptiod137@lemmy.world 1 week ago
I know to be a certified museum in the US, you must work to preserve your articles in perpetuity, meaning anything that could be detrimental to the article is discouraged if not totally disallowed.
zalgotext@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
They’re fucking Nintendo. They made the consoles they’re showing off in their museum. They absolutely have the ability to supply that museum with equipment and maintain it in perpetuity, because they fucking invented it
cryptiod137@lemmy.world 1 week ago
That’s not the point of it though. Not about whether you could fix or maintain it when operating it, it’s about not operating it if presents a notable risk of failure. The Smithsonian doesn’t start grinding cornmeal in a bowl from the Mississippians. The Connecticut Museum doesn’t take it’s colt rifles out the range for target practice. These organizations would use a replica to demonstrate what it was like, as opposed to risking damaging an original article.
Thats also not even necessary true either. While they may have invented there various consoles, at some point it will be nearly impossible to acquire replacement parts. They don’t manufacture the ICs or mainboards or the various discreet components. So if there’s no old stock, how would they “fix” a broken N64 (or later) console? It might be theoretically possible to fab a NEC VR4300 to replace a dead one, but probably cost hundreds of thousands, and it wouldn’t be broken anyway if you hadn’t left if running 16 hours a day so some sweaty tourists could play on real hardware.
And why would they? It would cost more, be more work, and have less reliable results than using a completely replacable computer running an emulator. The entire consumer facing side of the equation is worse if they run the games on the actual hardware, as long as the consumer doesn’t see it, which is really down to how they design the exhibit.
Do you think the public is understanding enough to accept that “The NES is really old and it broke so you can’t play super mario bros today”, when it’s the only day you are gonna be there? Temper tantrum, bad reviews, loss of face. From what I understand, Japan actually cares about all that, so Nintendo probably does as well.
DarkMetatron@feddit.org 1 week ago
Ok that is not the case in Germany, here you can have items multiple times, to have some to archive and some to use.
I can see that the preservation aspect is very valid for highly rare or one of a kind items, but that is generally not the case with retro hardware. Yes there are examples for that too (like C65 or other prototype stuff) but nobody would expect a museum to put that to use.
cryptiod137@lemmy.world 1 week ago
That’s the case… For now.
No one would have cared to preserve a Mosin Nagant from 1892 when they were making 500,000 of them, why would they? You can just go and buy more, the factory is right over there. Fast forward 132 years later, they are scarce antiques. And in another 100 years, there may only be a dozen left.
The entire field of computers as we know it, integrated circuits, is about half as old as that particular rurle, and the technology has changed so fast, it’s really crazy.
So while it might seem like that’s reasonable now, I mean the people who designed those systems are often still alive, even still working. Of course we can still fix and use them.
Now give it 60 or so years, your sitting around in you retirement community, sad you lost the auction for a 2003 eMachines tower PC with all the stickers still attached, kicking yourself about how you tossed one out back in the day.
At least you kept your Atari Jaguar, kept in a hermetically sealed container, that managed to save when you had to evacuate from the 2nd Finnish-Korean Hyperwar.
sneezycat@sopuli.xyz 1 week ago
Unless they store everything in high vacuum and near absolute zero, it’s going to get oxidized and fail eventually. There is no such thing as perpetuity. Might as well give them some use.
cryptiod137@lemmy.world 1 week ago
You really think an old parchment document would survive being in a high vacuum and near absolute zero?
Yeah sure, nothing lasts forever, but the really not the point. Your goal is to attempt to preserve your articles forever.
Are you going to fall short? Absolutely, but your still required to attempt to do so. So you avoid doing anything directly harmful, such as operating an old computer, firing an old cannon, or diving an old car.
aesthelete@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Your body is going to fail eventually, so you might as well stop brushing your teeth and drink bottles of scotch for breakfast. /s
DarkMetatron@feddit.org 1 week ago
Even if they don’t use the real old hardware then at least they could have created something that is closer to the original hardware, for example a SNES/NES/N64 console based on FPGA in a recreated original shell. Anything but a stupid emulator running on a Windows PC.
lengau@midwest.social 1 week ago
An FPGA seems like a lot of effort, but an SNES emulator running on a Raspberry Pi seems like it may have been a better option IMO.
DarkMetatron@feddit.org 1 week ago
I am sure that Nintendo is using FPGA for internal R&D, so they have people capable of writing cores for FPGA. Add to that the fact that Nintendo has all the schematics and detailed information about the original hardware and designs.
Yes, a FPGA would have been work, but not lots of work for them. And we are speaking of 8 and 16 bit hardware, that is very small and limited hardware.
Besides that: Windows can run on a Raspberry PI, so maybe the emulator on Windows used by Nintendo is already using that. Who knows?
lengau@midwest.social 6 days ago
Making an FPGA for all of this is far more work than pulling an open source emulator and sticking it on a machine…
johannesvanderwhales@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Plus you can do stuff like reset the emulator to a certain state pretty easily. Without having to reboot the hardware or anything. So you could do an exhibit on level 7 and have the game queued up to the level the exhibit is about.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 1 week ago
Any other museum wouldn’t be a hypocrite for doing so.