Over the weekend, Yong Zhang (yongzh), developer of emulators for old gaming systems on Android, has seen his developer revoked and all applications removed from the Android Market. While locally installed applications remain on user's device this time, they obviously cannot be updated or reinstalled by users who have legally purchased them. No warning or explanation has been sent, but the app and account removal is most likely the result of a complaint from one of the companies who own the right to those systems, as a complaint from Sega last month resulted in a couple of emulators getting removed already.
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Member since:2005-07-06
If you can download the ROM, then you won't buy a special "nostalgia" edition. A lot of old games wind up available bundled for newer systems. I remember buying a copy of Atari 2600 games by Activision for my PC. They were fun to play.
I think a lot of companies still want to profit from old games in this manner.
As for emulators in general, I'm surprised it took this long. You could install an emulator for Nintendo, Sega, etc, and then install a ROM program that would let you download the ROMS. I always wondered how they were getting away with it. It turns out they weren't.
Fortunately for me, I like old PC DOS games like Jazz Jackrabbit, which I keep copies of. A quick download of DOSBox, and away I go.
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5
Member since:2007-03-07
And who could forget fiddling with HIMEM.SYS, EMM386, and unloading unneeded drivers in an effort to squeeze that elusive extra 15k of conventional memory out of DOS because of DOS games that required at least 550k of free conventional memory and such to run?
Fun times... if occasionally frustrating...
Member since:2005-08-18
They still are. Well, there's nothing to get away with it since it's not against any law to make emulators. MAME, snex9x, zsnes, pSX etc are all going strong and they're not going way any time soon.
You didn't forget to open the case and fiddle with the
dip switches on the card, did ya?
I just loved that you didn't have to do that with the Ultrasound. The Ultrasound ruled hard.
Member since:
2007-03-07
It doesn't have anything to do with patents in the emulators most likely. It's probably all about preventing people from being able to used downloaded ROMs.
This is something I will never understand, especially when it comes to obsolete systems. Some companies are overly aggressive at protecting ROMs. Microprose is notorious for this. They have send DMCA notices to Web sites that were hosting C64 ROMS of Gunship and Airborn Ranger. Seriously? Why? It's not like you can purchase C64 versions of these games from Microprose anymore. Pretty much the ONLY way to play these classic games anymore is by downloading ROMs and running them on an emulator, unless you still happen to have a C64 and the original 5 1/4 inch floppies laying around.
I really don't understand why companies insist on being so anal about protecting copyright on games that you can't even buy new copies of anymore if you wanted to. It's not like it's costing them any money.