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Check them out. There's other games at their site too.

Check them out. There's other games at their site too.

It might, but probably not. Zodiac has the widescreen Palm display that's only available (as far as I know) on the Zodiac and one of the PalmOne Tungsten models (the T? I forget.) It also has beefier sound, the ATi graphics processor mentioned in an earlier reply, and the analog stick. If the game or emulator's designed for those, it may have alternate controls for the Treo, but don't be surprised if it doesn't.

There are a bunch of games that were designed for "regular" Palm devices that don't work on the Zodiac because the buttons don't map correctly. I suspect things like this would work similarly the other direction.

There are already single-system emulators (some of the best of which come from http://www.crimsonfire.com/ and http://www.kalemsoft.com/). Their NesEm is pretty good, I haven't used the others personally. The big news here is that it's multisystem - NES, Genesis, GBC all in one emulator.

Not entirely actually... As I recall the whole thing, Nintendo got the patent and told Crimson Fire to knock it off, Crimson Fire hinted that if Nintendo didn't back off, they'd just release what they had to everyone for free as an open source project. Nintendo evidently decided it was better to have them make a commercial product sold to a few than to have it given to all who ask for free, since Crimson Fire is now selling it for the Tapwave.

I'm not sure how many people have checked out the other stuff on their site, but this looks like it has been built with RPG Maker 2000, and I'm not sure if it's even legal to seel games you make with that program. Anyway, this company just seems like a hack; they design a product, get in hot water because a large corporation claims it infringes on their patents, then release it as open source to misdirect things away from the fact that they are trying to turn a profit? Maybe Infinium Labs can learn something here; when their investors start screaming for a goddamn product, they can just say they released it as open source and are waiting for the magic to happen...

What, a lack of respect for intellectual property from the group that released buyo burst?

Actually, I did want to congratulate the developers for not backing down, as this is a frivolous patent. And the whole buyo bop thing is forgivable with Kyle's Quest Dungeons.

What, a lack of respect for intellectual property from the group that released buyo burst?

Actually, I did want to congratulate the developers for not backing down, as this is a frivolous patent. And the whole buyo bop thing is forgivable with Kyle's Quest Dungeons.

I see that the flames have already begun, and that is not an unexpected reaction when a big company threatens a tiny company for alleged infringement on some obscure patent (obscure to most of us normal people anyway).

But please, take a few minutes to follow the links in the story, and you will notice a couple of things:

First, notice how Nintendo is cracking down on a commercial product - this emulator is actually being sold. The company selling this emulator is making money by emulating Nintendo, and while I'm not quite decided on whether this is actually bad or not, I can actually understand where Nintendo is coming from here. He's making money instead of Nintendo - some people will buy the emulator instead of the GBA itself. It makes sense for Nintendo to do something about that. So they are cracking down on a commercial entity competing directly with them by offering something which emulates their product, not some hobbyist who doesn't make a dime from it. Good or bad? That's not up to me to decide.

But wait, there's more!

Very few comments here seem to mention the fact that this emulator isn't even available yet! That's right, the sales are actually pre-sales. People have been paying for promises of a delivery, and it seems that it is delayed already:

"Sorry Kyle, but I think you have an obligation to refund money now and look into it later. Without a product to release, you've essentially stolen everyone who preordered (like myself)'s money. I'm not trying to hammer you and I'm sure that you're pissed too, but I did pay $15.99 to have Firstorm gbaZ on March 12, 2004 and not any other time. Those were the terms of the sale. Hopefully this will all blow over." (source)

I'm not saying that something fishy is going on here, but there's always that tiny possibility. If you had sold a product which you promised to deliver on a certain date and failed, wouldn't it be convenient to have something to blame, to be able to postpone the release and continue work on it until it is actually finished?

It would of course be silly of this guy to falsely accuse Nintendo of this, as Nintendo would probably be all over him, but people have done stupid things before, out of sheer desperation... Instead of losing face, people have been known to do rather silly things. And I don't have to mention SCO, do I? Not that they have any face left to lose...

But please people, take the time to have a quick look at the links in this story and make up your own minds. Maybe Nintendo is doing something really bad here, or maybe they aren't. Maybe there's more to this story than meets the eye.

Time will tell.

"Things like this are disturbing. It's become acceptable, in today's society, for a company to tell it's customers how they can and can't use their products."

That's not what's happening here. They're telling a company (or team?) trying to sell the product for a profit not to do that. It doesn't help that their site for it touts "1400 GBA games, 1200 GBC games, 600 GB games"

Not saying I'm siding with Nintendo on this one, but the fact that they're expecting to make a profit ilegally off of Nintendo isn't helping their case any. You'll notice other free emulators are out there and not under legal scrutiny. (Note: That's not to say they won't down the road.)

Frankly, this is a road they should not have tried to travel. Who can seriously look at that system with that emulator and not expect Nintendo to go apeshit over it? Derrrr.

8mb isn't a waste if you're using, say, Mapopolis with a few county maps, have a few HanDB databases cataloging your media collection, you like to have a wide variety of web sites available on the go via AvantGo or Plucker, not to mention the Kyle's Quest levels and Planetarium star DBs.

Jeez, why carry around a little computer if you're hardly going to use it?