Sbox Homemade Console
Anonymous Coward sent in: "I just ran across a very cool homemade emulation console. It emulates multiple machines, plays movies, plays mp3s, and uses Intel's new wireless gamepads to control everything. It's also cased in plexiglass and uses its own menuing software. The best I've seen yet!" His remote has a docking station.
If it costs them nothing to sell it, why wouldn't they?
Costs aren't always monentary.
Take for example Super Mario Brothers Advance. SMB Advance is essentially just SMB2 with some new stuff thrown in. It will now make for a really nice hand-held title, but do you honstly think Nintendo could resell the title as an N64 remake, or a Gamecube remake? It can sell as a handheld title, simply because at the moment not everybody has a handheld PDA that will effectively emulate the GBA.
Do you honestly think Nintenod could sell SMB1, SMB2, and SMB3 all on one disc as a collection for the Gamecube? No, probably not. Most likely not, due to the fact that a large percent of the market that still loves those games already has them illegally on their PCs.
If Nintendo COULD get away with doing it, it's only because there isn't a larger number of people pirating roms. The number of ROMZ pirates grows ever day. For the moment, it's still not nearly as mainstream as MP3 piracy. If we're lucky, it'll stay fairly obscure and won't draw any real legal attention.
Also one must consider that games aren't like music. People consume them like food and move on. Someone can very easily justify buying a CD when they already have the MP3s, just to have the physical medium. Video games, for whatever reason, haven't felt like "physical medium" since the first ROM image got pulled off of a Cartrige and uploaded to the 'net.
I still buy my video games. I still spend more money on video games than any other expense I have, and one could say that's almost obsessive. (I wonder sometimes myself). But I also know that not everybody buys their PC titles, fewer still buy old games, and even less go out looking for rare SNES, GENESIS, or N64 carts to add to their collections.
As much as I enjoy going to Classic Gaming and snatching down a rom image or two, I fully understand why some companies such as Nintendo and Sega don't want their ROMS being distributed. I also understand why they make a good point in "some cases".
And that's just the thing. "Some Cases". Some games have much higher replay/resell/remarketability value than others. Some of the publishers are gone, others strive on today. But it's those few gems that could resurface as modern products that set the argument for Copyright holders keeping a tight grip on their titles. Nintendo is about to show exactly what they "want to do" with those old titles" when they re-release them on the GBA.
I was all over Super Mario All Stars when it came out on the SNES. Do you think such a thing is ever going to surface on the Gamecube with piracy all but having destroyed the marketability of older titles? Dream on.
I think THAT alone should answer the question "why wouldn't they"?
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.