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NES Emulator Passes Microsoft Certification And Is Coming To Xbox One

Several days ago, we reported that an NES emulator had been submitted to Microsoft to appear on Xbox One. While it seemed unlikely, the company has since approved the request. The makers of the emulator posted on their Twitter that their application had passed Microsoft’s certification process. It seems highly likely that Nintendo will step in at this point to prevent the emulator becoming available. As the drama unfolds, we’ll keep you updated.

102 thoughts on “NES Emulator Passes Microsoft Certification And Is Coming To Xbox One”

  1. Technically there’s nothing illegal about this, just want everyone to know that up front. Nintendo can’t say “It’s our software and we decide what can and can’t play it” That would be like if a Sony movie could only be played on a sony blue ray player

    1. That’s not entirely true. Emulators are legal as long as they don’t include the bios files from the original system. For example, the PCSX2 emulator does not include any bios files with it, making it legal. You have to personally upload the bios files from a ps2 you own to make it work. Distributing emulators is legal. Distributing the bios files for them is not. Since the NES is relatively easy to code, I’m sure these guys haven’t done anything illegal.

      I want to know where the roms will come from. Nintendo can prevent their software from being distributed illegally. As long as the makers provide the emulator and nothing else, I don’t think there’s much Nintendo can do.

    2. That’s wrong! It IS illegal! There’s a big difference between owning one and distributing one through a games console. This is an attack on Nintendo’s copyrights and Nintendo could sue Microsoft and would win the case for sure!

      1. It’s technically not illegal, but getting the roms for it is illegal. As long as Microsoft doesn’t start distributing roms then there’s no copyright infringement. It’s like a 13 year old who can’t legally drink alcohol can carry an empty beer bottle legally.

        1. That’s not true. You obviously don’t know the law! Offering software on your own your system that can be used to pirate games is illegal! There’s a difference between homebrew emulators that are installed by the users themselfs and an official emulator that is distributed by Microsoft. The latter is illegal!

          1. Microsoft isn’t stupid. They wouldn’t put this up unless they were at least reasonably sure that there wouldn’t be any problems. Unless they are trying to get Nintendo to sue them or something, which I think is rather unlikely, unless they are confident that they would win. That’s just my opinion though. I could be that it was a mistake, I just find that hard to believe.

          2. Even if the software itself is not illegal, I don’t find it unreasonable that they’re able to take it down based on it only being used to play illegal ROMs. And even if not, I’d imagine that Microsoft would honor a request from Nintendo to take it down (as someone else mentioned already).

            1. Galactus The Planet Devourer

              I simply must know. What does your name stand for? Is it, “Laughing my ass of so hard my socks flew off”?

              1. Close. laughing my ass off so hard my sombrero fell off.

                and that’s just the shortened version. the full version is LMAOSHMSFOAIDMT = laughing my ass off so hard my sombrero fell off and i dropped my taco

          3. If you can cite a specific law that would be great. There’s a good point here that I didn’t consider, but I’m not sure it’s entirely solid. I can’t find anything specifically related to this case, but there is a similar case presented by the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.

            The Act makes it illegal to jailbreak a video game console. A few years ago though a proposal was made to make it legal to jailbreak consoles for the purpose of running legally obtained software. While the proposal was shot down, some good points were made. The main argument was that jailbroken consoles could be used to run pirated games. The counter argument was that piracy is already a crime. People running pirated games on a jailbroken console are already committing a crime so what do they care if jailbraking is also a crime? Why stack crimes on top of each other?

            Now in this case, the console won’t be jailbroken and the emulator isn’t illegal by itself. So I can’t see anything illegal here. However, the same argument can be made that this app will make it possible to run pirated games. Nintendo could win a case against this on the grounds of past precedent, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Microsoft was able to produce a strong case in support of the app. As somebody else said Microsoft wouldn’t allow this if they felt it had no chance.

            Again if you could provide a reference to any laws I missed, it would be great.

    3. IF I was Nintendo’s lawyers I would ask the following question:
      – What’s the purpose of this emulator?
      – Can this emulators play other games than NES software?

      If the answer of the second question is NO then I guess Nintendo have a case.

  2. Ok so let me get this straight…
    Another company who isn’t Nintendo is allowed to run an emulator on their system and even sell it at their app store or whatever its called and run Nintendo games but we cannot run homebrew or anything similar to emulators on Nintendo systems?…
    And before anyone attacks me on the homebrew thing, no i have never run unofficial things on my systems. But i have seen lots of articles about people using them and getting their systems bricked or stuff like that because Nintendo doesn’t like those kinds of things. I like a good read now and then :v

    1. Well that’s the thing. They’re not allowed to provide the software for the emulator. Nintendo can take action if they do, which makes me wonder how the actual games will get on the system to run with the emulator. I wonder if Nintendo can do anything about their games being illegally run on another system.

      1. The only thing that nintendo could really do here to protect their ip would be to go after the sites that distribute roms, but seeing how they have taken no steps toward that in the past I doubt they will start now.

        1. I’ve always found that strange. It’s not like the sites are hidden. A simple Google search brings them up. Yet Nintendo is constantly going after people for making fan-made games while leaving the ones who distribute the originals untouched.

          I have a feeling that Nintendo really doesn’t mind people using roms. What they don’t want is someone making a fan game that might be considered better than the original.

          1. Thats not it at all. They are protecting their IP. Its not about some single developer upstaging them, if that was the case they would make youtube take down the unreal engine footgage of super hd mario and zelda. Its about making sure the public doesnt take control of their characters, and by association, change the way they look or act or are represented. A rom is still just a copy of a game they made and approve of. Fan games have the capacity to change the perception of the player towards the characters, and Nintendo wants complete control over that process.

        2. Actually I’m pretty sure at one point Nintendo did request roms be removed from a website. I believe it was CoolROM.com and they honored that request. But that’s the only instance I’ve seen that as roms are being distributed on many other sites very openly.

        3. Before now those roms were only ending up on pc and mobile, mediums that again, before now, were not considered relevant competition to Nintendo, there was no real reason to go after rom sites. But things are different now. Can you download from your web browser on xbox one? If so they could get the roms through traditional rom sites. But I would figure downloading from untrusted sources would void any warranty on the system, similar to downlooading roms on your phone. If it doesnt come from the closed ecosystem, usually it voids any warranties or worse. I cant imagine how the devs are planning on working around this.

  3. Lol Sonicjms that’s the whole point of owning something. This is illegal as Nintendo is still making profit from their NES games through the VC. Thus taking money away from nintendo, can’t wait to see what they do, bad move my MS.

  4. Excellent! The world would be so much better with Nintendo games on other platforms. One step closer heheheh.

  5. Actually, Nesbox isn’t a NES-emulator – not only, at least. As the picture implies, it’s a universal emulator, capable of emulating NES, SNES, Sega Megadrive and GBC/GBA games. Which makes the situation even more… interesting? haha.

  6. I find it funny that people are all up in arms about emulators until they start getting official support from bigger companies. As a huge retro gamer fan, I look forward to this because we see it able to run on better hardware.

    I think video games and consoles should have a time limit set when they are considered illegal to distribute. After 10-15 years when they no longer support them, sell the console firmware and sell the roms for $1. I find it morally wrong to get mad when opposed to allow art and history to be unobtainable and complain when the community figures out how to allow it. Either allow it and maintain it or shut up if you are to lazy to do so and let someone else do it.

    1. I’m not sure what you mean by “…see it able to run on better hardware.” Any game from earlier than the Gamecube will run just as well on Xbox One as it will on PC, Wii, smartphones, or the original system. It’s not like the games are improved as hardware is.

      Also Nintendo is doing just what you suggest. Their games aren’t unobtainable. They still sell their retro games. It’s not like they’ve had tham locked away for 20 years. There’s nothing wrong with being mad when people obtain illegal copies of games while the company that made those games is trying to make money off of them.

    2. Not that I disagree with you, but there is a set time after which games under copyright enter the public domain. 75 years. Which is almost pointless, since there are no games that old.

    3. You have no “entitlement” to any companies games. If they offer them for sale, you can buy them, if they offer them up for free you can download them. If they don’t offer them and have not released them to public domain, you have zero rights to that game. I don’t understand why people don’t get this. The games are simply not yours to decide that..

  7. Can we all just acknowledge that the people paying for nes-n64 games on the eshop just want to give nintendo money? Like almost everyone fucking knows how to emulate by now on PC or whatever else. Hell the Wii U and 3DS are busted wide open, unless the games are impossible to pirate and play through an exploit the person is just paying because they want to. I could easily play fast racing neo with DLC for free at the end of this month since europe is getting a physical copy, but that game is fucking awesome and I want shin en to get my money.

          1. Nintendo First Order Commander Quadraxis

            ||Your stupidity level is off the charts, your genitalia must be burning your so called neurons at an exponential rate…||

            ||That thing over there to the left is called a [DOOR], assuming you still know what [LEFT] means…||

      1. The wii U exploit only needs an SD card, you probably have everything you want in the library physically by now like me anyway since there isn’t a massive amount of games. But it lets you play xenoblade chronicles x and #FE uncensored which is great.

        1. Yeah my Wii was soft modded with an SD card, when I say a pain in the ass, I meant all the little firmware updates I had to keep doing. It was a fun experience at first but I got sick of it eventually. When I got the Wii U and 3DS I decided I was never going to mess with modding them, especially since I can afford to pay Nintendo back for all those games I pirated back in the Wii/DS days lol

  8. Nintendo better step in. That’s seriously a conflict of interest. Why would Nintendo ever allow their games to be emulated on a competitors system?

      1. *claps* A like for using a picture from Troll 2 (no real connection to the movie Troll from 1986 and was simply named such to help the movie sell since Troll was a successful movie) which is called the worst movie of all time by some. So bad, in fact, the movie is entertaining because of just how terrible it really is. Wikipedia lists it as a b-horror comedy which is false. It was meant to be a horror movie, nothing more. It just ended up being a comedy because, as I said above, it was entertaining because of how bad it was.

  9. I doubt Nintendo can do anything since this is probably mostly meant for NES games that Nintendo DOESN’T own. Like the very first Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest to name a few.

    1. So what Nintendi has some talk. Hellow Banjo Kazooie and Tooie on Eshope for 3DS started as a Nintendo exclusive. Nintendo, will Nintendo is too stuipd. A real CEO would had faught for Banjo Kazooie for Eshope. Yet Micrisoft getting Nintedo games. Yeah thats fair. Nintendo is also stupid for not putting a paiten in Pokemon Go. Now Sony has their versioj beinng worked on in their R

  10. Ninte do you stupid if you let this slide. And why isnt Nintendo fighting for Banjo Kazooie and Tooie for 3DS or E shope. SMH but Nintendo give up their shit easy.
    What a stupid company in many ways.

  11. Pingback: There Is Now A Nintendo 64 Emulator On Xbox One – My Nintendo News

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