Patents need to die.

[Brotherman]

But technially since the GBA is backwardly compatable with all other GB's and is currently on the Market, Nintendo is well within its rights to do this. Also, if I'm correct, the emulation scene is where homebrew games get made. Though I'm all for them, Nintendo could see them as problems because the homebrewer's don't pay the SDK and Licencing fees that Nintendo would normally require from a third party developer.

[Lhadatt]

You think people are gonna stop buying the $100 GBASP so that they can play some of that systems games on a $400 PDA instead? Come on now. 95% of the people who buy SP and games for it have no clue about the Zodiac and have no interest in spending that type of money for a PDA.

The Zodiac now has NES, SMS, TG-16, SNES and [unreleased] GBA emulators. Well, those are all that matter anyway. I do believe I substantial number of gadget jockeys would purchase a Zodiac if it meant having what will most likely become the current ultimate portable console. No one has been talking sales or download numbers for the emus, but I suspect they are near to 3/4 of the Zodiac users (it makes sense to estimate that since gaming is what you buy a Z for, not specifically PDA use). 300,000 units is probably a decent estimate for the number of Zodiacs that will be sold at its peak.

I believe this sort of userbase could indeed put a dent in Nintendo's profits. Nintendo is probably assuming (and rightly so, no matter how much talk there is of "backing up" games) that people will download the numerous complete GBA ROM sets floating around out there and will never buy a real GBA again. For the number of ROMs someone might play as if they owned them when they don't have to pay anything, Nintendo will lose that much profit. It makes sense to believe that this GBA emu will have an effect on their bottom line.

[Diff-chan]

01. Gadget jockeys arent the SP's primary audience... stupid kids are.
02. When I hear gadget jockey, I think Chibi-Nappa... who already has a GBA.

Obviously they would lose some sales but Im sure it would be far less than what your average PC game loses due to piracy... of course they will inflate the numbers as much as the IDSA does but still no one's proved to me that piracy is a huge detriment on sales.

[Lhadatt]

I wish I could agree with that statement, but nintendo has nothing on 2xSai.

Show support, buy the game and play it however you want!

You missed the point completely.

Nintendo doesn't care about PC emulation, oddly enough. If they did, they would have sued the guy who wrote VisualBoy Advance and others. They seem to be more wary of both companies charging for GBA emulators (which Crimson Fire really shouldn't have done, given that system is no where near dead) and the Zodiac itself, since the ability to play GBA ROMs would provide another portable device that would cut into their profits on hardware.

01. Gadget jockeys arent the SP's primary audience... stupid kids are.

02. When I hear gadget jockey, I think Chibi-Nappa... who already has a GBA.

FYI, I have both a SP and the Zodiac. I'm working on not listening to the gadgetlust, but sometimes that doesn't go so well.

Obviously they would lose some sales but Im sure it would be far less than what your average PC game loses due to piracy... of course they will inflate the numbers as much as the IDSA does but still no one's proved to me that piracy is a huge detriment on sales.

I see your point. Even if it doesn't really affect their profits, they might see it as setting a trend that they don't want to deal with. What happens when someone programs a GBA/DS/GBNext emulator for a really popular product (let's say 6th generation iPod with a color screen or something)? That could stand a chance to get as messy as the pirates finding the CD-R bootcode in the Dreamcast. Better stop it now while you can.

[Damian79]

I think as long as they don't sue teens, I don't give a damn.

Thus far I have only seen the guys that distribute the games(and make money while they do it) get sued. For all intents and purposes, this is probably the kind of stuff that they like to just add to other "more serious" charges.

And as for piracy, IMO, as long as you buy as much as you could I don't see the harm as you wouldn't have bought X game anyway.

[lithium]

Nintendo could see them as problems because the homebrewer's don't pay the SDK and Licencing fees that Nintendo would normally require from a third party developer.

Homebrewers almost exclusively use homemade development tools which are usually some adaption of open source tools and a little reverse engineering. They're well within the law.

[sethsez]

All I really have to add to this is that Crimson Fire deserves any and all trouble they get. I've been bitching about that company before they even changed their name to Crimson Fire, and from what I can tell they haven't exactly gotten better. The biggest debacle was when they charged people to pay for a beta version of a game, with the promise that it would be finished soon, and then proceded to dick around doing nothing on it for years. Then there's the fact that every single game they release with the exception of Kyle's Quest is always sold on the premise of what will be added later (which never actually gets added, because Kyle "got bored").

Oh, and uh... go emulation. Woo.

[Lhadatt]

UPDATE!

It's open source now. That may not do anything for Crimson Fire's position (any lawgeeks here want to chime in on protection under the GPL?), but at least the Z-owners will get to play with it.

http://www.emuboards.com/invision/in...howtopic=10994

As seen on Slashdot, Nintendo has recently been awarded a patent for a "Software Implementation of a Handheld Video Game Hardware Platform" and they are now using this to stop Firestorm gbaZ from being released, as they try to retain their handheld gaming monopoly.

We believe that the US Patent No 6,672,963 does not apply to Firestorm gbaZ, as the patent clearly covers optimizing an emulator based on detecting a predetermined video game title. Claims 2, 3, 4, and 9, 10, 11, relate to this. In addition, claim 7 and 14 is about compatability with rom images for different types of handheld systems, which can easily be avoided.

But because Nintendo obviously does not want to see a competing handheld system being able to play their games, they will no doubt try to sue Crimson Fire regardless if they can win or not, hoping that increasing legal costs will force us to shut down anyway.

Because of this, we have decided that we will release the emulator early next week as a free open source project, covered by the GPL license. We will of course provide a compiled version for you to use, but the full source code will also be available. This will provide us further legal protection, as we will not be profiting from it. To all those that have already shown their support for this project and have pre-ordered it, you can
a) request a full refund
b ) exchange it for any other game
c) donate it to Crimson Fire to help our impending legal costs as well as the development costs

I hope you all can understand the importance of this decision, and what Crimson Fire might have to endure for standing up to Nintendo.

[gameoverDude]

Good move on Crimson Fire's part in making FgbaZ open source. Now that CF has turned it into a not-for-profit thing, I don't think Nintendo should sue them. If they had forged ahead with the original plan, maybe Nintendo would be justified. Hopefully their "Software Implementation of a Handheld Video Game Hardware Platform" patent will only be applied to their own systems- I don't think it would be fair for them to go after Sony in the case they decide to emulate the PS1 on the PSP for compliations.

The Puyo-Puyo ripoff is way too close to its inspiration. I won't be surprised if either Aiky or Sega want a piece of CF over this.