Why would be this be a concern? If they publish it in cartridges to be used in original systems, it shouldn’t be a problem for Nintendo, especially if the developers pay Nintendo whatever licensing fee needed.
I doubt Nintendo will let them buy a license. Why would Nintendo sell them a license for a handheld console they don’t even make anymore? It would not encourage sales of their newest product, and therefore they don’t care. Nintendo has historically stopped people from developing homebrew games for their older systems if they get too big or popular, why would they suddenly change now?
Nintendo is the MOST anti-consumer company of the three major console makers, with Sony following in second. There is no indication they would ever change to do anything that benefits the consumer. They tried to make us all buy NES Mario on Virtual Console twice, and now you can’t even buy VC games, you have to rent them.
This is a company that goes after groups who hold tournaments with their games and issues takedowns against people on video platforms just playing their games. Genuinely an awful company (good games don’t excuse the behavior.)
Nintendo has a horrible history of shitting on its fans and projects such as these. In all probability the modders are actually inadvertently (I haven’t checked) falling into Nintendo’s trademark trap on the Gameboy. The Nintendo logo it shows at the start is a check that enables the boot of the game… and is an asset that must be present on each cart. That means if the logo is displayed… they can sue for trademark infringement. If not then they are exploiting the hardware- and we know what happens from there, unfortunately.
This is a cool project and I hope it does well but Nintendo is a shit company that doesn’t deserve the fanfare they are given.
It depends on a few factors, but in general yes. The issue is how it gets on the system. Nintendo is staunchly against emulation and has also gone after people who bypass their game systems security. They have a rabid pack of lawyers and the company is more than willing to use them.
It’s not illegal or anything to develop games without the permission of the console manufacturer. The NES had a 40kb game release in 2019 called Micro Mages. The developers are entirely in the right.
Illegal to bypass security mechanisms? Gray area. Courts typically side against the hackers, historically.
Illegal to display trademarked material? Yes.
The NES has defeatable copy protection which led to a decent dev scene that could ‘legally’ publish games. The game boys copy protection is interesting in how they approached it:
*Ominous rumblings of the horde of Nintendo lawyers being summoned.*
Nintendo cease and desist (or worse) in 5… 4… 3…
Why would be this be a concern? If they publish it in cartridges to be used in original systems, it shouldn’t be a problem for Nintendo, especially if the developers pay Nintendo whatever licensing fee needed.
I doubt Nintendo will let them buy a license. Why would Nintendo sell them a license for a handheld console they don’t even make anymore? It would not encourage sales of their newest product, and therefore they don’t care. Nintendo has historically stopped people from developing homebrew games for their older systems if they get too big or popular, why would they suddenly change now?
Nintendo is the MOST anti-consumer company of the three major console makers, with Sony following in second. There is no indication they would ever change to do anything that benefits the consumer. They tried to make us all buy NES Mario on Virtual Console twice, and now you can’t even buy VC games, you have to rent them.
+1 for the anti-consumer statement.
This is a company that goes after groups who hold tournaments with their games and issues takedowns against people on video platforms just playing their games. Genuinely an awful company (good games don’t excuse the behavior.)
Nintendo has a horrible history of shitting on its fans and projects such as these. In all probability the modders are actually inadvertently (I haven’t checked) falling into Nintendo’s trademark trap on the Gameboy. The Nintendo logo it shows at the start is a check that enables the boot of the game… and is an asset that must be present on each cart. That means if the logo is displayed… they can sue for trademark infringement. If not then they are exploiting the hardware- and we know what happens from there, unfortunately.
This is a cool project and I hope it does well but Nintendo is a shit company that doesn’t deserve the fanfare they are given.
Homebrew seems to be fair game.
It depends on a few factors, but in general yes. The issue is how it gets on the system. Nintendo is staunchly against emulation and has also gone after people who bypass their game systems security. They have a rabid pack of lawyers and the company is more than willing to use them.
It’s not illegal or anything to develop games without the permission of the console manufacturer. The NES had a 40kb game release in 2019 called Micro Mages. The developers are entirely in the right.
Illegal to develop for? No.
Illegal to bypass security mechanisms? Gray area. Courts typically side against the hackers, historically.
Illegal to display trademarked material? Yes.
The NES has defeatable copy protection which led to a decent dev scene that could ‘legally’ publish games. The game boys copy protection is interesting in how they approached it:
https://piped.video/watch?v=ix5yZm4fwFQ
Basically the catch is you either have a hacked cart or display Nintendo’s logo … so they can go after you either way.