While the emulation of handheld Nintendo game consoles is not optical disc related, this news may affect some Nintendo fans here that play their handheld games or backups emulated on unofficial equipment. Nintendo had filed a patent back in November 2000 on handheld video game console software emulators on a low-capability target platform and the patent has been granted on 6th January this year.
This patent covers handheld video game emulation on PDA's, mobile phones, seat-back displays on vehicles, other portable equipment and also appears to cover PC's. This patent however does not cover regular non-handheld consoles such as the Nintendo GameCube. Now Nintendo is going after emulator developers to either pay royalties or send them 'cease and desist' letters.
While reverse engineering and emulating is normally considered legal, emulators may violate other laws such as anti-piracy systems and intellectual property. Game cartridges can be considered copy-protected since one would need to build some sort of reader at least to read its contents. For example Nintendo has battled against the
Nintendo 64 emulator UltraHLE many years back as it allowed the
playback of copied game ROMs on a PC. Quakester2000 submitted the following news via our news submit :
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Nintendo's patent, number 6,672,963, was filed in November 2000 but only granted on 6 January this year. It is titled 'Software implementation of a handheld video game hardware platform'. The filing outlines a "software emulator for emulating a handheld video game platform on a low-capability target platform (eg. a seat-back display for airline or train use, a personal digital assistant, a cell phone)". It goes on to outline "a number of features and optimisations to provide high quality graphics and sound that nearly duplicates the game playing experience on the native platform." The choice of the phrase "low capability" is odd, since PDAs for one, tend to be more powerful than handheld gaming devices. So are PCs, yet the wording of the patent's claims suggests that it too could be covered by the patent. Interestingly, emulators targeting Nintendo's GameCube - ie. of non-handheld devices - are not covered by the patent. Canadian mobile software developer Crimson Fire would appear to be the first victim. On 5 March, it announced Firestorm, a GameBoy Advance emulator for Tapwave's Palm OS-based Zodiac handheld console. By 12 March, the day the emulator was due to ship, the company had already received a 'cease and desist' letter from Nintendo. While emulating is inherently legal - reverse engineering is permitted - the situation has always been murky with regard to game systems, since the act of emulation potentially violates intellectual property and anti-piracy systems. In any case, Nintendo has a history of aggressively targeting emulator developers since the late 1990s. Long-term readers will recall its battle against the N64 emulator UltraHLE. Its argument against UltraHLE centred on the emulator's fostering of the illegal duplication of game ROMs - essentially the same contributory copyright infringement charge Napster was hauled over the coals for. Nintendo makes the same claim against Crimson Fire, but this time has the added weight of patent violation. |
This seems like an unusual move to try and stop emulator developers from allowing consumers to playing back their hand-held games on unofficial equipment. Then again, there is one main difference between emulating software on CD and emulating software from a cartridge: In order for the consumer to use an emulator for a device that uses cartridges, they must either obtain unofficial copies of their games or get a cartridge reader to play their cartridges on the emulator. With game CDs and DVDs in most cases, the consumer can simply pop their original game CD in the drive to use it with their software emulator.
It would be interesting to see if anyone else has considered pantenting software that emulates CDs containing software for a different platform such as emulating playstation games on the XBox.
Source: The Register
