Book of Nintendo: Thou Shalt Not Emulate

By  |  Friday, May 8, 2009 at 5:32 pm

intellivisionIf we can all agree that an Intellivision compilation for the Nintendo DSi would have been pretty neat, than we can all mourn together, because it’s not happening.

The reasoning is most peculiar. Nintendo says games from two of its virtual storefronts, WiiWare and DSiWare, must not run under emulation — that is, software that pretends to be hardware, such as an old game console. So while Nintendo will happily let you buy old video games through the Wii’s Virtual Console, it’s not cool for third parties to do the same on their own, at least according to Intellivision rights holder Keith Robinson.

IGN, which broke the story, has already performed the necessary speculation, wondering if this news foreshadows a store for classic games on the DS. With no comment so far from Nintendo, you can’t read into the story any further than that.

Still, this is disappointing given DSiWare’s track record so far. The most recent update to the store consisted of an Animal Crossing-themed clock and calculator, and most of the actual games are derivatives of existing Nintendo DS or Game Boy Advance releases. It’s certainly not the hub of unique indie games that WiiWare has been since launch.

It’s worth noting, as IGN does, that Apple has already approved the compilation, officially dubbed Intellivision Lives!, for the iPhone and iPod Touch. I hope Nintendo shifts DSiWare into gear and starts competing.

 
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3 Comments For This Post

  1. Stilgar Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 4:31 pm

    Astrosmash + DSi = fail 🙁

  2. Tim Conneally Says:
    May 9th, 2009 at 10:07 pm

    Well, they did make Intellivision Lives! for Gamecube a few years ago….and you can play that on Wii, so that’s something.

    http://www.mobygames.com/game/gamecube/intellivision-lives-

    It kind of sucks though, the keypad emulation is a supreme hassle. DS could have fixed that, but oh well.

  3. Stilgar Says:
    May 11th, 2009 at 5:44 am

    Even though they’re all from the old Intellivision crew, the emulators really aren’t that hot because it’s not easy to emulate the controller. The Intellivision controller was a 16-directional controller — all the other hardware is eight. This is why I have an old Intv I in my basement 🙂

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  1. Intellivision Collection Deemed Unfit for Gamestop Says:
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    […] are best enjoyed in small doses between larger, cartridge-based games. It’s too bad Nintendo already threw out that idea for DSiWare.   Comments are closed tweetmeme_style = 'compact'; tweetmeme_url = […]