While the idea of playing your favorite retro games via modern consoles on your TV or, in the case of the Nintendo Switch, on the go in an entirely official way is fantastic, the sad fact of the matter is that the opportunity to do just that rarely comes up. We’ll get into why that’s a complicated argument in a bit, but the basic idea is that some gamers just look down on those who always talk about their morally and legally ambiguous collections of emulated retro titles.įurthermore, while some fans may see emulation as the optimal way to access all the retro games they could ever want, others simply say that playing those games on a mobile platform, PC, or homebrewed device just isn’t nearly as convenient as using one of their existing consoles to play those games in their living rooms in a more official way. In the minds of some fans, emulating retro games is only a couple of steps removed from pirating modern games. However, concerns about emulation go beyond potential legal consequences. That’s especially true of Nintendo who has aggressively pursued ROM websites and similar services. While emulation may exist in a kind of legal grey area in many parts of the world (the legality of emulating video games really depends on the specifics of the process and your role in it), it’s pretty clear that many game companies look down on unofficial emulations and the websites and users who support that practice. That’s where the conversation gets tricky. Well, initial impressions of the service’s features and functionality suggest that fans may have had good reason to worry about not just the price increase but what they are getting for their money. While just about everyone assumed that Nintendo would eventually launch a new “tier” for their online service that included access to additional retro titles, fans immediately wondered whether Nintendo would find a way to justify the Expansion Pack’s price ($50 a year compared to the base Switch Online service’s $20 a year subscription fee). The Expansion Pack service (which officially launched last night) has been divisive from the start.
It does not store any personal data.Nintendo finally launched the Expansion Pack upgrade option for Nintendo Switch Online (which includes access to a small collection of Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis games as well as the upcoming Happy Home Paradise DLC for New Horizons), and the service’s initial struggles remind us why emulators remain an important (if controversial) part of the modern gaming industry. The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary". The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
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