XNA hobbyist brings NES game emulation to Xbox 360

Game emulation in and of itself isn't necessarily a malicious or illegal concept: it's only when pirated ROMs enter the equation that things become legally questionable. Despite the apparent innocence of emulation, we're almost certain that Microsoft's position regarding the efforts of one "Lone Coder," who managed to port a NES emulator called SharpNES to the Xbox 360 using XNA Studio Express, would be a hostile one were it not for the fact that to use it requires a Creators Club account at $99 / year. The prospect of people running NES games willy-nilly on their Xbox 360s without the barrier of having to part with hard earned cash would no doubt have been hard to bear for the corporate giant, despite the claimed lack of competition between Microsoft and Nintendo, and the relative antiquity of the emulated platform. It'll also be interesting to see whether Nintendo will do anything about this: as we've mentioned before, it could be argued that this is entirely legal as long as the pirated ROMs don't join the party, although we wouldn't be surprised if the problem of people playing Nintendo games on a rival console, at the same time as Nintendo is trying to re-sell them via their Virtual Console, resulted in Reggie & Co. ordering a C&D. Currently the SharpNES port is running at between 60 and 70 percent of normal speed, and support for a second controller, sound, saving state, and a ROM loading menu -- changing ROM requires a teensy bit of tweaking -- is missing, so this probably isn't the best solution for playing a bit of Super Mario Bros anyway.

[Via Xbox-Scene]

[John @ Jan 27th 2007 6:37PM]

The folks at Microsoft were geniuses to license XNA to the public.

[Lucas @ Jan 27th 2007 6:55PM]

"Currently the SharpNES port is running at between 60 and 70 percent of normal"

What amuses me is how an emulation of an antiquated system always seems to run slow on hardware decades more advanced.

[Tavis Veighey @ Jan 27th 2007 7:26PM]

My xbox seems to emulate an NES just fine. And when I emulate a PSX it only occotionally stutters.

[Will @ Jan 27th 2007 9:40PM]

Lucas, then you try writing a 6502 CPU and tell everyone about your adventure here later.

[jpxdude @ Jan 27th 2007 7:44PM]

People...

Just stick to vNes:

http://virtualnes.com/

I wonder if anyone that has a Wii or PS3 can confirm if vNes works for them?

[Daikon @ Jan 27th 2007 8:32PM]

What a nonsense, there are no legal issues here.
Emulators are 100% legal as long as no copyrighted code or roms are included with the emulator.
Furthermore, if Microsoft doesn't want anyone creating emulators for the X360 with XNA then they should put a clause regarding this in their end user agreement.

[Chad @ Jan 27th 2007 10:53PM]

Daikon, he said that emulators are legal, the legal issues only come up when illegal rom's are used.

[wabguard-email @ Jan 27th 2007 8:46PM]

I love how Microsoft is requiring anyone who wants to play a custom game to pay for it. That will only SLOW the development of games from the open source community. I would jump right in and start myself, if I knew anyone could download it and play it. Leave it to Microsoft to always keep the almighty $$$ in mind.

[dps @ Jan 28th 2007 1:51PM]

Writing or using an Emulator is just as illegal as roms are you jerks. It's because the copyright. Just visit theesa.com to find out more.

[Will @ Jan 28th 2007 10:49PM]

(rolls eyes) Using an emulator isn't illegal. You either work for the ESA, a closed-minded developer, or just someone who doesn't think outside of the box.

[macona @ Jan 29th 2007 2:11PM]

When connectix wrote the Virtual Playstation for mac Sony tried to sue them. Connectix had completely reverse engineered the system without using any ill gotten information and they documented the entire process. The judge sent Sony packin'. Emulators are perfectly legal. If you have a copy of the ROM and you dont have a original cartridge that is illegal.

[serotoninzero @ Jan 30th 2007 3:58AM]

How could an emulator possibly be illegal?

[Brandon Paddock @ Feb 5th 2007 8:49PM]

Wabguard -

You do realize that the having to be a member of the Creator's Club in order to play XNA games is almost certainly temporary - right? The subscription, as its name implies, if for *creators* not players.