Check out the trailer for the Virtual Boy: Nintendo Classics, a chance to finally play classic Nintendo Virtual Boy games on your Nintendo Switch 2. 14 class...
Like everyone else here, I’ve got no love for Nintendo’s business practices, but the owner of the software having officially endorsed ways of playing their stuff on modern devices (let alone replications of original hardware, like with their old controller releases) has basically always been a good thing, both for average Joe consumer that’s interested in game history and doesn’t know what a ROM is, and for the emulation community who wouldn’t ever pay for this stuff but can often build off the tech (or educate us on the problems with it). Is any of this the ideal? Of course not, locking ancient games being a subscription is typical megacorp horseshit. But a kid being able to pick up a brand new Switch 2 and play Game Boy Arkanoid and Virtual Boy Teleroboxer on it is something.
Art of all forms shouldn’t be virtually inaccessible to the masses outside of methods of questionable legality (although, make no mistake, I think those methods are good too, and these things can coexist).
Whether or not the games are objectively “good” or popular is totally beside the point. Just because I can easily download a pirated version of some forgotten 80’s b-movie doesn’t mean it’s not a good thing when it finds some form of new life through an overpriced official boutique blu-ray release.
Like everyone else here, I’ve got no love for Nintendo’s business practices, but the owner of the software having officially endorsed ways of playing their stuff on modern devices (let alone replications of original hardware, like with their old controller releases) has basically always been a good thing, both for average Joe consumer that’s interested in game history and doesn’t know what a ROM is, and for the emulation community who wouldn’t ever pay for this stuff but can often build off the tech (or educate us on the problems with it). Is any of this the ideal? Of course not, locking ancient games being a subscription is typical megacorp horseshit. But a kid being able to pick up a brand new Switch 2 and play Game Boy Arkanoid and Virtual Boy Teleroboxer on it is something.
Art of all forms shouldn’t be virtually inaccessible to the masses outside of methods of questionable legality (although, make no mistake, I think those methods are good too, and these things can coexist).
Whether or not the games are objectively “good” or popular is totally beside the point. Just because I can easily download a pirated version of some forgotten 80’s b-movie doesn’t mean it’s not a good thing when it finds some form of new life through an overpriced official boutique blu-ray release.