I stumbled across a website recently that sells reproductions of mostly NES games. I looked at everything that they had, and saw a really nice reproduction of EarthBound. I was wanting to add it to my christmas list.
Then a thought hit me, is it legal to own one of these? I’ve since then been doing countless searches, reading forum and blog posts about the subject. With no real results, they all seem to be written by people that really don’t know what they are talking about.
Is it legal to own/buy a reproduction cart of the unreleased NES version of EarthBound? It seems like it would be since it was never released in all, but I really don’t have any clue. So thats what brought me here, to finally clear things up once and for all. Any answers would be greatly appreciated.
The pictures below is what the repro carts look like, incase anyone was curious.
Attachments:
VirtualJockey wrote:
I played through Earthbound “Zero” on a GBA flashcart many years ago. Yes it’s absolutely not a legal form of ownership to own one and especially not legal to manufacture them. However, it’s a great game and Nintendo did no justice by canning the release and never offering an official alternative.
There is no legal way to own this game. Even if you shell out over 1k on eBay when an offifial proto pops up, it’s PROPERTY of Nintendo or the developers.All in all, Mother 1/NES Earthbound is one of the top 10 games ever made for the console. Fans have screamed bloody murder for at least a decade to get this released, but it seems that Hal and Nintendo don’t want our money.
Yeah. It doesn’t make since why haven’t released the game on Virtual Console or anything. Like you said they just don’t want our money apparently.
I’ve been wanting to play the Earthbound games for years, and the first one would be a good place to start, especially on it’s own cartridge.
So Earthbound NES/Mother 1, is one of your top ten games ever made for the console. Just for curiousity what are the other nine?
VirtualJockey wrote:
VBrulez wrote:
Yeah. It doesn’t make since why haven’t released the game on Virtual Console or anything. Like you said they just don’t want our money apparently.I’ve been wanting to play the Earthbound games for years, and the first one would be a good place to start, especially on it’s own cartridge.
So Earthbound NES/Mother 1, is one of your top ten games ever made for the console. Just for curiousity what are the other nine?
My personal top 10 would be difficult. Lets just say the obvious classics such as Super Mario Bros 1 & 3, The Legend of Zelda, Metroid, the entire Mega Man series, and other misc titles that are personally nostalgic to me. Mother 1 is one of those titles that would have been considered a classic to all had it been released.
L___E___T wrote:
and what’s more, the NES repro guy is charging for parts and labour.Good point.
It’s about as illegal as jay-walking I’d say.
You know, I’ve actually got a jay-walking ticket before!? It blew my mind.
Nintendo make it a policy not to chase after and punish fan activity like this. It all enriches their name and community and is not deriving them of major income, so please don’t feel like their seething at the thought of this. They didn’t want to invest in it themselves because Earthbound is NOT massive in the West despite what teh internetz would suggest – but they’re certainly not going to shut anyone down over it.
I wouldn’t be so certain, in recent years the big N has been removing VB roms from websites. Lets hope that it’s due to the possible intention of adding them to the 3DS Virtual Console.
Like L__E__T wrote, the you arn’t buying a ROM. Your paying for the craftsmenship used to build the cart.
These games are carts for systems that haven’t been sold in stores for almost twenty years. It’s not like it’s new games. If it was new stuff, it would be wrong and illegal on both ends, and the people making the games would be arrested.
I saw this Youtube video of a news segment, where people who made and sold pirated PS1 games when they were new, got tracked down and arrested, because the games were still in stores. Eventhough PS1 games arn’t in stores anymore, I think that copys/reproductions of anything PS1 and newer is illegal.
It seems that if these reproduction sites of old games haven’t been busted and shut down like those pirated PS1 sites on that Youtube video, it doesen’t seem like they ever will. Because if reproductions of old games was really piracy and so bad, wouldn’t they have been arrested, like those PS1 people?
It’s a old system you can’t buy anymore, not a new one you can walk into Walmart and get.
VBrulez wrote:
Like L__E__T wrote, the you arn’t buying a ROM. Your paying for the craftsmenship used to build the cart.
These games are carts for systems that haven’t been sold in stores for almost twenty years. It’s not like it’s new games. If it was new stuff, it would be wrong and illegal on both ends, and the people making the games would be arrested.
I saw this Youtube video of a news segment, where people who made and sold pirated PS1 games when they were new, got tracked down and arrested, because the games were still in stores. Eventhough PS1 games arn’t in stores anymore, I think that copys/reproductions of anything PS1 and newer is illegal.
It seems that if these reproduction sites of old games haven’t been busted and shut down like those pirated PS1 sites on that Youtube video, it doesn’t seem like they ever will. Because if reproductions of old games was really piracy and so bad, wouldn’t they have been arrested, like those PS1 people?
It’s a old system you can’t buy anymore, not a new one you can walk into Walmart and get.
You seem to be directing your argument to me personally, unless I’m mistaken. I myself don’t care about vintage pirated games and am enthusiastic about the VB dev scene.
As a matter of fact, I find vintage bootlegs to be one of the coolest affordable classic gaming items to collect. While the Big N to my knowledge hasn’t cracked down on the Flashboy or the Bound High repros, Nintendo certainly has cracked down on Virtual Boy roms. Repro carts are just roms put onto a donor cart or flash cart. While reproductions of unloved and dismissed games is certainly meant for the benefit of gamers, I simply meant in the word of law it is still illegal. In the eyes of the law, there is no argument. In the eyes of sanity and reasoning, of course there is little reason these big conglomerates should care about these old and abandoned ignored games.
It’s harder to DL Galactic Pinball today than it was last year, and it’s easier to DL Bound High than it was…ever!
Whether to stroke their egos or to actually re-release a great game, Big companies exercise their rights to snuff out intellectual property rights more than we would dare have a nightmare about. I played Space invaders and Virtual lab before I bought it. These days, you just have to buy it to try it out.
While a fan making you an illegal Earthound Zero cart from a ROM at no monetary gain is pleasant, to gauge actual law on realistic personal desires vs NOA’s Vengeance on the collector’s community is a completely different monster.
Every month that passes that VB games don’t show up on the 3DS virtual console is just another month that makes me dislike Nintendo more for their unexcused 20-30 year old piracy crackdown on vintage titles that they have no intention of re-releasing.
VirtualJockey wrote:
VBrulez wrote:
Like L__E__T wrote, the you arn’t buying a ROM. Your paying for the craftsmenship used to build the cart.
These games are carts for systems that haven’t been sold in stores for almost twenty years. It’s not like it’s new games. If it was new stuff, it would be wrong and illegal on both ends, and the people making the games would be arrested.
I saw this Youtube video of a news segment, where people who made and sold pirated PS1 games when they were new, got tracked down and arrested, because the games were still in stores. Eventhough PS1 games arn’t in stores anymore, I think that copys/reproductions of anything PS1 and newer is illegal.
It seems that if these reproduction sites of old games haven’t been busted and shut down like those pirated PS1 sites on that Youtube video, it doesn’t seem like they ever will. Because if reproductions of old games was really piracy and so bad, wouldn’t they have been arrested, like those PS1 people?
It’s a old system you can’t buy anymore, not a new one you can walk into Walmart and get.You seem to be directing your argument to me personally, unless I’m mistaken. I myself don’t care about vintage pirated games and am enthusiastic about the VB dev scene.
As a matter of fact, I find vintage bootlegs to be one of the coolest affordable classic gaming items to collect. While the Big N to my knowledge hasn’t cracked down on the Flashboy or the Bound High repros, Nintendo certainly has cracked down on Virtual Boy roms. Repro carts are just roms put onto a donor cart or flash cart. While reproductions of unloved and dismissed games is certainly meant for the benefit of gamers, I simply meant in the word of law it is still illegal. In the eyes of the law, there is no argument. In the eyes of sanity and reasoning, of course there is little reason these big conglomerates should care about these old and abandoned ignored games.
It’s harder to DL Galactic Pinball today than it was last year, and it’s easier to DL Bound High than it was…ever!
Whether to stroke their egos or to actually re-release a great game, Big companies exercise their rights to snuff out intellectual property rights more than we would dare have a nightmare about. I played Space invaders and Virtual lab before I bought it. These days, you just have to buy it to try it out.
While a fan making you an illegal Earthound Zero cart from a ROM at no monetary gain is pleasant, to gauge actual law on realistic personal desires vs NOA’s Vengeance on the collector’s community is a completely different monster.
Every month that passes that VB games don’t show up on the 3DS virtual console is just another month that makes me dislike Nintendo more for their unexcused 20-30 year old piracy crackdown on vintage titles that they have no intention of re-releasing.
I was not directing my arguement towards you, or anyone. Eventhough it’s piracy, would it be illegal for someone to own what some would call a pirated cart?
VBrulez wrote:
Since it souldn’t be illegal to own the cart, I will add EarthBound to my list then. It sucks and I’m sorry to hear how you paid authentic prices for pirated carts. There are to many greedy jerks that do stuff like that. Taking advantage of these reproduction sites and then listing a game on ebay as original knowing someone who doesn’t know will buy it.A bootleg VB cart, seems like something that would exist. There is supposed to be something called the Hong Kong Module. It was supposed to be a all in one multicart, that had every game including protos on it. But it’s only rumored to exist, and if it did, there would atleast be a picture or video of it someware to prove it. Maybe you will find a bootleg cart to add to your collection one day, they might end up on ebay eventully. It’s suprising how they haven’t already, because of the current prices on many of the games. With the physical architecture, it could probably be reproduced very cheaply now, if game pirates know what they are doing.
The Hong Kong Unit doesn’t exist, at least it have never EVER shown up for sale in the past 14 years.
Nice new Avatar, BTW.
VirtualJockey wrote:
VBrulez wrote:
Since it souldn’t be illegal to own the cart, I will add EarthBound to my list then. It sucks and I’m sorry to hear how you paid authentic prices for pirated carts. There are to many greedy jerks that do stuff like that. Taking advantage of these reproduction sites and then listing a game on ebay as original knowing someone who doesn’t know will buy it.A bootleg VB cart, seems like something that would exist. There is supposed to be something called the Hong Kong Module. It was supposed to be a all in one multicart, that had every game including protos on it. But it’s only rumored to exist, and if it did, there would atleast be a picture or video of it someware to prove it. Maybe you will find a bootleg cart to add to your collection one day, they might end up on ebay eventully. It’s suprising how they haven’t already, because of the current prices on many of the games. With the physical architecture, it could probably be reproduced very cheaply now, if game pirates know what they are doing.
The Hong Kong Unit doesn’t exist, at least it have never EVER shown up for sale in the past 14 years.
Nice new Avatar, BTW.
It didn’t seem like it was real anyway.
Thanks for liking my new avatar. That big Nesters Funky Bowling display box you have is pretty awesome. Nesters Funky Bowling is awesome and so is everything VB releated to it.
