Why I'll Always Emulate Nintendo Games No Matter What... 

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Nintendo doesn't have Portuguese Subtitles for the Brazilian Community, but one day after the release the community was to able to translate the entire game. Now I can play emulated and translated, not dependent on the company

My rule is if it's not readily available, I'll emulate it. I'm not spending $200 on a copy of Paper Mario TTYD.

I think there should be a digital version of "public domain". Once a software that isn't being worked on, sold, or updated or anything anymore reaches a certain age, it should just be in the public domain and be perfectly legal to download.

Glad there’s a voice out there normalizing emulation, use to be such a taboo subject.

I hate that companies take advantage of emulation being a taboo so when people ask "How did you release a remaster that is worse than emulation?" their answer is "That version doesn't exist."

As long as they don't put Smash Melee on Switch with Online Features and an actual good Netcode, I will continue using Slippi. Yes, I bought Melee 20 years ago.. but I'm happy to be able to play one of my all time favorite games online with people all around the world thanks to emulation! Also Muta, make sure to finish Silent Hill 2 actually :P

“The easiest way to stop piracy is not by putting antipiracy technology to work. ... It's by giving those people a service that's better than what they're receiving from the pirates.” our lord and savior Gabe Newell

" piracy is a federal crime " *me with 17 pirated games on my pc:* oh no.

"Emulation doesn't hurt Nintendo, but I wish it did" - some absolute CHAD in a subreddit

"Emulation is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural.” - Papa Palpatine (Battlefront 2 Classic on the PS2)

the more people defend emulation the better

Welp. You know what they say: It’s never illegal to emulate ass years old Nintendo games if they charge you an abysmal price for it

I emulate them because it costs some of my PC’s storage instead of my entire life savings for a 10 year old game

"Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem” - Gabe Newell, 2011

If you think it's gratuitous or unfair that Metroid Dread and other new Switch games are already emulated, just remember the specs for the GameBoy Advance were so well-documented and heavily-leaked ahead of time that there was already a working emulator for it floating around the internet in 2000 nearly a year before you could buy the actual hardware.

We aren’t pirates, we’re preservationists and enthusiasts.

The first time I ran F-zero GX in Dolphin, with all the graphics enhancements, it brought tears to my eyes and child-like joy to my heart. God bless the talented people that make emulation possible. :')

What's surprising about Metroid dread running on emulators is that Metroid dread uses a newer version of the Nintendo Switch SDK with unknown changes and it runs quite well on emulators in spite of that.

There aren’t even any legit “museums” for gaming hardware or software etc. ppl who emulate or “pirate” are the only ones who preserve these old games for generations to come.

I remembered a take on Twitter that was basically "if you own the game, but not the console, it's still piracy".. like damn, so I'm a pirate for buying Super Metroid for the 3DS VC lol.

"Downloading ROMS and isos are illegal" Me downloading linux isos : oh shit

Muta is actually giving us subtle hints that he is the hack lord leader

Preservation is always intriguing to me when it comes to video games. I did notice how, even after Nintendo's Wi-Fi Connection service shut down in 2014, people are still able to play their DS and Wii games online and maintain that functionality with custom servers and whatnot. I would love to see you do a deep dive into this.

I work at a tiny indie studio that publishes stuff officially for the Switch -- we've absolutely used Switch emulators when trying to debug particularly odd glitches where the Switch GPU was crashing :)

"There's no doubt that people who use emulators probably also download a lot of ROMs." I don't know, it's almost as if Nintendumb should let me pay for and download an image of Metroid Prime or SSX right off of their website, kind of like how GOG handles it. Then maybe those torrent numbers would fly way down. If I wanted to play the PS2 version of Quake 3, or Fighting Force 2, or any Guitar Hero on that system, I can't get those from PSN. This is entirely a developer/publisher created problem, and they're using "Little Timmy copied Halo 1 from Little Billy" as a scapegoat.

Emulation is never a bad thing. In fact, we wouldn't be able to preserve said games without Emulation to begin with.

Man, I've been emulating old games since I was a kid and it really makes me happy that I can considering that some of the old games I wanna play are being physically resold by third party sellers for prices beyond belief. I hate to see it be a problem, it's pretty dumb.

I just finished Spider-Man 2 yesterday on the Dolphin emulator with HD textures, Widescreen and 60fps code, 4x upscaling. It was soooooooo much better than playing the original game on the original hardware.

I would've never gotten into the Megami Tensei series if I didn't emulate Persona 3 on pcsx2. In fact, a lot of my most magical memorable gaming experiences were through emulation. We're living in an age where people like me were basically raised on this stuff. It honestly feels kind of empowering.

The problem with Nintendo is that they're not a hardware/software company, but a toy company that just so happens to sell hardware/software. While software companies (especially entertainment-based ones) thrive from making their work as available and convenient as possible, toy companies love to manufacture scarcity and exploit FOMO. Look at all the limited-time things that Nintendo used to offer, like the NES/SNES classic, Mario All Stars 3D, and all those amiibos that they never supply enough of. It's no wonder why they despise external emulation so much. And to think that they're still regarded by some as the family-friendly gaming company, while they exploit their players so hard...

Playing Super Mario Sunshine currently lol mid level PC Yuzu works 60fps as well had to try it 😂 definitely have my main playthrough on Dolphin though as my original sunshine copy is so scratched my GameCube doesn’t read it anymore lol

Pirating old games that aren’t making companies money might even be a benefit because it might bring in new fans

It’s crazy to think I’ve watched this dude since I was like 13 and am now 21, I remember showing my brother him. It’s been crazy to see the growth

For me, if the game is not available on any modern system for sale and it’s ridiculously overpriced, I just use an emulator.

"It's tough being a Metriod fan" F-Zero fans say hi...

Sorry Muta, I've been burned too many times. I'm sailing the high seas exclusively to do a demo, and if the game is good I will buy it. But AAA publishers have gotten too lazy and greedy, that way if the game is shit then I don't have buyers remorse. If they want this to stop, release completed and fully functioning games ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Nintendo represents japan, they stuck in their glorious past.

I’m surprised Nintendo is still looking down on emulators, even though half of the games people emulate are next to impossible to track down. Meanwhile, PeTA’s monstrosities that they try to push as games still exist and Nintendo hasn’t bothered to even try to take them down.

There is a big grey area when it comes to the ROMs and ISOs. I get them from the internet archive. They have written a legal opinion that they are to be considered abandonware and to date they have not had a case against them. I think given the companies realize that it could be the nail in the dmca coffin if they were to actually get a ruling since the archive actually has current dmca immunity for certain abandonware and it is still in legal limbo.

Buuut Mewda, Nintendo is offering you a way to play your olden times game completely legal now. $85 only

Nintendo doesn't always offer what can be emulated. I would have gladly paid them, but even then it would probably be locked at 30 fps unless I emulated.

Somehow I don't believe Mutahar actually uses Raycons as his everyday earbuds, even when he's on the go.

Emulation is the one of the reasons why Metroid Dread can get this much of a wide market appeal at it's release - I would guess atleast 70% of the people who have purchased Dread have emulated a metroid title at some point

Emulation is becoming mandatory as we see like remasters or new editions of old games get censored/broken and therefore impossible to play without issues whereas original releases work flawlessly

For context of the Silent Hill HD Collection. Konami gave the team doing the collection an Alpha build of SH2 and just went, "here you, we'll see you in a month"

Good man! People should buy their new games but until Nintendo puts some effort into their emulation tech and back catalogue, there's no incentive for the customer to abandon emulation. Nintendo, there are many ROM sites/sources out there. You can never stop them all. Instead of endless legal battles, you should simply add content they don't have. Add a new GP to Super Mario Kart or a new world to Mario World etc etc. Next, swallow your silly pride, call up BSnes and buy their emulation tech so you can monopolize that fancy HD Mode 7. Boom! Done! You can now compete with emulation and make real $$$ doing it!

Thanks for your time editing and making these

"I dont want a metroid game every 5 years, i want it to be like zelda" So, the same?

this is the best take on emulation. as long as you buy the game run it however u want!!

Steam makes games available and easy to access and download. piracy and emulation rates drop drastically wow what a concept

I'm a Translator and I play my own dumps. What got me into emulation is region locking originally, then it turned into finding games in Thrift Stores, online like Amazon or Ebay, etc. I back up my games for later translation on an emulator and at times, I won't find it until a few months when it's listed again. Another reason I emulate games is due to translation or using save states, slow motion on some for very difficult games as I am focused on translation over proving I can beat it. The other part is the controller, I get one controller for everything instead of too many. When taking a break or real life comes up, I pause the software and come back to it with input recording on and I can later render it in HD. I can't do that on a console.

Honestly, the only thing I never understood when it comes to this whole thing is the stance when it comes to downloading ROMs from websites, like, just downloading them from somewhere on the internet and not having the actual disc/cartridge/whatever with you along with any external software to extract whatever you need to play the game on an emulator; I've been kind of hesitant when it comes to pirating in general nowadays and have been considering actually buying stuff upfront instead of relying exclusively on it, but I'm poor and don't have any actual income outside of what I get from my family, so rn it's just hard for me to even think about something like that lol

Pff, one of the best experiences I had with emulation was after the fact I dumped my 3DS games to Citra emulator and played Ocarina of Time and Monster Hunter 4U with HD texture packs full screen, absolutely gorgeous games, and the best part was that my 3DS save files were fully compatible with the emulator and vice versa.

I support piracy of all first-party Nintendo games.

It sucks being a Nintendo fan at times. It’s difficult supporting a company that seems to be so anti-consumer. It hurts seeing them do things like refusing to acknowledge the physical problems with their products, flat-out SUING their own fans directly for emulating games they themselves haven’t sold in decades, and be unable to release reasonably-priced products at a reasonable rate (especially when it comes to old games they own like Earthbound or Super Mario All-Stars). These aren’t just minor problems you can pin down on one person/a few people. These problems are company-wide. It seems like it’ll be a LONG time before they learn better and start treating consumers reasonably. On the other hand, as a person that happily emulates every game I already own -and some I don’t,- it also sucks being on the side of the pirates. Emulating games you genuinely don’t have access to because the game is rare or too expensive in the second-hand market is one thing, but acting like you’re being righteous for pirating games is just obnoxious. For example, I’ve been a fan of Jim Sterling for a while, but she’s been really obnoxious in recent times with how often she acts like pirating games is something heroic or morally superior. To not single her out, even the comments in Muta’s videos about the topic have been filled with these tacky comments. On the Metroid Dread video, I remember seeing someone argue that pirating Metroid Dread is good because... Nintendo already has money. That’s the entire reason. I can’t even begin to talk about every problem a statement this stupid has, and I hope anyone reading this doesn’t need me to say why. Anyways, terms like “X is good, actually” and “late-stage capitalism” are just ruined for me. I can’t even hear them without imagining a liberal I mostly agree with that’s about to drop one of the shittiest takes I have ever heard _again._ I guess I have to pick a side if I want the situation to improve, and I guess I’d rather be on the side of the consumers (even if some of them can be very obnoxious). I just wish Nintendo had the wisdom to move past this. They have the ability to fix everything here. They just need to make old games available and affordable. Mix the eShop AND the NSO instead of choosing only one. Give the consumer options. Want to play offline, or end your NSO subscription but still be able to play Super Metroid? Just buy it for $5. And for God’s sake, make every old game available at once. Don’t add 2-4 games every couple of months. Add the entire library of N64 games Nintendo owns the rights to all at once, and then start focusing on the libraries of other consoles. And don’t make it cost $50 for some god-forsaken reason. It wouldn’t be a good price even then. Nintendo needs to realize they’re losing all of the good-will they have gotten out of their fans with all of these predatory business decisions, and they won’t always be able to release good games to patch up this relationship. Their boat may be going fast, but it’s running on fumes.

Thank you so much Muta. I'm currently on a business trip until friday (Listening to synthwave in my spare time funnily enough) I appreciate the long vid. Really made me feel at home.

Honestly if I knew how to dump my cartridges, I would’ve been playing three houses on my PC in 144 FPS long ago

On the topic of split screen, would love to see a talking point for Nucleus Coop!

Hey, love the content. Quick question, when is part 5 and 6 of yours and coffee's series going to drop?

27:27 That speech is so moving ❤

Great vid, as always, Muta! People really need to stop acting like downloading ROMs for games that are 20, 25, 30 years old (whether or not you own them) is the same as downloading ROMs of games that are 11 days old like Metroid Dread. They are not even remotely in the same ballpark and this shows just how over the knee a lot of people are to these corporations and their drivel. To get a current-gen game like Metroid Dread or Breath of the Wild to the state that it is currently purchasable in an official capacity by the developer and/or publisher, it takes tons of time, money, effort, resources, etc. to do so. Therefore, downloading a ROM of these games at this point when you don't own them is legit piracy and pretty messed up because it communicates to the developers (especially when many do so) that all that is worth nothing to you. In contrast, very few games (as a percentage of the total) that are, again, 20, 25, 30 years old are available to purchase in any official capacity whatsoever (especially since Virtual Console stopped being a thing, unless if you like to settle for just renting out games lmao), so your only option most of the time is to either buy them from some reseller on eBay (which, trust me, 0% of that money is going to the developer or publisher) or to, gasp!, download a ROM of the game. But even for the very few that are available for "officially sanctioned purchase", how much "effort" did it take to get these games to their current purchasable state (I'm not talking about the original development cycle that was done decades ago and already been compensated handsomely for long, long ago, but things like putting them on compilations, VC when that existed, PSN classics, etc. in the current age)? Putting a few ROMs on a cartridge? Paying out some licensing fees that equate to about $20 for you or I (keep in mind that these are multi-million/billion dollar corporations that make, in a week, at least tenfold what many of us make in an entire year or two, and that's on a bad week for them)? Doesn't really seem equatable, huh, especially when you consider that these same corporations nickel and dime more out of us in much worse ways on as much as a weekly basis at times. Drastic subscription price hikes for no good reason here. Microtransactions there. Paywalls for basic game features here. Asking for $60 to do glorified beta testing there. Lying to consumers here. Milking fans' wallets dry there. Need I go on? When they nickel and dime us, it sucks but "what can you do", but when we "nickel and dime" them, it's immoral and should be a crime? It's cyber-terrorism, even? Wake up, people! Nintendo's not going to go bankrupt or even suffer in any way if you download a ROM of Ocarina of Time. It won't even be a blip on their radar. They're just happy that they have so many captive sycophants under their thumb, willing to do their bidding and accept their corporate talking points hook, line, and sinker.

Always great to see someone defending emulation, enjoying the benefits of it, and pointing out many of said benefits. Thanks to Dolphin, I'm finally playing games like Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles the proper way: with 4 players. I had the game back in the day, but not a GBA. And I barely knew anyone else at the time who had one, despite it apparently being really popular. Also, some disc-based games had annoying or even unbearable load times, and these can be more or less skipped via emulation, even if you just have a regular hard drive.

I don't remember exactly what subreddit it was but I casually mentioned emulating old games and preservation being a part of it and was super surprised at the hostility and accusations of entitlement....like...seriously? people would prefer to live in a world where the only way to access old games is to invest hundreds of dollars in 30 year old hardware? for what? who does that benefit? and I OWN and play all my actual SNES games on the actual hardware too...I'm not pro piracy but there is nuance in some cases

Man, I honestly forgot about Silent Hill HD Collection until this video brought it up again. I can't get over how they had to go and tamper the voices with Silent Hill 2 and 3 and just get rid of some of the charm that they carried. Even though they did allow original audio for Silent Hill 2, I still hated that they didn't allow original audio for Silent Hill 3 as that was my all time favorite in the series. Same time, can't forget about the broken boss sequence where the first time you're supposed to fight Pyramid Head, the AI doesn't even work correctly lmao.

Thank you muta I was waiting all day for this 🙏🏾

Daaamn hit me with the double ad before the vid and then a 3rd at the beginning of the vid. Muta rich af.

I take the same approach to emulation as game companies do, "It's ok if I do it"

Emulation will always exist in some way or another, no matter what a game company wants or thinks

You and me are almost the same about talking emulation, my heart die when Arcade gabinets was no more in my country, but in my Pc can revive those wonderful time.

im gonna go on the record and say this rn. ive never saw emulating as a bad thing. I was first told about it by a friend of my family's when he was playing Pokemon emerald on his pc. that was about 6 years ago. now I happily play the old Pokemon games and what not. ive always noticed the hard facts you give and honesty too. now im just waiting for someone out there to emulate Midnight Club 3 remix & Dub Edition, L.A Rush and Juiced. those were my favourite original xbox games growing up.

I would love to watch you stream SH2.

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker on the game cube had an attachment were you connect you Gameboy and could use it to find treasures underwater. :D

If I already bought the console at the time of its release and bought the game at that time as well, I can't see why I can't download the bios from any source and the roms for the games I already bought anytime I want and play.

It's like you're reading my mind, That disturbs me greatly yet I can't look away.

Quickly becoming one of my favorite RU-vidrs this guy rarely misses the mark

Based you should do a tech vid on setting up multiplayer on older games (maybe Dreamcast)

Piracy is good for getting rare anime and games. Like a bunch of rental release only 80s anime. Stuff like that would be lost without piracy

i love the thumbnail. it looks like Jerry N***A WHAT face meme

The thing I never understood is what is the difference between downloading an ISO of the Digimon World 2 copy next to me or just dumping it myself? I still have the original copy I bought when I was a kid, I just saved myself some effort.

I'm starting to think Muta emulates his games

the first no more heroes and it's PS3 remake had a song named "Heavenly star" which was copyrighted and used some times Sylvia was on screen, and on subsequent releases like the switch and PC versions got the song removed because of licensing issues

I just noticed Muta isn't bluring his TV refection anymore.

Super Mario Advance 4 on the Wii U Virtual Console also has the e-Reader stuff which is very cool

You know Nintendo shills that think emulation is the devil are so down horrendous that muta has to make a 30 min video to explain why it's better than the lowest option Nintendo gives us on the switch

I like emulating games that I can’t play in my region. Some games I play in Spanish because I enjoy the voice acting more and I can’t do that without emulating those same games but that were made for the Spanish speaking market.

Oho, 30min, time to make some popcorn, this is gonna be good!

I do love the fact that Muta is wearing a backwards cap like Fred Durst

I’m currently emulating harvest moon a wonderful life game cube edition : D

RU-vidr: this video is sponsored by Raycons Dankpods viewers: crying

I really need to get back to ROM hunting. I've found so many lost PC games that I didn't get a chance to play during my nightly searches.

When you mentioned companies releasing the mini consoles, would you also count collection games like Sonic Mega Collection and Sonic Gems Collection?

Gonna sound a bit odd on this one, but I wish someone could find a way to emulate the older versions of iOS. Im a huge fan of the Ace Combat series, and there is a whole frikin game that was exclusive to older versions of iOS (which was so different fron modern iOS, modern iOS can't even run the app files when jailbroken). Not to mention classics like Tap Tap Revenge, Jelly Car, and 2 (yes, 2) Crash Bandicoot racing games. These games weren't ported to android, and, at best, got a lackluster port to some odd game system or another, often with botched controls. The best way to play any of the Jelly Car games nowadays, is the port of Jelly Car 2 to the Wii, which you can play through Dolphin. But if you want an example of what will happen when you leave your games to a tight fisted company, look no farther than Apple and realize without emulation, one day many of the things you love will die and go away. Don't end up like an Apple fanboy, or one day you will wake up to find games you want to play gone, and no way to play them.

The only time I’ve ever pirated a game was sims 4 because it costs you more then 700 dollars to get all of the expansions

EXACTLY.........can't pirate something that's dead. Can't pirate something of which you cannot buy (anymore).

The last game system I played was the ps2. This video has reignited my love for the games of that system. I had no idea all these things were available. I have so many discs for my ps2 but I'm afraid to play them too often because once they get damaged I won't be able to play them anymore. Thank you for the PSA Muta!

I was originally going to wait until a few months after release to buy Dread but because of Kotaku I went and bought it right away as it's one of my favourite Nintendo IPS

I'd rather buy an old console off a family that needs the money more than the console, and support those who need it, rather than buying a new Nintendo console for the 200+ game ports they suck their own genitals over. Even emulation can be forgiven at this point from the sheer incompetence I've seen 🤦🏻‍♂️

I had a dream last night where you threw hands with stromedy and it was absolutely amazing

Respect. From one fan to another. The 19 years I had to wait was well worth it, and I hope it is for you.