did sony/nintendo/sega/etc develop their own emulators?

[eriol33]

hi guys, I'm just wondering since I couldn't discussion about this. sony, nintendo, sega, and many other video game publishers have published their classic games in emulation (such as nes classic, mega drive classic, etc) now I'm wondering, did they develop their own emulator or they simply just took any open source software available and rebrand them as "game"?

 

[Foxi4]

Some classics like the Sonic Classic Collection are repurposed homebrew emulators, others are original content. That said, whatever the case may be, the creators of the content get their share, as specified in the software license.

 

[eriol33]

is there any article about that? I'm really interested to read the reaction from the emulator makers (or whoever know the truth behind the re-released classics) whose software were used by the publishers.

 

[Foxi4]

is there any article about that? I'm really interested to read the reaction from the emulator makers (or whoever know the truth behind the re-released classics) whose software were used by the publishers.

Usually extatic, because that means that they get credited and find a well-paid job, which was the case with Sonic Classic Collection and the jNesisDS developer, Lordus (Stephan Dittrich). Pretty sure that PS1 virtualization on the PSP was also made by a previously homebrew coder, I'm not sure who though... What I do know is that some developers of Bleem! later got jobs at Sony, this includes Sean Kauppinen and Randy Linden.

 

[Zarxrax]

Didn't the contra game on ds use nesds to emulate the nes games?

 

[FAST6191]

Another link for the curious
http://waxy.org/2004/07/jaleco_borrows/

I dislike linking wikipedia but it has links to a few more
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PocketNES

As Foxi4 said ore than one emu author has also got a job off the back of their efforts in such things.

There are also things like
http://sev-notes.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/gpl-scummvm-and-violations.html

Dosbox is also commonly used by a lot of companies from ID to Lucasarts.

Not all emulator authors share the same opinions though, the GCW people have had some things they could not release because of licensing issues.

 

[eriol33]

that's very interesting! actually I love to read more of these, but seems nobody interested. oh well, at least some of my curiosity is answered

 

[Langin]

Nintendo does use emulators with the virtual console right? And how about the rerelease of Super Mario All-Stars on the Nintendo Wii?

 

[Foxi4]

Nintendo does use emulators with the virtual console right? And how about the rerelease of Super Mario All-Stars on the Nintendo Wii?

Everything that runs on Virtual Console does so via an emulator.

 

[GHANMI]

Besides Nintendo's Virtual Console (obviously), which are emulators covering:
- MSX, NES, some Arcade boards, SNES (minus games with extension chips), N64 (minus any extensions), for the Wii / Wii U
- Some of the above plus GameGear and Gameboy (Color) for the 3DS
- Some of the above plus GBA and DS for the Wii U
(Keep in mind that GBA VC on the 3DS is actually running on native firmware, much like PS1 Classics on the PSP.)

Nintendo at least developed:
- A Nintendo DS partial emulator for PC (the leaked EnSata)
- A Gameboy Advance emulator for the GameCube (used in an obscure Naruto compilation by Tomy, and a Pokémon GC game, low/medium compatibility)
- A N64, plus NES emulators for the Gamecube (used in the Zelda compilation)
- A NES emulator for the Gameboy Advance (used in the Famicom Classics)

Sakurai said Kid Icarus was first tested on PC and Wii, so... maybe one for the Wii on PC? (because PowerPc architecture is very different from x86, and reprogramming from scratch would be a waste)

Konami developed:
- A NES emulator for PC (they re-released three NES games on PC, with the Nintendo logo removed)

SNK developed a Neo-Geo emulator for their Metal Slug compilations, for PC, PS2, PSP, Wii...
They, along with other developers, also emulated Arcade images for their various re-releases.

Sony developed:
- A PSP emulator for PC (spotted during an E3 show)
- A PS1 "emulator" for the PSP (I don't like this name)
- A PS1 emulator for the PS3 (PSN Classics)
- A PS2 emulator for the PS3 (PSN Classics)

Sega pretty much developed Master System/GameGear/Genesis emulators (minus the Sega CD -laziness- and the X32 -technical issues- and of corse no Saturn -Tengai Makyou IV/Princess Crown PSP were *ports*-) for the PC, DC, PS2, GC, Wii, PS3, XB, XB360, DS, PSP, 3DS, iOS (I'm not talking about the rebuilt engines) and everything that has those Sonic compilations.


Whenever they develop stuff, it's safe to assume they run the test build usually on the console itself and not on PC (the risk is simply too high to include a PC emulator , should a leak happen -and it certainly will-).
That's why dev kits include debug consoles. AND the test build format itself is incompatible with the retail consoles, sometimes fundamentally.

 

[Acidflare]

(Keep in mind that GBA VC on the 3DS is actually running on native firmware, much like PS1 Classics on the PSP.)

There is no arm7 in the 3DS how is this so? unless it's given hypervisor access. Then I can see this being possible.

 

[the_randomizer]

Everything that runs on Virtual Console does so via an emulator.

Funny thing is I believe the Snes emulator is based off a one that was released for Mac OS, according to emulator devs in the Wii hacking scene, it didn't even emulate the Super FX chip, which is why we never saw Yoshi's Island or Star Fox on the Virtual Console. The RetroArch developers are the ones who discovered this anomaly. I also believe Sega used at derivative of Gens (or Kega Fusion, one of the two) when making the Sonic Mega Collection back in 2002.

 

[Foxi4]

Funny thing is I believe the Snes emulator is based off a one that was released for Mac OS, according to emulator devs in the Wii hacking scene, it didn't even emulate the Super FX chip, which is why we never saw Yoshi's Island or Star Fox on the Virtual Console. The RetroArch developers are the ones who discovered this anomaly.

That would make sense - it'd probably be the easiest one to port if it was based on microcode since the Wii has a PowerPC CPU just like old Macs used to.

 

[the_randomizer]

That would make sense - it'd probably be the easiest one to port if it was based on microcode since the Wii has a PowerPC CPU just like old Macs used to.

Exactly. That would explain the absence of the Super FX games too, but other co-processors were emulated, S-DD1 (Street Fighter Alpha 2), SA-1 (Super Mario RPG), Cx4 (Megaman X2 and X3), but not Super FX. Another theory is licensing issues with Argonaut Software since they developed the SuperFX and Super FX2 chips. The Wii can emulate them at full speed as proven via unofficial emulators, like Snes9x Next or Snes9xGx.

 

[Foxi4]

Exactly. That would explain the absence of the Super FX games too, but other co-processors were emulated, S-DD1 (Street Fighter Alpha 2), SA-1 (Super Mario RPG), Cx4 (Megaman X2 and X3), but not Super FX. Another theory is licensing issues with Argonaut Software since they developed the SuperFX and Super FX2 chips. The Wii can emulate them at full speed as proven via unofficial emulators, like Snes9x Next or Snes9xGx.

I call shennanigans on that theory - Nintendo is the owner of the patent for both Super FX chips, Argonaut Games only lended a hand in their design.

 

[Acidflare]

That would make sense - it'd probably be the easiest one to port if it was based on microcode since the Wii has a PowerPC CPU just like old Macs used to.

But didn't the Transition from ppc to x86/64 for mac happen much after snes emulators were produced and I never saw any emulators for ppc for the snes until the wii but ppc emulators did exist for linux at the time you just needed to compile it yourself to have it. but also I know certain VC releases for N64 are only compatible with certain games and others aren't

 

[Foxi4]

But didn't the Transition from ppc to x86/64 for mac happen much after snes emulators were produced and I never saw any emulators for ppc for the snes until the wii but ppc emulators did exist for linux at the time you just needed to compile it yourself to have it. but also I know certain VC releases for N64 are only compatible with certain games and others aren't

Macs transitioned from PowerPC to x86/x86_64 recently, after Mac G5 was discontinued in 2006. SNES emulators were available long before that.

 

[the_randomizer]

I call shennanigans on that theory - Nintendo is the owner of the patent for both Super FX chips, Argonaut Games only lended a hand in their design.

Ah, see, I wasn't too sure, but the emulator likely didn't emulate the Super FX chip, but it was easy to port if it was on Mac OS when they used PPC ASM like you said. Ironically, RetroArch Wii emulates Super FX at full speed, so the machine was capable, Nintendo just didn't bother with it. The paltry number of N64 games (20) is also quite baffling to me, must have used a shitty N64 emulator, they couldn't even emulate the Memory Pak.

 

[Acidflare]

Macs transitioned from PowerPC to x86/x86_64 recently, after Mac G5 was discontinued in 2006. SNES emulators were available long before that.

I'm a windows/linux guy I don't like mac. who the hell likes to push a button on the keyboard and click the mouse to initiate a right-click context menu
But thank you for the info also any idea's why nintendo cheaped out on mario's 25th birthday and didn't release Super Mario All-Stars+Super Mario World instead I found that really disapointing. good thing I didn't buy the game

 

[GHANMI]

There is no arm7 in the 3DS how is this so? unless it's given hypervisor access. Then I can see this being possible.

The 3DS has among the system firmwares one dedicated to DS mode, and another for GBA mode.