Gaming Questions About Options for Preserving GBA Games

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Hey,

I've been really getting into playing GBA games, and am looking to grow my collection. A while back on this site I asked about preserving my VC games, and now I wonder if I can do the same for my GBA ones. I've looked into a few things - I own an EZ Flash Omega, I own some of my library on Wii U VC, and looked into repro carts, but it seems that all of these options either have major setbacks or things I'm unsure about.
So my questions are: What is the best option for preserving GBA games? Are flashcarts / repro carts legal? Are they reliable? Is there any way that emulation can be legal, or justifiable?
I'm also considering building a RetroPie for playing old games in general (I dumped my library of NES/SNES games from the Mini systems for use on these systems... is that legal as well?)

Thanks in advance!​
 
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FAST6191

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Emulation is and seemingly always has been legal as a general concept. Consoles are just arrangements of chips and that has very little protection.
When it comes to distributing BIOS files and firmware files and data obtained from illegitimate sources (leaked dev kits and what not) then that can make for something a bit more tricky.
As far as justifiable. Ask yourself what entity or persons are you hurting by running games you own on an emulator? Is it functionally any different than playing on an old GBA (or anything else that runs GBA games).

Flash carts might vary depending where you are. Some places have phrases like "substantial non infringing uses" (homebrew, ROM hacks, accessibility... all things that also speak to emulation above even if it was otherwise troubled) where other places whisper in the ears of the courts and get them banned outright. Nobody anywhere that I have ever heard of (and I have been doing this for a few years now) has ever been pinged for it, and this includes thousands of trips through airports.

Repros. Unless the game has gone out of copyright (don't think many were made before 1925 - https://gbatemp.net/threads/new-in-the-public-domain-for-2021.580143/ and I have not seen anything go properly open source or public domain games like some of the older "minicomputers" have occasionally seen) then they would count as selling copyrighted works. We generally avoid linking to sales of them around here, however the police/customs are not going to come kick down your door should you get one.

The EZFlash Omega is a top tier GBA flash cart. Barring the Fire Emblem save thing and hardware oddities discussed in http://gbatemp.net/threads/buying-a-gba-flash-cart-in-2013.341203/page-18#post-4756995 then it will run things as well or better than they did on original hardware.
 
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Thanks for your response! So, it seems emulation would be the safest option? I have a PSP, and I have installed some emulators on it. Is that technically legal, or is there something else I'm missing out on?
 

FAST6191

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The only unsafe option would be to break into Nintendo's office and attempt to lift their files (despite many of them being released last year).

Emulation, flash carts, combos of the two... unless you are selling them or uploading ROMs then basically nobody cares. If you have the base games then as long as you are not running two copies at once then it is not like they are losing out.

PSP GBA emulators are not the best, especially not if you are going to compare to an EZFlash Omega as your baseline. It will however allow you to play 99% of the GBA library just fine for most purposes.
 
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