tabsina - I'm glad someone made that point. This thread seems to be operating under the concept of "You NEED games, and it's up to you to obtain them by whatever method, then justify the method afterwards".

If you can't afford games, then newsflash - find a less expensive hobby. I'd love to own a yacht, but I can't afford one. So instead of either stealing one, or stealing the plans and materials and building my own, I'm going to stick to things I can afford.

Um, so what would be wrong with building your own boat?  Other than the question of workmanship ... no offense.

he said stealing the plans and matierals though!

Even though you aren't stealing any matierals... and the plans are online.

It'd be more like if you were the great gazoo.... but needed to know the plans or something.

I mean if you could wish anything into existance you would be hurting someone else based on the "Potential" arguement.

When i walk instead of drive somewhere i'm potentially hurting the oil industry.

the discussion going on here is just beating a dead horse. The reality as I see it, people do it because: it's free, no risk of getting caught, it's convienient, get to play games before they hit retail. If pirates are anything, they're apathetic. Twestern is right in saying that piracy (in rich countries) is by and large cheapassery.

I will say that for people in poorer countries with little to no buying power, they really don't have much choice. It's either a) don't play the game or b) pirate the game/play a pirated copy. In many places legitimate games are not readily available and if they are they are prohibitavely expensive.

I also see no problem pirating older roms/abandonware. Virtual console is bullshit.

Yeah, providing stable, hassle-free emulation of classic titles at a very reasonable price is such BS.

(insert rolleyes.gif here)

^ select titles only, need to buy a classic controller (or gc controller), and paying again for titles you've already paid for?

i'd be less critical of it if it was more comprehensive (ie: a flat monthly fee for ongoing access to a large library of games) but from what i've seen recent virtual console releases have been pretty weak and not very consistant.

Piracy is practically unavoidable. There's not ONE gamer on this forum who's never

pirated in some form. Everything from games, game soundtracks, pics, trailers avatars, etc.

People who argue against pirating are the BIGGEST pirates that ever lived!

I personally buy and pirate at the sametime - what does that make me?

I don't care what people say, really.  The gaming industry is as big as its ever been - EVER !

Don't believe the hype about piracy effecting the industry. As long as you're on both sides -

things will be alright.  You win some and you lose some :)

The "select titles only" thing is a marketing decision. Yeah, it sucks, but I can see why Nintendo did it.

I don't see why buying a classic or GC controller is such a problem, seeing as you'd need a total of 7 or 8 different consoles and controllers just to run everything that the VC can.

The "paying for titles you've already paid for" complaint is anecdotal. Want to know how many games I own on both the VC and in cartridge/disc form? Zero. Nada. Zilch. I'd imagine most people are in the same situation.

As for the advantages: No need to own multiple consoles, no need to own or switch bulky cartridges, no need to work with dated, failure-prone hardware, all emulators are stable and authentic, all games playable with a single controller type (once you buy that classic or GC controller you're set for life), improved color detail thanks to component cables, improved resolution on N64 games, most VC games are cheaper than buying the actual cartridge/disc.

Yeah, I didn't see the part about stealing materials, and I should have voiced my doubts that such blueprints are closely guarded.

@garcian smith: after looking through the complete list of VC titles it's a ok library (Kirby's Dream Course <3) though some titles are notably absent.

Is 1000 points $10? If so $10 is too much for retro games unless I have a physical copy.

How does it work for sharing, or are VC titles tied to one Wii console? Can i put my VC games on a SD card and play them on my friends wii?

For people who want to pay a premium for a limited selection of older games (some from systems most people didn't own) I guess it serves it's purpose. I still view games from the snes era and older as games that have had their day in the sun, the developers got paid and the game hopefully made money. I doubt (though i'm just assuming) the original devs see any money nintendo gets from VC sales. I opt to use a SNES emulator on my ps2 (no controller to buy, real time game saves, complete game library).