Retroblox

[godslabrat]

It's an interesting theory. Two further points come immediately to mind:

 

1). I'm sure that the original IP holders would rather sell their games on the storefront for an established console, not some Kickstarter small fry and

 

2) that completely flies in the face of everything this project was promised to be from day 1.

 

So if true, I wonder if the R-Blo guys realized they couldn't make their kit work as promised, after making their big media push, and wondered how they could salvage their project. Going full Kennedy was the answer.

 

But the bottom line is, they're spending so much energy worried about branding and revenue streams, but treating the actual project like an afterthought. Cart before the horse, people. If you can build a desirable product, the buisiness that sells it should naturally follow. Designing a company first and the product to sell it later is a recipe for failure.

Edited April 16, 2017 by godslabrat

[Keatah]

But the bottom line is, they're spending so much energy worried about branding and revenue streams, but treating the actual project like an afterthought. Cart before the horse, people. If you can build a desirable product, the buisiness that sells it should naturally follow. Designing a company first and the product to sell it later is a recipe for failure.

 

Yes. It's like I didn't spend months trying to come up with a name for my emulator rig. And who cares what the zibba zoomba threethousand is gonna be called. Just as long as the product is cool.

 

I see to much of this "brand emphasis" these days. It's what makes consumers weary and wary.

[Flojomojo]

Does anyone else get the impression that what these Retroblox ThingySomething guys really want to do ... with all their talk of branding and future-products and investors and copy-protected downloads and the app-store-like interface they showed ...

 

... Is to actually try to set themselves up as the Retro-Gaming-Kings and produce some "branded" hardware that eventually emulates all the popular and out-of-production machines, and lets Publishers/Rights-Holders sell DRM-protected ROMs and CD images of their back-catalog titles on the RetroBlox ThingySomething digital storefront (for an Apple-like 30% fee, of course)?

 

 

Kinda like Mike Kennedy, but without his idiotic idea that established companies would want to develop new games for some underfunded niche console.

Or, make their pitch /just/ good enough to obtain some startup investor money, and sweat the details later (or take the money and run).

[AtariNerd]

I certainly have doubts - but dat purty case, doh. (Like the design, even if the large exchangeable wedges might be considered wasteful) I just want Kevtris's or some similar system in it, instead.

[godslabrat]

Yes. It's like I didn't spend months trying to come up with a name for my emulator rig. And who cares what the zibba zoomba threethousand is gonna be called. Just as long as the product is cool.

 

I see to much of this "brand emphasis" these days. It's what makes consumers weary and wary.

I'm not going to get into this, because it would take us way OT, but "branding" is the 21st-century job that can't justify itself. Marketing people place undue levels of importance on "building their brand" and "reinforcing their brand", as if consumers weren't making the ultimate decisions as to what products a company sells (spoiler: the ones people are willing to buy). Branding has become so overhyped that marketers literally think customers seek out brands first and products a distant second (I acknowledge that there can be elements of truth to this, but it's hardly pervasive).

 

TL, DR- making a brand name first is a loser strategy and if your marketing guy suggests it, he should be fired on the spot.

[RampantOctopus]

Bored now.

 

Edited April 16, 2017 by RampantOctopus

[elmer]

And back at ya!

 

1). I'm sure that the original IP holders would rather sell their games on the storefront for an established console, not some Kickstarter small fry and

Why? A lot of the the original companies either don't exist anymore, or barely develop anything anymore.

 

Look at Atari and Intellivision ... they were even willing to get into bed with Mike Kennedy if there was some upfront cash involved!

 

Sega are already putting stuff on Steam, and SNK Playmore are whoring-out all of classic-SNK's games in any way that they can.

 

As for the Japanese developers like Konami, and those publishing stuff on Nintendo or Sony's Virtual Consoles ...

 

That's because those are DRM-protected platforms, with enough users out-there to justify the development costs (for some games).

 

 

You do understand, don't you, that it actually costs a publisher a significant chunk-of-change to actually license an emulator to run on one of the modern consoles, add all the extra social-networking and "achievements" features, and then package everything up into a console-standards-compliant package?

 

They don't just dump an old ROM image on Nintendo or Sony's doorstep and then just sit back and watch the dollars roll in.

 

 

Which is precisely what they could do if they licensed certain game rights to a "company", in the way that I'm suspecting that the RetroBlox ThingySomething folks are dreaming of.

 

Heck ... the rights-holders wouldn't even need to supply the ROM or CD images ... those can already be downloaded from hundreds of pirate sites.

 

 

2) that completely flies in the face of everything this project was promised to be from day 1.

Why? From day 1 they've talked about having DRM-protected sales of homebrew games on their system.

 

Sure, there's also the whole run-your-physical-cart-or-CD aspect, and there's nothing that I've just said that would stop them from wanting to allow that. It would be a way to get people to buy the system, and then use the digital storefront to buy additional games that they didn't already own in physical form.

 

There are a limited number of physical games out there, and the prices keep on rising, and working copies of the original hardware gets older and more expensive to run (no HDMI output on the older consoles).

 

If they could establish themselves as the "affordable-but-legal-and-convenient" way for folks to play "classic" games, then there *might* be a long-term small-but-profitable business there.

 

 

Well ... that's what I can imagine them thinking, anyway.

 

It's just a speculation in order to try to figure-out why they're so busy emphasizing certain things, and ignoring others.

 

As we've all pointed-out, multiple times, they still haven't shown any hardware that actually plays games using their super-duper-incredible-patent-pending technology, and a lot of folks don't even believe that it would work.

 

QFT ...

 

But the bottom line is, they're spending so much energy worried about branding and revenue streams, but treating the actual project like an afterthought. Cart before the horse, people. If you can build a desirable product, the buisiness that sells it should naturally follow. Designing a company first and the product to sell it later is a recipe for failure.

[Keatah]

Personally I don't care what comes of RetroBlo or whatever it's being called. I just wanna see more drama.

[enoofu]

 

I think FPGA is considered hardware and would be covered by patents instead of copyright. Since you are not modifying existing source code when reverse engineering hardware, I dont think it can be considered Derivative Work. BIOS on the other hand is copyrighted.

 

It is legal to make and sell a Sega Master System FPGA computer due to expired patents. However the copyright on the BIOS is not expired, and you will get in trouble if bundled with the system.

 

Would be both since FPGA basically uses programming code, for example PS did have a commercial core that Sony sued to death to own, so technically they could bar till around 2060 any commercial PS core

Edited April 17, 2017 by enoofu

[mr_me]

If the fpga code is developed independently I don't think there is a copyright violation. Two people can write two different programs that produce the exact same output. And if its something where there is only one possible solution than it is not copyrightable. If the bios can be reverse engineered and rewritten than that is okay too.

[Keatah]

Don't EULAs include usage clauses like "no reverse engineering or disassembling" ?

[godslabrat]

Don't EULAs include usage clauses like "no reverse engineering or disassembling" ?

Sure, but those include a lot of verbage that would never stand up in court.

[Flojomojo]

Personally I don't care what comes of RetroBlo or whatever it's being called. I just wanna see more drama.

That's why I keep coming back.

 

"There's such a fine line between clever and stupid." - Nigel Tufnel

[Andromeda Stardust]

Bored now.

 

Redheads are never boring...

[keepdreamin]

Jim must be just devastated by these developments.

[enoofu]

If the fpga code is developed independently I don't think there is a copyright violation. Two people can write two different programs that produce the exact same output. And if its something where there is only one possible solution than it is not copyrightable. If the bios can be reverse engineered and rewritten than that is okay too.

A Judge or jury could still consider it a derivative work, and basically a reverse engineered attempt would more likely assist/support the copyright holder in his copyright claim

Also WIPO Copyright Treaty 1996 basically protects works from reverse engineering attempts

[mr_me]

Or, reverse engineering is a right that is protected by law; as long as it is done lawfully. But as you pointed out a judge/jury can still make a crazy ruling.

[PikoInteractive]

Ha! Regarding the publishing on their store. That is exactly what they want. I reached out about bundling our games for a royalty per unit (once they could show a actual working prototype we could review) when I was hit back with not bundling games but if you want to publish on the store we'll send you the info.

 

I told ok to send it, never got it.

 

But In my mind I think that no other retro developer or developer that owns rights to old stuff will just go and publish their games on their store unless they show massive numbers (may be 200K consoles sold, so you could expect a 3% sales conversion) or R-blo would have to drop massive amounts of advance royalties to "court" developers. I wouldn't publish there unless I get advance royalties/cash per title at a minimum of 10 titles a batch; why would other bigger companies do it?

[Andromeda Stardust]

Ha! Regarding the publishing on their store. That is exactly what they want. I reached out about bundling our games for a royalty per unit (once they could show a actual working prototype we could review) when I was hit back with not bundling games but if you want to publish on the store we'll send you the info.

 

I told ok to send it, never got it.

 

But In my mind I think that no other retro developer or developer that owns rights to old stuff will just go and publish their games on their store unless they show massive numbers (may be 200K consoles sold, so you could expect a 3% sales conversion) or R-blo would have to drop massive amounts of advance royalties to "court" developers. I wouldn't publish there unless I get advance royalties/cash per title at a minimum of 10 titles a batch; why would other bigger companies do it?

At least it's not like Wiiware where the developers got absolutely nothing until they reached some minimum quota in sales...

[Flojomojo]

At least it's not like Wiiware where the developers got absolutely nothing until they reached some minimum quota in sales...

In fairness to Nintendo, WiiWare was a long time ago, and they fixed this for the eShop on Wii U and 3DS. http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-01-10-how-nintendo-is-making-wii-u-indie-friendly

 

To compare Retroblox to WiiWare is to be very kind to Retroblox.

[PikoInteractive]

Yeah now you get monthly disbursements!

[androvsky]

I'm trying a multi-quote, have a funny feeling the formatting is going to be broken.

A Judge or jury could still consider it a derivative work, and basically a reverse engineered attempt would more likely assist/support the copyright holder in his copyright claim

Also WIPO Copyright Treaty 1996 basically protects works from reverse engineering attempts

You can't live your life assuming a court is going to randomly make a ruling that completely goes against existing law. At worst, there can be an appeal. If the SNES was designed using FPGAs originally, it's super easy to prove that any other implementations aren't derived works because there's no way the source code that was used to make the SNES ever became public. And if it was, it had to be in an old language form that's not used any more, and it probably wasn't meant to run efficiently so a modern implementation would be completely different anyway, almost by definition.

 

 

 

 

Would be both since FPGA basically uses programming code, for example PS did have a commercial core that Sony sued to death to own, so technically they could bar till around 2060 any commercial PS core

Are you talking about the BIOS in the Connectix case? Sony lost that suit because the court ruled that the copy of the BIOS Connectix used internally to reverse engineer it was fine, since it was impossible to reverse engineer otherwise. The reason Sony owns the Connectix PS1 emulator is because they bought it from Connectix after losing the suit. They also hired the main programmer from Bleem! after Sony lost that suit as well. Both of which happened after the DMCA was enacted, btw.

 

I know Hollywood and the DMCA has people worried about copyright overreach by corporations, but there are still rights people have, and reverse engineering is one of them.

Edited April 18, 2017 by androvsky

[SoulBlazer]

I know that in at least Bleem!'s case, they kept winning in court but Sony being massive kept dragging them into it again and again and Bleem! finally went bankrupt due to it, leaving a half finished buggy product that I regret buying BITD that did emulation not even a quarter as well as present day emulators.

 

Reverse engineering is perfectly legal, but it has to be done in carefully controlled situations with everything documented and thought out and written down, so if they are challenged they can come out squeaky clean.

[MagnaRyuu]

Bored now.

 

My favorite time in "Buffy" when Willow goes full on evil

[Andromeda Stardust]

Vaporware. And Lythium as well. Anyone find it ironic that we haven't heard from either of the creators in a while?