Comment by chungy
2 days ago
I know, and you can basically restore full GameCube compatibility on the Wii U via Nintendont. Neither of them let you use the actual physical games from the old system, and needing to perform jailbreak hacks to use them and load ROMs on anyway doesn't count as much as out-of-the-box compatibility.
Fair. A shame, still, especially for GC compat on WiiU.
The problem in both cases is that the consoles were actually missing a key piece of hardware: the ability to read the disc or cartridge.
If you're a hacker-type person who has already digitized your gamecube collection (or, let's be honest, downloaded the games illegally) then this doesn't matter. But for regular consumers, there needs to be a way to verify ownership.
Nintendo could have made some titles available digitally (which is what I wish they'd done), but that requires getting content rights sorted out for games that have never been sold digitally before, so the full catalog would not have been available. Also, there would have been a ton of hemming and hawing about "Nintendo is making me buy my Gamecube games again?!?" No comment on whether such complaints would have been reasonable.
The problem is deliberate hardware choices. They may be reasonable choices, but if Nintendo wanted to prioritize forever backwards compatibility, we could still have a GameCube-compatible disc drive and GBA and DS compatible catridge slots.
5 replies →
Downloading roms is all it takes to be regarded a hacker-type these days? I feel words keep losing their meaning …
7 replies →