Microsoft Wants You To Know That Its Surface Tablet Can Play SNES Games

Emulation is a grey area at the best of times, but one thing that is a massive no-no is rival companies using the emulated titles of others to promote their own products. We've already seen the team behind the OUYA console attempt to use SNES emulators to sell their micro-console, and now Microsoft is getting in on the act.

[PSNintyGamer]

Wow,I would never thought Microsoft would sink this low

[malokevi]

Really? I love it, the emulator is awesome. I play Super Mario World occasionally when I'm bored and on long drives. It even supports the Xbox controller.

Jeez, I thought this would be a good thing. Can't understand how people spin it negatively.

[iamnsuperman]

I think the point he is making is advertising said feature which is low for a company of this stature as they wouldn't like their games being emulated on other devices illegally (this is the big thing here. The illegal part). But like I said below I think this is an honest mistake as they clearly didn't watch the video properly

[CYCLEGAMER]

Come on man, you know this is N4G or (H4M - hate 4 microsoft). Any positive news about anything Microsoft will be spun into a negative.

@iamnsuperman
That is a posibilty but we all know what psninty's motives is. I mean look at his or her screen name...lol.

[malokevi]

@superman

I guess. But it seems, as usual, people are making a mountain of a molehill. It's one video, on the Surface twitter account, where they momentarily mention that there's an SNES emulator. It's not like MS is buying up billboard space to advertise to the world that the Surface can play NES games.

Who cares? The Surface has an SNES emulator. I can't think of any reason why I should be pissed off about that. If it was illegal, and Nintendo actually cared, I'm sure they would be all over it. It's not like its a new feature.

Life is a funny little thing, aint it?

[Blackdeath_663]

its no secret that the surface tablets have been an epic fail and that microsoft have a bunch made that are struggling to sell. to be so desperate and market your tablet as a glorified emulator is indeed low.

[mcstorm]

@Blackdeath_663 I love it when people say the surface has been a fail. Its far from a fail. The surface Pro is the best selling tablet of its class and will start to grow now the surface 2 is coming later on this month.

As for the surface rt it sold over 1 million in its 1st 3 months on the market and it was only in 1 or 2 shops in each country. Now look back to the 1st android tablet the xoom it was out in every shop possible and only managed to sell 250thousand in its 1st 12 months on the market.

Yes the surface rt has not sold as many as the iPad but nothing has. That said windows 8 as a os is growing quite fast and Microsoft are now going at the market at a different angle with the surface 2 and rt 2.

Just because something dose not sell as well as the market leader at the start dose not mean something is a flop. Look back to when windows phone come onto the market everyone said it was doa but now it is selling well and has hit past the 12% mark in Europe. Or look at Android when it 1st came out people said it would never out sell the iPhone.

Microsoft are in a far better shape than people put on this site and the fact that they are the only owns showing growth in the stock market shows what Microsoft are doing in the real world.

As for playing Nintendo games on the surface I have to say its been the best tablet to do it on as I had issue on my android tablet and being able to use the 360 controller and hdmi out is great.

[nukeitall]

@iamnsuperman:

I'm going to get SNES app for my Surface Pro!

I don't see an advertisement here endorsed by MS, but rather a person genuinely excited about the Surface.

I know that is hard to swallow for you, that somebody actually enjoys a MS product.

[iamnsuperman]

@nukeitall

"I'm going to get SNES app for my Surface Pro!

I don't see an advertisement here endorsed by MS, but rather a person genuinely excited about the Surface.

I know that is hard to swallow for you, that somebody actually enjoys a MS product."

Huh? Did you read my comment. I am confused how you got to that conclusion from what I just said (or even what I say below). It is like you want to start a brand fight. I don't

[user5575708]

snes emulators have been around for 13+ years and have been free as well. you can use it on any PC or even a modded psp so i really don't see the thrill here except for those in this forum who have clearly been living under a rock

[UltimateMaster]

I've been playing SNES emulator on XP PC.
How is this news?

[JeffGUNZ]

@ Blackdeath_663

Really? My entire office just got the surface for work and it's great. This tablet actually DOES stuff different from a phone. I love android and ipad tablets, but they are really just bigger phones so to speak. The surface/windows OS integration is great. I remote into my work desktop in seconds and since it's a window based OS tablet, every program ones smoothly and great. The surface is more for the work inclined then the hipster audience the ipad attacks.

[Mike134nl]

Short story Microsoft tweets a video of a surface fan who made a video of features that he liked and are not advertised by Microsoft. One of those features include a downloadable app of a snes emulator.

(edit)Other points mentioned in video include:
-lack of apps which was offset by the browser which supports divx etc. giving acces to full features of facebook and spotify sites last of which can be run in the background. This is a feature because similar
devices/tablets of other brands cannot do that.
-surface capabilities with second screen, second key-bord and controller.
-office support

[Mystogan]

Spin spin spin!

[3-4-5]

So they are bragging about allowing you to play illegal copies of their competitor's games ?

[jonli1]

explain to all of us y is that low is just a tablet

[ALLWRONG]

"Wow,I would never thought Microsoft would sink this low"

Translation: this news is too good.

[iamnsuperman]

Hang on a minute. Lets be far. The twitter account clearly didn't watch the entire video and saw a video saying "Why I love my Microsoft Surface RT" and went with it (they really should watch what the advertise).

"Make the most of #Surface RT, @sean_ong shows capabilities you may not be aware of: http://t.co/UuoOBRUH2a Part 2: http://t.co/7ql3rpxMTJ"...

They are indirectly advertising this but they are not actually advertising this feature. I see it more of a twitter account mess up (I can't currently see the actual tweet so either it was made up or more likely deleted as they realised their mistake)

[MightyNoX]

The irony, coming from the self-appointed Champion of DRM.

[cell989]

My Iphone, PSP do too

[ziggurcat]

... which is illegal...

[LoveOfTheGame]

You don't know much about Emulators/Roms do you?

[ziggurcat]

neither do you, apparently.

[ALLWRONG]

Emulators aren't illegal, what people use them for is.

[LoveOfTheGame]

One simple Google search will tell you emulators are almost entirely legal, while ROMs are legal if you own the actual copy.

I could walk right up to Nintendo show them my PC with Snes emulator, Super Mario All-stars ROM, and the actual game. And, guess what? No legal ramifications.

Edit: Just as some more info, the more you dig into software copyright infringement the more it becomes extremely unclear. The Supreme Court has tried several times to come up with a definite line of right and wrong but clearly have no real insight of software itself.

My software programming ethics teacher said it best "It's really not illegal until the Supreme Court stops you from doing it." Meaning in a lot of areas, that are even considered illegal right now, in software copyright infringement can easily be changed.

[SmokingMonkey]

What happened to microsofts 1st party titles?

Oh wait I forgot.....

[XboxFun]

Forgot what? I'm on pins and needles right now...

[MasterCornholio]

My Nexus 7 2013 does this as well but I prefer to play PSX and N64 games.

Nexus 7 2013

[Thehyph]

Does nexus 7 have mhl, too? I assume it does.

My galaxy s3 can hook up to my tv, use my dualshock 3, and play many different emulators.

I just don't ever use it as I don't have the time.

I haven't gotten any serious time with a Windows RT device, but I doubt it comes close to Android's feature set.

[SeraphimBlade]

Legality aside, playing Mario Kart with a 360 controller feels... dirty.

[AceBlazer13]

is there anything that doesnt have a snes emulator?

[Juste_Belmont]

An NES?

[Nerdmaster]

I really don't understand why people get so excited about emulators. Are newer games so bad that people prefer to play games they already played to exhaustion? Old games are great and I love them, but when people put more importance in emulators than in new games (Ouya, I'm looking at you), I can only think "is this the reason why they want me to buy this thing?".

[LOL_WUT]

This is awesome! ;)

[CyrusLemont]

This feels like a bit of an overreaction. So what if Microsoft posts a video that partially includes an emulator that plays 20 year old games lol. Maybe it would be wrong if it was the dolphin emulator running Zelda Wind Waker or something but it's not. Games depreciate quickly despite their priceless artistic statement (excluding COD and other super generic games). Maybe if Nintendo had PC software for these really old games and were selling them it would be wrong. But they aren't and I really can't see the harm here. Films are different, they're universally playable and accesable on a lot of platforms and are still monetized in a plethora of ways. I'm pretty sure the only way to get SNES games through a means of paying for it, is forking out $400 for a Wii U.

Welcome to the 'sensitive' era.

[Bigkurz85]

"I'm pretty sure the only way to get SNES games through a means of paying for it, is forking out $400 for a Wii U. "

Hmm so there IS a way to buy games legally. That would mean.. gasp...that Nintendo has legitimate beef with this.

You guys are brats if you think emulation and the ROMs are legal. I'm not saying I don't emulate...I do. But I don't pretend I'm not doing anything wrong

[CyrusLemont]

Accessible* for my original comment haha

Except it's a complete waste of money if your only intent is to play SNES games. People aren't purchasing tablets or computers just to play SNES games and it's even illustrated all over the twitter page. It's only a tiny tiny aspect of it. The prices Nintendo charge and their profit from them are most likely negligible as well. I'm sure people would be willing to pay if given the opportunity on PC. Nintendo however hasn't provided that option. I'm not saying it's legal, but I'm not saying it's wrong either. I don't believe law and morals are directly related. And I do think it's okay to play SNES games on your computer and okay for a company to show that in a millionth of all their ad campaigns and promotions. Maybe I'm wrong, but being on the end where you can't just spends lots of money to enjoy the little things and on occasion have to acquire them the dirty way makes me believe I'm right.

[Misaka_x_Touma]

Wii U is 300

[imXify]

Well of course because it's running Windows. So they can just download any emulator from any website like a normal pc...

[whitesoxfalife1976]

I have a few roms on my droid tablet
Mike tyson punchout...killerinstinct....m ario bros super mario bros and super mario world
Back then when rom was all the rage I didnt jump on board cuz I thought it was dumb.
After playing around my tablet just to see if can run rom games, well I did just name a few didnt I...
I didn't read the article tho but by some of yall comments seem yall on only finds a way to shoot microsoft down as always.
I think its nice that surface/2 can do it just as well for ipad.is I'm cheatn, hell nawl I'm not, if its on da net then I'm gonna try it whatever device I have that can run it..

[Lboogieskells]

The same company that pushed for a Communist style DRM now encourages pirated games.

[Reeze]

Encourages pirating from another gaming company to advertise their product.

Really?