300°

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.

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nintendolife.com
PSNintyGamer3875d ago

Wow,I would never thought Microsoft would sink this low

malokevi3875d ago

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.

iamnsuperman3875d ago (Edited 3875d ago )

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

CYCLEGAMER3875d ago (Edited 3875d ago )

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.

malokevi3875d ago (Edited 3875d ago )

@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_6633875d ago

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.

mcstorm3875d ago

@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.

nukeitall3875d ago

@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.

iamnsuperman3875d ago (Edited 3875d ago )

@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

user55757083875d ago

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

UltimateMaster3874d ago

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

JeffGUNZ3874d ago

@ 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.

+ Show (7) more repliesLast reply 3874d ago
Mike134nl3875d ago (Edited 3875d ago )

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

3-4-53874d ago

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

jonli13874d ago

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

ALLWRONG3874d ago

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

Translation: this news is too good.

+ Show (3) more repliesLast reply 3874d ago
iamnsuperman3875d ago (Edited 3875d ago )

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)

MightyNoX3875d ago

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

LoveOfTheGame3875d ago

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

ziggurcat3875d ago

neither do you, apparently.

ALLWRONG3874d ago

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

3875d ago Replies(6)
LoveOfTheGame3875d ago (Edited 3875d ago )

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.

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90°

Boycott EA trends on X as community savages FC 24

EA has come under fire for making unexpected changes to its FC 24 Team of the Season unlocks.

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videogamer.com
anast11m ago

It's like boycotting 'your' local crack dealer. I'm sure it will change everything...

190°

Why Xbox believes it must cut costs and close studios

Companies, particularly public companies like Microsoft, need to grow.

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eurogamer.net
gold_drake6h ago

i mean its pretty simple, they spent close to 30 billion in acquiring activision, they thought they'd make it bk no problem, and that didnt happen.

its just shit that because of MS's miscalculation alot of people lost their jobs.

Jingsing3h ago

This is exactly what many people said would happen including the CMA and FTC. Lies lies and more lies and they allowed a $69 billion buy out to happen.

gold_drake2h ago

oh yeh it was 70 billion. that was my bad haha even worse.

thesoftware7302h ago(Edited 2h ago)

gold,

You can't be serious, right?

Do you think that MS thought they would make 80bill in a year & Half? They haven't even released titles under MS yet, lol.

But in fact, that A/B revenue is already paying off, look at the last earnings call. That $80 billion is long-term money, my guy, no sane person/company would think they would make that back in any short-term situation, it's a long-term investment.

Let's play silly then. If MS's reason for laying off staff and closing studios was due(which it really was not) to the A/B deal, tell me what Sony's reason was for past studio closures, the recent 900-person layoffs, closing Sony London, shutting down Dreams, and closing Japan Studio? Zipper? Psygnosis? cuts at all their internal studios.

Keep in mind, you are claiming MS's reason is because of the A/B deal; please explain Sony's reason.

Hofstaderman2h ago

You actually still defending them? Sheesh.....

gold_drake2h ago

this is not a sony vs MS debate. dont make it something it isnt.

and of course not, but im pretty sure they thought they'd make more money after the deal. they didnt, and closed off some studios.

its pretty insane to think there is any other reason for the closure of studios in this case.

romulus232h ago(Edited 2h ago)

(It really was) due to the Activision Blizzard deal and the loss of physical sales due to gamepass. You keep bringing up Sony in all your posts about this, stop deflecting and trying to change the topic, this is about MS and what they are doing.

BehindTheRows2h ago

Has nothing to do with Sony. Stay on topic.

notachance1h ago

once in a while you see someone too invested in their make-believe console war that everything happened has to be connected to said war…

a bit of banter between fans is normal, this crusade you’re doing now isn’t.

Chevalier1h ago

Wow idiotic. You bring up very old closures not that there haven't been recent ones from Playstations, but, seriously stop deflecting. This has NOTHING to do with Playstation.

Does Playstation got $3 trillion behind them and daddies wallet? No they don't so stop making a fool of yourself.

Xbox has never been profitable really and they just keep losing money so between their worst hardware sales, terrible 3rd party sales and now terrible 1st party sales.

Gamepass numbers that are no longer being announced shows their numbers after 3 years of missed targets has flatlined. Plus their recent gains up to 34 million were ONLY because they folded Gold members in too. Absolutely take your idiotic rhetoric out of here. Keep on topic without deflecting.

S2Killinit1h ago

Ayayayay with these xbox/MS excuses.

+ Show (4) more repliesLast reply 1h ago
thesoftware7306m ago(Edited 0m ago)

Drake,

"this is not a sony vs MS debate. dont make it something it isnt."

You are correct that it's not an MS Vs Sony Topic, but when exaggeration and imagination mix from a one-sided social group, similar examples are needed to ground radical thoughts; in this instance, the example was that shutting down 3,4,5, even 6 studios during a restructure/ buyout/acquisition is not some anomaly(it can suck) that has to be dissected or spell doom and gloom.

"But I'm pretty sure they thought they'd make more money after the deal. They didn't, and they closed off some studios."

But they did make more money, a lot, actually; the last earnings call showed a huge growth in profit, almost all due to A/B revenue.

"its pretty insane to think there is any other reason for the closure of studios in this case."

The fact that they did make money, kinda throws this out the window, and besides, you don't wake up and say, hey let's close a studio, you look at the output, you look at the dev as a whole, the long term and short term, you weigh it against all other studios and goals, you keep key members, ect..then you close if they are the weakest links...which by MS analysis they were.

Again, I will make a small Sony comparison, just so some of you can understand and see past the bias; Insomniac, ND, and Bungie have made some of the best games ever created, yet Sony saw fit to cut jobs in every of these studios, even tho Insomniac & ND are the biggest producers of PS games, leagues ahead better than Tango and Arkane, yet, they saw cuts, mind you, while being the TOP produces of PS first party. They were told to cut costs, and more jobs may be on the line, and Bungie is being threatened by a hostile Sony takeover. Put that in perspective, as I know that layoffs and dev closures are different, but if the best of the best is getting cut off, it is less than surprising, that lesser studios are closing.

anast3h ago

They are going to use AI for a large portion of the game development process. Upper management need bonuses and the shareholders need more money. So, people will lose their jobs.

Skuletor2h ago

Maybe they were already using AI to make business decisions, which would explain why they closed Hi-Fi Rush's studio, then said they need more games like Hi-Fi Rush not long after that announcement.

Crows902h ago(Edited 2h ago)

They shouldn't have bought any studios. Some is okay...but they went on a shopping spree...stupid

Einhander19721h ago

The better question is why did Microsoft buy publishers for a service they were subsidizing they knew couldn't support.

And why are so many websites trying to make people feel sorry for Microsoft instead of truly criticizing the fact they are closing studios and killing jobs that would have been fine if Microsoft themselves hadn't gotten involved.

Quit feeling sorry for Microsoft and start feeling sorry for the industry and the all the gamers who are actually losing out.

THIS IS MICROSOFTS FAULT.

RNTody1h ago

The first thing that happens after any major acquisition or merger is a consolidation of the whole new portfolio, which includes cutting any excess, bloat or portfolios that don't fit the larger MO of the big boy. So far, it's been par for the course with Microsoft and that's why gamers have been so against this acquisition. Tango Gameworks is the beginning. You think Microsoft wants to pay to keep small timers like Ninja Theory in business?

There is absolutely zero evidence to suggest that Microsoft will improve any of these studios, but plenty to suggest that they will get rid of what they don't need and hold onto the IP. The real agenda of the acquisition was always to acquire The Elder Scrolls, Diablo, Fallout, Call of Duty, Candy Crush etc. that will create millions in passive revenue stream for Microsoft regardless of where the games release. Microsoft simply wants their cut.

Because of Games Pass Microsoft has no interest in investing in new IP which is risky and requires creative talent they can neither nurture nor manage. Game Pass has also not grown in the way Microsoft expected it to, even post acquisitions. Therefore the logical thing to do, without serious money makers to release, is to cut as much cost as possible.