C64 Channel coming to Virtual Console
"Later this year", and Euro exclusive.
Commodore 64 classics will be coming to the Wii's Virtual Console later this year, Nintendo has announced.
Available for 500 Wii Points (GBP 3.50/ EUR 5) a pop, all-time C64 favourites including Uridium and International Karate have been confirmed so far, with "regular updates" bolstering the line-up thereafter. Currently, the platform has only been confirmed for Europe - the legion of US C64 fans must wait patiently for now.
Originally released way back in 1982, the Commodore 64 went on to become the best-selling home computer of all-time, with 22 million units sold worldwide. Hugely popular across Europe and the United States, the C64 built up an incredible line-up of software, with well over 4,000 titles produced during its production lifetime (1982-1994).
In fact, you could say we saw this renaissance coming - back in October last year we launched our Retro channel and posted reviews of 50 of our favourite games on the system. Follow the magic blue words if you missed out and want to wallow in weepy '80s nostalgia.
Bala Keilman, CEO of Commodore Gaming, commented: "The massive impact the Commodore 64 had on video-gaming is still evident today with many gamers remembering the computer and its games with great fondness. By working with Nintendo of Europe, we are ensuring that future generations of gamers can play some of the best and most popular titles that kick-started the computer games revolution and so keep the C64 legacy in gamers hearts."
Laurent Fischer, Managing Director of European Marketing & PR of Nintendo Europe adds, "We are extremely pleased to be working with Commodore Gaming to provide even more retro hits for Wii owners to choose from on Virtual Console. We hope that this great choice of games will bring nostalgia to our gaming fans, while an entirely new generation of video game players can experience a host of classic games for the very first time."
As excited as we [Kristan - Ed] are, our eyes nearly popped out of our heads when we saw that Nintendo plans to charge 500 Points for the games. How much would you pay for them? Also, what other platforms would you like Nintendo to add? Spectrum? Amiga? Saturn?
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Comments (86) Latest comment 4 years ago
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secondly, 500 points??!?!?!! cmon!!!
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500 points is a little pricey, but I suppose this is roughly the same era as the NES, so it's not like we're being screwed any worse than before. If they get the Amiga on there too, though, my life will be complete. Cannon Fodder, Alien Breed...
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Problem is, like a few have said is the cost. All three need to take a look at the price of these old games. Most can emulated for free on the PC
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Now all we need is Amiga games on VC, maybe even CD32 Games
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Tuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Trrr!
Tuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu Brbrrbtruadubbrrr....
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"Most can emulated for free on the PC"
And within a browser.
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Or play it RIGHT NOW, completely free of charge:
http://ww w.codemasters.co.uk/downloads/?...
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Pronto!
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also... i wonder if the great giana sisters will make an appearance
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Just emulate them on PC, roms are easy to find.
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If you own a 360 you can use your wireless controller as well. Adapter only costs £15 and works great!
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These sort of things work much better in compilations, it makes duds much easier to overlook. I think buying retro games individually always makes them seem overpriced.
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However if they release Bomb Jack... hmmm I might be tempted.
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Google UAE amiga emulator.....
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And 500 points?
I'm laughing out loud.
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That game rocked.
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/loads up Frodo on my Palm and GP2X
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Fucking ILLEGALLY though. Jesus. You don't get people commenting on reviews of music, films or even new games saying "yeah but you can just download it for free can't you?" even though it's equally possible. just because it's piss easy to pirate old games, it doesnt mean the companies who actually own the rights to them are obliged to sell them at a knockdown price. and, actually, re-released old games are better value than either old films or old music - reissues of albums and films typically cost about the same as a newly released one.
edit: oh and fucking Game Boy please
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Er.... EMULATION is legal isn't it? Roms are readily available (and I don't mean file sharing or torrents)
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It's really only expensive if you are contemplating buying 20 games or something, in which case you're much better off going down the emulator route.
edit: not that it has any bearing on the value of the VC titles today, but C64 games were £14.99 for the disk version, £9.99 if you were patient enough for tape (and a lot of the best titles were disk-only, or crippled on the tape version). Budget titles were generally pish, with a few notable exceptions.
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I don't know where you're from but in Germany fo example several lawyers made it pretty clear that there will be NO PROSECUTION for downloading these 20+ year old games! Downloading C64 games = ZERO RISK. Most of the original publishers and developers are out of business anyway. By buying from this channel you're giving ALL your money to greedy Nintendo and NONE of it goes to the original developers that's why your comparison with music and films is bullshit.
These classics should be free or the money should go to some charity. Don't support ripoff VC.
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Turrican!
Cybernoid!
Any of the Thalamus games - Hunters Moon, Winter Camp, Summer Camp, CREATURES (Clyde Radcliff Exterminates All The Unfriendly, Repulsive Earth-ridden Slime), Retrograde
Gimme them NOW!
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Anyway, I remember games costing £7.99 to £9.99 all those years ago, plus the Mastertronics ones at £1.99 - so this price is rather steep.
They need to make them into compilations for that price to be justified
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vs.
bdgr: "Gimme them NOW!"
See, capitalism is a wonderful thing. People get to choose what they spend their money on, based on the value that they perceive something to have. Nothing has any intrinsic worth.
People don't go around saying "bloody Wii game prices, ripoff, boycott Nintendo", when Cooking Mama and PDC World Championship Darts 2008 are selling for £35. Instead, you avoid the crap games and buy the ones you think are worth the money. Same applies to VC. If you think no C64 game is worth £3.50, that's your prerogative, keep playing them on your emulator instead.
But considering I got about 8 hours of entertainment out of WarioWare, buying a C64 game for 1/10th of the price means I only have to play it for 48 minutes to get equivalent value. It's the price of a sandwich, FFS.
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It's £3.50, man. I can't quite see how £3.50 qualifies as expensive.
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The price of sandwiches is a bloody rip off these days!
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Just go here and play a good selection for free.
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A better one might be the price of a pint, though. Why pay £3.50 in a nice bar (VC) when you could sit at home drinking own-brand lager from Aldi and get just as drunk (emulators)?
Tortuously-stretched analogies ftw!
/tucks into M&S "limited edition" Oakham Chicken & Pancetta Caesar--it's good, but it's no Paradroid
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If you think that the the price is fine for you, then well...go ahead, no one's stopping you.
Fact is though that the people you're paying here (Nintendo) are the same people who'll tell you that pirating stuff (even older stuff) is bad because the creators don't get paid. Unfortunately, the very same people don't feel like paying Andrew Braybrook (the author of the original Uridium) at all!
And oh, btw...another reason why your "lager from Aldi" analogy is rather illogical crap: DRM and region coding.
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I used to work on C64 games as a loading screen artist, so I'll be interested to see if any of my work turns up on the channel. (I doubt it, but it's possible). If so I shall be asking, 'where's my cut?' I never signed my rights away to any of my artwork, so I believe I still own the rights.
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If it's the former then I'm definitiely buying it. If it's the latter then I think I'll stick to my GP2X for retro gaming.
They still need to bring out Snake, Rattle & Roll, anyway. Surely that's high priority?
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Plus I also bought Raging Bull on DVD and was shocked to discover I had to pay DVD prices, not VHS prices.
Lastly I purchased a copy of Bob Dylan's greatest hits and was mortified that I had to pay the album price when they've been listening to them free on the radio for years.
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hunt round romz sites and download emulators, which most people aren't nerdy enough to want to do.
As an aside, where did you read that royalties aren't going to the IP copyright holders?
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I'm sure you fee for the work would've signed over all rights to the work to the company who published the game.
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Abadonware is becoming a extinct concept as retro gaming finds a channel for distribution.
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edit: Ravenger, cool, any games we might have heard of? You most likely do still have copyright, but probably granted a non-exclusive license to the publisher for the unlimited commercial exploitation of the work, which would cover this kind of thing.
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I was free-lance, and never signed a contract, and I believe you have to specifically sign away your copyright which is something I never did. In any case the original publishers went out of business many years ago, though one of them was Hewson whose games featured prominently on the C64 Direct To TV joystick, and are probably going to be some of the games on the virtual console.
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in Germany fo example several lawyers made it pretty clear that there will be NO PROSECUTION for downloading these 20+ year old games!
people are also very rarely prosecuted for downloading music or films, it still isn't legal. in general they go after the suppliers, not the downloaders.
By buying from this channel you're giving ALL your money to greedy Nintendo and NONE of it goes to the original developers that's why your comparison with music and films is bullshit.
how is it bullshit exactly? nintendo pay whoever owns the game in question - this may be the original developer, or it may be some other company who acquired the rights to it. nintendo of course take a cut for themselves as distributor, but they certainly don't just sell other people's games and keep all the money. and the rights situation is exactly the same with films and music; for example, michael jackson until recently owned the rights to a large part of the beatles catalogue, so if you bought the music in question the money would go to jacko and the (surviving) beatles would see fuck-all from it. it's common with all forms of intellectual property.
Why should any money go to "Commodore Gaming", whoever they are? Did they buy the rights to the games from the original publishers/developers?
Yes!
Er.... EMULATION is legal isn't it? Roms are readily available (and I don't mean file sharing or torrents)
Emulation is legal, ROMs (unless they're in the public domain) are not. The only reason they're so easily available on various websites is the small file sizes - to host (for example) a similar collection of films would take up considerably more bandwidth. hence why you don't see, say, Mega CD games on most of these sites. plus they're usually hosted in countries that have more pressing copyright-related concerns, like widespread commercial DVD piracy.
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Gamers seem to feel they are somehow entitled to steal games because they are a few years old. It's not legal for movies, music or books so why on earth should be be the case with games?!
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Pretty shrewd move really, probably cost more to track down the current copyright holders than it did to buy up the IP.
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The rights to games will lie with the original copyright holders or whoever bought the publisher catalogues. Nintendo will have to negogiate publishing rights for those titles before they would be able to appear on the VC.
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/plays all his speccy games legally and for free on his ds.
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Not sure about that mate I've seen computer games shows on TV that tell you where to get roms and that emulation 's free in the past.
Pac-man ate my wife, get over yourself mate how is it stealing if 99% of them you cannot actually buy anymore? If I want play an old classic I have to wait for someone to put it on Live, PSN or VC? If a movie I want is never released on DVD or is no longer available to buy am I stealing if I tape it off the telly or download it?
You make it sound like piracy of currently released software which is a COMPLETELY different matter....
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Justify it all you like but you are still stealing it. I've pirated stuff myself but I'm not deluded enough to think it's anything other that copyright theft.
" If a movie I want is never released on DVD or is no longer available to buy am I stealing if I tape it off the telly or download it? "
Yes, because if it's being shown on TV then there is nearly always a copyright holder so, once again, you are stealing from the IP holder.
There is stuff out of copyright in the UK that, if you clear it with the producers, are fine to show/watch. More often than not though they'll be a copyright holder but the DVD might not be be published or is out of print.
And, funnily enough, it's not your god-given right to watch or play stuff. It's at the discretion of the copyright holder.
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You may take it seriously but 99% of the world (including the law) doesn't. How many people have been prosecuted for taping TV or radio?
How much of a piracy problem is downloading emulated Speccy/C64/amiga etc. games when you cannot physically buy them or the machines to play them in shops?
I think the games/music/movie industry have a much bigger problem, and are more concerned with, dealing with real piracy that costs them revenue.
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yeah, as pac-man ate my wife said, they don't own -all- the game IP, they might not even own any (but chances are they picked up a bit from smaller defunct developers). they won't get paid for games they don't own (except probably royalties for use of the logo and the C64's internal ROM) - i was mainly addressing the "why should they get money" bit. what they'll get is what they're entitled to as owner of whatever IP they own - they aren't just claiming money for other people's games. that's quite a good way to get sued.
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I do agree that if these games are re-released like the very, very small minority on Live, VC and PSN the original devs SHOULD get a chuck of the cash but truth is most games will never be seen on those platforms, there is just to many!
Ages ago I read a great statement on MAME when they were taken to court "people are preserving classic gaming so we don't forget what came before"
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I agree - but disagree with with the very, very small minority statment.
I think the original artists should be recompensed wherever possible and people should have to cough up to play the games that defined the industry. As these channels grow and develop hopefully they'll be an ever expanding library that folk like you and me can play.
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Yeah I agree that, with time, the number of old classics will (hopefully) increase a great deal but should people be penalized who emulate on PC just because we now have consoles with technology that enables companies to re-release these old games that you cannot buy and charge for them?
Emulation was around long before the current gen consoles, it's where they all got the idea from in the first place!
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Top 10 most anticipated games anyone? Just off to think this through myself... but for starters:
Paradroid
Iridis Alpha
Little Computer People (Disk Version)
Thing on a Spring (Anyone else wanted to play this again since Spring Mario in Galaxy?)
Lords of Midnight
Defender of the Crown
Wizball
Iball I/II
Uridium
IK+
Zoids
Paperboy
... off the top of my head
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No more, I say!!
/weeps
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As if Nintendo would go "well, that kid in Germany got away with downloading C64 romz, so nobody will sue us if we publish them on Virtual Console!"
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I wrote that none of the money is going to the original devs, NOT the current copyright holders. Read properly and don't twist my words. My statement is based upon first hand information from a person working at Nintendo in Germany. No links to provide and I don't care whether you believe me. Fact is, if Uridium or Turrican get released on VC neither Andrew Braybrook nor Manfred Trenz will see a dime from those sales. If you're fine with this, then go ahead. If not, use an emulator, disc images are VERY easy to find, and let Nintendo know.
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I have the joystick with 20 games and no Wii so lol.
Copyright laws sadly have mutated from the original intent as an incentive for artists to create works that entered the public domain as part of culture within a reasonable time, to industry products owned by heartless corporations with a longlasting monopoly which can be used to NOT provide copies to customers.
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I'd like to see
Creatures 1 and 2
Turrican 1 and 2
Hawkeye
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Amega next please (although I dread to think what they would charge if they price C64 games so highly).
As for games, both 'Lords of Chaos' and 'Laser Squad' would be very nice additions. How about 'Zombi' too, or would the The MKR Group go after Nintendo and Ubi as well then? *Rolleyes!*
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As it stands, it's a brave start with two cracking games, but the price is too high imo (and many of yours it seems!).
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"There is stuff out of copyright in the UK that, if you clear it with the producers, are fine to show/watch. More often than not though they'll be a copyright holder but the DVD might not be be published or is out of print. "
There is a slight flaw with this statement - can anyone spot it? If stuff is out of copyright, you don't have to clear it with anyone, nor pay anyone - thats the point of being out of copyright!
And as other people have pointed out, the original point of copyright was to protect the creators of said work for a *limited and reasonable* time so they could earn their money from it, then after that the work becomes public domain for soceity as a whole to appreciate/use. Until a bunch of incredably selfish mostly Americans came along and bullied their way into seeing a law change.
Thanks for that Disney, you greedy idea-stealing scum.
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"If you own the original game, you are legally allowed to back it up once. However even if you own the game, you aren't allowed to download the ROM of it. "
Err, since when? As long as the ROM is the same version and platform as the one you bought a copy of, how is that breaking any law? And (and I know this is different) how will anyone know that you didn't create the ROM yourself from your own legal copy? Don't forget that (in the UK at least) you are legally allowed to use your copy on any machine that is capable of playing it (are you listening DRM loving music companies? I am LEGALLY ALLOWED to play my music on my pc! Why does no-one sue these F*$#%#$s!!). So how is owning a ROM to a game you bought legally any different?
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This is a crap offer.
Get some amiga games like turrican etc and that may be worth it.
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"
"There is stuff out of copyright in the UK that, if you clear it with the producers, are fine to show/watch. More often than not though they'll be a copyright holder but the DVD might not be be published or is out of print. "
There is a slight flaw with this statement - can anyone spot it? If stuff is out of copyright, you don't have to clear it with anyone, nor pay anyone - thats the point of being out of copyright!"
Sorry, phrased that badly. What I mean is a piece even a piece of work is not be being published or distributed then the rights revert to the producer. Therefore even it's it not available commerical to buy or play there is still a rights issue.
@ AOFanboi
"Yeah it's a choice between NOT paying the creators nor paying Nintendo or NOT paying the creators but paying an excessive price to Nintendo. "
Do you check the who own the rights before you pirate the game? Of course you don't. You pirate and are trying to justify it. At least be honest that you are happy to rip of the creator or copyright holder. You way ensures that they'll definitely never see any money, whereas legally downloading at least means there is a distinct possibility of them receiving recompense.
As I've said before, I've pirated stuff but I don't try and be all Robin Hood about it.
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It's a conflict between two different laws that this arises from. And yes, indeed regarding your second statement, in many circumstances, will be very hard to prove otherwise...