There’s a way that, in a dystopian future, we could play ROMs from old consoles without slipping into "illegality." That’s what Console Classix is about, a website where you can play emulated games, without angering Nintendo. The formula works like a "video store" and consists of lending physical cartridges through digital means. In other words, with limited resources and always in relation to the number of physical cartridges available.
An online video store for video games
What does this mean? Suppose the "video store" in question has two copies of Super Mario. Therefore, only two people can play Super Mario at the same time, and no more. When one of those people stops playing the Nintendo classic, the game would be made available to the first person who takes it. The "borrowed" games are never downloaded to the hard drive; instead, they’re placed in the user’s RAM. When a person ends their gaming session, the ROM is simply removed from the PC’s volatile memory.
Console Classix’s library consists of 7,000 physical games from consoles like Atari 2600, Colecovision, Gameboy in all its flavors, Sega Game Gear, Sega Genesis, Nintendo NES, N64, Sega Master System, Super Nintendo and TurboGrafx-16. Quite complete, to say the least. The free account lets you enjoy Atari 2600, Colecovision and Nintendo NES games without restrictions. If you want access to the entire catalog, you’ll have to pay around $6 per month or $60 per year. In short, Console Classix is a kind of Netflix, but where the catalog is subject to availability.
The legality of Console Classix
And how could this be legal? Well, the US copyright code (the country where Console Classix is based) allows backup copies of game cartridges, and it also allows those copies to be rented, sold or transferred, as long as they are accompanied by the original from which they were created. Console Classix has 17 years of history and, so far, no lawsuit of any kind. Its creator, Aaron Ethridge, has supported his family with the site for a decade, as Ars Technica explains, and believes his luck in avoiding lawsuits has been based on the site’s low profile. However, he believes that if Console Classix ever became massive, it would indeed be sued, although he also trusts that he could win those lawsuits.
Console Classix uses a client that must absolutely be downloaded to enjoy its catalog. The client in question is, to say the least, quite deficient, I’d almost say amateur. I spent a while trying to figure out how to configure things to my liking and had problems putting games in fullscreen. However, if the system worked better, and if it were my only option to play classic titles, I would definitely pay for access to the full catalog.
And so one wonders, and since we’re on the subject, how is it that Nintendo hasn’t managed to satisfy that demand yet, if it’s so interested in making more money. I already said it a while ago in a visionary note on how to combat piracy: why the hell aren’t they wanting my money? And you, if the case arose, would you pay for a "Netflix" of classic video games, with a decent catalog of all many consoles in history?
