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Microsoft Has Now Banned Game System Emulators from the Windows Store

PGamer

fucking juniors
From the latest revision to the Windows Store policies:

10.13.10
Apps that emulate a game system are not allowed on any device family.

Universal Emulator by NESBox has already been delisted. You may recall last year when NESBox was in the news for trying to publish an emulator on the Xbox One which was quickly reversed by MS who required them to remove Xbox platform support. Well now they have been removed from the Windows Store entirely and it looks like other game system emulators will soon follow. MSPoweruser seems to believe that this change may be due to the upcoming Xbox Live Creators Program:

MSPoweruser said:
The reasoning for this is currently unknown, but there is a chance it’s related to the upcoming Xbox Live Creators Program. The Creators Program is part of the continued unification of the Xbox Store and the Windows Store, and focuses on getting UWP Xbox Play Anywhere titles on the store by making it significantly easier to submit them.
 
Did anyone expect anything different? Like hell Microsoft would be okay/feel comfortable allowing pirated Nintendo games to be played on their system.
 

shiyrley

Banned
Did anyone expect anything different? Like hell Microsoft would be okay/feel comfortable allowing pirated Nintendo games to be played on their system.
It has taken TWO posts for someone to link emulators and piracy. Is this a new record?

I shouldn't have been the first post, now that would have been impressive
 

Somnid

Member
NESBox is a web app right? Windows store will be listing PWAs (progressive web apps) and PWAs will work like native apps no matter where they come from so it doesn't matter.
 
It has taken TWO posts for someone to link emulators and piracy. Is this a new record?

I shouldn't have been the first post, now that would have been impressive

image.php
 
It has taken TWO posts for someone to link emulators and piracy. Is this a new record?

I shouldn't have been the first post, now that would have been impressive

I'm not sure what you're expecting. A Mario game running on an Xbox is something neither party is very interested in facilitating.
 

shiyrley

Banned
I swear I'm never changing my avatar, I love it
I'm not sure what you're expecting. A Mario game running on an Xbox is something neither party is very interested in facilitating.
I mean, yeah, but that doesn't really have anything to do with piracy. And I'll stop the conversation here because I am not interested in the inevitable discussion what will unfold and that will change zero people's minds in either side
 
Did anyone expect anything different? Like hell Microsoft would be okay/feel comfortable allowing pirated Nintendo games to be played on their system.

Microsoft have been ok with piracy since the start of time, so long as people still purchased their products.

The problem would be someone making an xbox emulator.
 

Mega

Banned
It has taken TWO posts for someone to link emulators and piracy. Is this a new record?

I shouldn't have been the first post, now that would have been impressive

This isn't a situation where a thread on CEMU's progress gets derailed by piracy talk.

MS delisted the emulators knowing full well people were using it to play pirated Nintendo games on their platform.
 
I swear I'm never changing my avatar, I love it

I mean, yeah, but that doesn't really have anything to do with piracy. And I'll stop the conversation here because I am not interested in the inevitable discussion what will unfold and that will change zero people's minds in either side

Fair enough. I'm with you that the emulators themselves are not infringing.
 

guybrushfreeman

Unconfirmed Member
This isn't a situation where a thread on CEMU's progress gets derailed by piracy talk.

MS delisted the emulators knowing full well people were using it to play pirated Nintendo games on their platform.

Did you know it's possible to commit copyright infringement in many apps? This emulation = piracy stuff is ridiculous and it needs to stop. Should Microsoft delist every video player in the store? Every photo editing app? Discontinue their web browser?

Seriously do you think every video player should be removed as well?
 

Vestal

Gold Member
Google Play continues winning, MS continue to make their shitty fucking store even shittier every single day.

Google maybe turning a blind eye but Microsoft simply cannot. Its a headache they simply do not want to deal with. Having an emulator on the Xbox that can run games from other Platforms is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
 
Did you know it's possible to commit copyright infringement in many apps? This emulation = piracy stuff is ridiculous and it needs to stop. Should Microsoft delist every video player in the store? Every photo editing app? Discontinue their web browser?

Seriously do you think every video player should be removed as well?

Bad analogy.

An NES emulator can be used to do two things: Play homebrew or played released (copyrighted!) games.

A video player can played pirated movies. It can also play home movies, student films, public domain video, purchased content from other stores, among other things.

Mario running on an Xbox is not okay.
 

MUnited83

For you.
Google maybe turning a blind eye but Microsoft simply cannot. Its a headache they simply do not want to deal with. Having an emulator on the Xbox that can run games from other Platforms is a lawsuit waiting to happen.
Factually, it isn't.
 

guybrushfreeman

Unconfirmed Member
Bad analogy.

An NES emulator can be used to do two things: Play homebrew or played released (copyrighted!) games.

A video player can played pirated movies. It can also play home movies, student films, public domain video, purchased content from other stores, among other things.

Mario running on an Xbox is not okay.

What? The two are exactly the same. An emulator can do all those things. It's exactly the same thing

Edit: I can used many of my Xbox's built in features for copyright infringement. Why not ban all of those as well?
 
What? The two are exactly the same. An emulator can do all those things. It's exactly the same thing

Video running on a game machine is in no way equivelent to games running on a game machine. This is less about legality and more about image. Allowing Nintendo games to be playable on a Microsoft console (games that Nintendo are actively selling) is something neither company would be happy with. Microsoft has full control over the content of their store, so rather than deal with a moral gray area, they choose to not allow games from other companies to be played on their platform. Phones are more akin to computers (and it's not like Google competes directly with consoles) so feelings are likely different there.
 

Mega

Banned
Did you know it's possible to commit copyright infringement in many apps? This emulation = piracy stuff is ridiculous and it needs to stop. Should Microsoft delist every video player in the store? Every photo editing app? Discontinue their web browser?

Seriously do you think every video player should be removed as well?

Yeah, remove all the video players. Spot on analogy!
 

Justified

Member
What? The two are exactly the same. An emulator can do all those things. It's exactly the same thing

Edit: I can used many of my Xbox's built in features for copyright infringement. Why not ban all of those as well?

While an emulator can play pirated games, its not the emulator that does the pirating.

His example was: people can download movie torrents, but just because VLC can play them doesnt make VLC illegal

*edit*

Oh we were making the same point
 

guybrushfreeman

Unconfirmed Member
You can still be facing a lawsuit for enabling piracy on your platform.

No you really can't. Again many of the built in features of Xbox enable easy and direct copyright infringement. Why are they not sued for the video player? Audio player? Web browser? Photo viewing application?

This really is bizarre. There is no legal difference here. Truly, I don't understand what's so difficult about this. An emulator is 100% as legal as a video player
 

Mr-Joker

Banned
For 99% of users they are linked

It's because people are getting ROM confused with emulators which is understandable as let's face it emulator can be used to run pirated rom, which is illegal despite the fact emulator themselves are legal.

So in summary;

-Using an emulator to run a legal copy of the game is legal.

-Using an emulator to run a pirated copy of a rom is not legal.
 
Did anyone expect anything different? Like hell Microsoft would be okay/feel comfortable allowing pirated Nintendo games to be played on their system.

no they don't obviously

Google Play continues winning, MS continue to make their shitty fucking store even shittier every single day.

not enough shit in your comments about the Windows Store lately

Because they don't like the implications of emulators on XB1 to spread: "play Nintendo on your Xbox."

???
They would love that
"You can play Nintendo and Playstation games on Xbox. Xbox is the only Platform you clan play everything on"
 

Mega

Banned
Emulators are not illegal. In fact, they are 100% legal. There is no issues whatsoever with hosting emulators on your service.

Pretty much.

I imagine it's not really about legality. It's perhaps that MS just doesn't seem to want to perpetuate the idea that they're cool with gamers easily using their Xbox video game console to play Nintendo video games of all things. "Bad optics" or something.

So please tell us why MS made this decision.

Because they don't like the implications of emulators on XB1 to spread: "play Nintendo on your Xbox."
 

guybrushfreeman

Unconfirmed Member
Video running on a game machine is in no way equivelent to games running on a game machine. This is less about legality and more about image. Allowing Nintendo games to be playable on a Microsoft console (games that Nintendo are actively selling) is something neither company would be happy with. Microsoft has full control over the content of their store, so rather than deal with a moral gray area, they choose to not allow games from other companies to be played on their platform. Phones are more akin to computers (and it's not like Google competes directly with consoles) so feelings are likely different there.

Nope. Xbox is also a video machine. Or did you miss them advertising 4K blu-ray, netflix, tv streaming, etc.

Edit: I included a bad quote there I apologise
 

Tonyx

Member
Did anyone expect anything different? Like hell Microsoft would be okay/feel comfortable allowing pirated Nintendo games to be played on their system.

It's not just pirated content.

Since the unification of the Windows and Xbox store emulators would probably end up on Xbox as well. And Microsoft surely doesn't want you to run games of other systems, legit or not, on the Xbox.
 

Spladam

Member
If only there was a way to download and install programs outside the Windows Store.

Just imagine how great that would be, but let's not stop throwing ourselves at the confines of the app ecosystem, I mean the awesome companies are ensuring us that this is the future and the freedom of running what we want on our own devices is a needless burden.

It's not like the emulators on the apps store are not dreadful shadows of what a proper full functioned and accurate emulator should be, no, they were so awesome.

I've run out of sarcasm.
 
Nope. Xbox is also a video machine. Or did you miss them advertising 4K blu-ray, netflix, tv streaming, etc.

This. Analogy. Hurts. Those features are all secondary to the Xbox being a games console. You're fooling yourself thinking otherwise.

NOBODY in the game industry is comfortable with this. Microsoft, being a part of this industry, is not comfortable with this. That's why emulators are being taken down.
 
Shame, just as when were about to be allowed on Xbone due the creators program :(

(But that's probably the reason why they are banning)
 

guybrushfreeman

Unconfirmed Member
This. Analogy. Hurts. Those features are all secondary to the Xbox being a games console. You're fooling yourself thinking otherwise.

NOBODY in the game industry is comfortable with this. Microsoft, being a part of this industry, is not comfortable with this. That's why emulators are being taken down.

No it's 100% the same. It's not even an analogy. Pick up any Xbox advertising and there's video content all over it. The Xbox One launch was widely criticised for focusing too much on TV and video content!
 

Laughing Banana

Weeping Pickle
It has taken TWO posts for someone to link emulators and piracy. Is this a new record?

I shouldn't have been the first post, now that would have been impressive

i don't understand people responding like this.

Like, you have to be so incredibly blind and/or naive not to admit what most people use emulators for.
 
No it's 100% the same. It's not even an analogy. Pick up any Xbox advertising and there's video content all over it. The Xbox One launch was widely criticised for focusing too much on TV and video content!

You believe video of Super Mario Bros 3 running on an Xbox One is equal to video of AKIRA_HorribleSubs.mp4 being ran on an Xbox One? On a games console? Sorry, no.
 
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