The Art of Home Brewing. Part 2

Up to this point I've only talked about the Atari 2600, but don't think that's the only system that still has games being developed for it. The Genesis is still alive and kicking. In recent years we've seen a few new releases. You can take a look:

http://piersolar.com/
http://www.superfighter.com/

The NES is still out there:

http://retrousb.com/

I could go on, but you get the idea. The classic systems are still alive and well. Each of them offers something unique. People see that, which is why development continues.

Most of these developers have a few things in common. First, they love the systems they are coding on. Second they want to make a bit of money from their hobby. Third, none of their games have ever showed up at Console Classix. Why is this?

Well to start with Console Classix wants to make sure that the original authors of the games have made the money they are going to make before we pick up their games. I admit that we may offer the Wii virtual console a little competition, but I can talk about that later. For the moment just run with the idea that we don't want to cost any developers any sales. These guys have spent months (sometimes years) developing a game. We don't want them to loose sales because we offer it to the public.

In time we certainly plan to offer these games, but when and how is still very much up in the air. We need a way to offer the games and still encourage people to buy a copy for themselves. I think Console Classix could bring attention to these games as well as letting our fans play them. It's simply a matter of working out something that is fair to the developer and Console Classix and, of course, the gamers themselves.

Up to this point we've done very little on this front. We tried to contact one group (I'll leave out the specifics) and were shut down. They didn't like the idea of emulation. This was very shortsighted, of course, because we can offer the games with or without their blessing. We just wanted to work out a system that was beneficial to everyone. As they were so opposed to the idea we let it sit for the moment.

I'm not sure how to go about this. I'm not certain how we should start. For the moment I am going to put it back on the shelf. In a few months I may pull it out again. We have so much we are working on I can quickly get overloaded.

However, if any of you are home brewers or know a home brewer or feel driven to contact the author of some favorite home brew, Console Classix is ready to talk. We want to offer these games in a way that satisfies everyone. I'm certain we can work something out.