Secondly, these systems are generally updated at very sluggish paces. At least in North America, the
Virtual Console, for example, usually only dishes out one game a week (sometimes not releasing anything at all, and very rarely releasing multiple titles).
Sony's
PSOne Classics, in recent times, has a somewhat better track record of releasing usually two
PS1 games a week (although there are weeks sometimes where only one or none are released). The
Xbox Classics, lastly, do not seem to be updated at all anymore, standing still at 29 games in North America. Now, while the Japanese counterparts for the
Virtual Console and
PSOne Classics seem to generally fare better with more releases a week, the systems are still lagging far behind the number of titles that can be found online illegally in an instant. (This is especially evident in the case of
Sony; they are a full console behind with their digital offerings since they seem to be shying away from
PS2 emulation on the
PS3 at the moment. Hopefully that changes in time.)
Thirdly, only home consoles seem to be the focus of these systems. Sony has changed this trend somewhat in recent times by making some of their older UMD titles available via the PlayStation Network now that the PSP go lacks a UMD drive. Nintendo, however, despite the successes of the various iterations of Game Boy, has yet to release a handheld Virtual Console equivalent now that the DSi has sufficient memory capability and an online presence. This may change in the future, though, so this complaint may be somewhat premature, but the fact that DSi Ware cannot be transferred between DSi handhelds does not bode well for such a system.
Which leads to my final complaint: these systems have some holes in regard to purchasing these old titles. While most purchases are tied to their respective systems' accounts (e.g.: Xbox LIVE accounts, PlayStation Network accounts), they are still limited to a certain number of downloads for certain things, and as stated before, transferring these purchases to replacement consoles can sometimes be a hassle (if not impossible). Granted, this is due to the industry's rightful want to avoid any piracy, but it does not bode well. This may become especially troublesome when the next generation of consoles arrives; will PSOne Classics purchased on a PS3 be transferable to a PS4, for example? One can only hope that these digital purchases are "future-proof". Then again, gamers are used to having to re-purchase back catalogues of games, so the industry may not see a need to keep this compatibility. For the sake of archival, though, it would be wise for them to do.
Solving all of these problems will not necessarily be easy (especially in the case of the ownership of the digital purchases), but it can be done. This becomes especially evident when focus is put once again on the illegal emulation scene. Vast catalogues of ROMs and ISOs have been collected by enthusiasts and hobbyists, and consoles have been emulated by people who have never worked on the originals. If this amount of progress can be made by those outside of the "Big Three" (Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft), it is only reasonable to assume that more progress can be made from within. For example, a stable PS2 emulator would probably be much easier to develop from within Sony than from without.
But this all leads up to an interesting question: do the Big Three really care about preserving older titles? After all, old games go out of print rather quickly and yet the Big Three still make money with their newer titles. What incentive would they have for archival?
It's a good question. Some may say that good money can be made from the sale of older games, but that may merely be a drop in the bucket. Really, I don't think the Big Three really care about archival. It is my hope, however, that game developers themselves care and will persuade the Big Three to be interested. I would expect that many game developers would only support game archival, just like how most writers would support the preservation of old literary works and film makers the preservation of old film. History is important in any field, and being able to experience that history first-hand is invaluable. Being able to play an old title trumps any write-up describing it. Granted, my emulation proposal does not replicate the entire experience of playing a real old game on a real old console, but it is much better than having nothing at all.
Essentially, I suppose I'm saying that people will be emulating games illegally anyway. If we want to curb this piracy, why don't we just make a legal alternative for those who would be interested? It would be naive to assume every pirate would convert, but it would probably convert some, and maybe it would deter some of the future piracy of our past titles.
After all, how can we stand on the shoulders of giants if the majority of the giants are lost to history?
*I understand that emulation of a console, in some cases, can be legal by itself and that the illegality lies more in the ROMs and ISOs themselves. I refer to the emulation as illegal in this article, though, to illustrate the differences between the emulation solutions made by the Big Three and the emulation solutions made by the public.
You can also include me as one who has not played Nethack, but I know what it is (and I know I should give it a go).
But therein lies my point; we need to preserve our history as an industry for future gamers to experience, and although emulation is a very good way to do it, we can't rely solely on illegal means (again, I speak of the emulation of console video games as I know little of the matter when it comes to the emulation of old computer games). We need a legal solution that rivals the illegal ones if we truly want to make progress with video game archival. I just hope that enough people from within the industry notice the importance of this issue and that this kind of archival can be done.
As consumers we don't find out about a loss until someone goes to make a remake or port 10 years later. That's when we hear "Oh, we lost the source code, or we saved over it for the sequel, and that's why the physics are different." Or maybe "This character was designed 12 years ago and we have no idea what they were thinking, so... (disaster)". But if someone had written and saved a style guide or bible for that game/character, then the secrets to its creation wouldn't be lost.
You might assume that every that everything created 10 years ago can be reproduced as well as we want it to be. Our technology has improved, people are smarter, and we have the original for reference. But yet inventions are still lost. For example, early console platformers like Mario, Sonic, and Bubble Bubble had extremely clever controls far beyond holding a button for a number of frames and moving a linear number of pixels. Try it sometime. They did some clever stuff to compensate for what we would now call a lack of an analog stick. And I don't think anyone knows how they did it. It's very hard to figure out even with frame advance and save states. So the 1980s secret to making a d-pad feel awesome might be endangered. But at least source code can be decompiled if it is imperative. Artwork music, and documentation can't be. Harmonix discovered while working on Rock Band that the original master tracks for several classics that they wanted to license just didn't exist. Oops? So then you have to recreate them, etc. Or we can make an effort to not lose this stuff in the first place!
The more aspects we know of our history, the more we can learn from it. As such, I support all kinds of archival.