App Turns Your Phone Into an Illegal Portable PlayStation

[vansau]

App Turns Your Phone Into an Illegal Portable PlayStation

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Original PlayStation games get a little more mobile (but not more legal), thanks to a new emulator for Android phones.

While PSOne games are available for gamers with PSPs, they have yet to officially come to platforms like smartphones and devices like the iPad. However, a new emulator app for the Android phone lets users play copies of original PlayStation games, provided they don't have a problem with videogame piracy.

The emulator, "PSX4Droid" is currently selling for $5.99 on the Android Market. It's designed to work with the higher-end models of the phone, and it sounds pretty impressive. The emulator will work with a number of file formats and is even compatible with a WiiMote, though its frame rate does sometimes drop with certain games. According to Engadget, which spent some time playing games with PSX4Droid, the app largely delivers a great gaming experience.

The app's existence seems to float in a nebulous legal area where the application itself isn't illegal, but the files it runs are. While the emulator allows users to play games without a secondary device (nor does it require a person to jailbreak their phone), the ROM files necessary to play these games violate copyright law. That means that there's no getting around the fact that you have to commit piracy in order to play PSOne games on your Android.

Source: Geek

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[Radeonx]

That's a fantastic use of loophole exploitation. Interesting.

 

[Sleekgiant]

So they never thought to make this legal......

Make legal app
Make game store
???????
PROFIT!!!!

 

[Quiet Stranger]

As long as they have the hard copies of the games they download it's fine but yeah this is awful and probably won't last long, I give it a month

 

[Uberjoe19]

Wow, hopefully the developers of the app don't get sued back into the Stone Age.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Uummm...if I make the ISO from my collection of PSX games it is legal.....no matter what the mafiaa says............

Wow, hopefully the developers of the app don't get sued back into the Stone Age.

Well they did it to bleem but thats when the PSX was their main platform.

The ROM's aren't illegal as far as I am aware. Downloading a ROM of a game you own is legal, as far as I'm aware. Thing is, it's pretty hard to make people only download what they own.

If you own a game and then download it, I don't see how that is piracy.

Its illegal as no one has the right to distribute files they do not have the rights to , you own the disc so rip the data from it that is quasi legal downloading it is not legal but you will be more likely charged with uploading it IE distribution if the shizzle ever hits the fan.....

 

[razer17]

The ROM's aren't illegal as far as I am aware. Downloading a ROM of a game you own is legal, as far as I'm aware. Thing is, it's pretty hard to make people only download what they own.

If you own a game and then download it, I don't see how that is piracy.

 

[JediMB]

Interesting. A shame my X10 doesn't support multi-touch yet.

 

[Billion Backs]

The ROM's aren't illegal as far as I am aware. Downloading a ROM of a game you own is legal, as far as I'm aware. Thing is, it's pretty hard to make people only download what they own.

If you own a game and then download it, I don't see how that is piracy.

It is piracy. Law doesn't have to make sense...

On topic, I guess it's pretty cool. Doesn't affect me because I haven't go the hardware and don't really care about portable gaming, but good job to whoever came up and programmed it.

 

[Fallen-Angel Risen-Demon]

Wow, hopefully the developers of the app don't get sued back into the Stone Age.

Hopefully they don't?
Don't you mean hopefully they do?
Piracy=bad.
Piracy ruins gaming.
I paid hard cash for my PS3 version of FFVII and so should everyone else nomatter what platform they are using!
So yeah, this is bad.

 

[Enigmers]

The ROM's aren't illegal as far as I am aware. Downloading a ROM of a game you own is legal, as far as I'm aware. Thing is, it's pretty hard to make people only download what they own.

If you own a game and then download it, I don't see how that is piracy.

It is piracy. Law doesn't have to make sense...

Then colour me Neutral-Good!

Taking a bunch of PS1 games with you on your phone sounds awesome, I'll have to look into this if I ever get an Android-o-phone in the future (maybe I'll just have an actual Android follow me around and fax people.)

Wow, hopefully the developers of the app don't get sued back into the Stone Age.

Hopefully they don't?
Don't you mean hopefully they do?
Piracy=bad.
Piracy ruins gaming.
I paid hard cash for my PS3 version of FFVII and so should everyone else nomatter what platform they are using!
So yeah, this is bad.

Newsflash: some people own the games they're downloading the ROMs for, or are otherwise making .iso files using the exact same discs they bought.

 

[Jumplion]

The app's existence seems to float in a nebulous legal area where the application itself isn't illegal, but the files it runs are. While the emulator allows users to play games without a secondary device (nor does it require a person to jailbreak their phone), the ROM files necessary to play these games violate copyright law. That means that there's no getting around the fact that you have to commit piracy in order to play PSOne games on your Android.

...then why is the Escapist advertising such a feature? I mean, granted, it's nifty I'm sure, but whenever someone promotes piracy in a regular post they get slapped with a probation at least for promoting illegal activity. Why is this any different?

 

[Nimbus]

Three issues with your post:

#1: Pirated disk-based media are NOT reffered to as "roms", but as "isos".

#2: One may, depending on what country you reside in, legally make your own isos.

#3: Depending on whether (or not*): it may the app:
a) Comes with a ripped PSX BIOS
or b) Requires you to provide your own BIOS
It may be illegal in and of itself, or merely using it without ripping your own PSX BIOS may be illegal.


*It may use some sort of new emulation which doesn't require any PSX BIOS, in which case it is PERFECTLY legal.

 

[Timbydude]

Eh, I still have a problem with touch-based "buttons". There are games that control very well on a touch basis, and Crash Bandicoot is definitely not one of them. I hate the imprecise feeling of playing those games.

 

[Billion Backs]

Wow, hopefully the developers of the app don't get sued back into the Stone Age.

Hopefully they don't?
Don't you mean hopefully they do?
Piracy=bad.
Piracy ruins gaming.
I paid hard cash for my PS3 version of FFVII and so should everyone else nomatter what platform they are using!
So yeah, this is bad.

More like, piracy = not actually bad, no conclusive proof that it's "bad".
Piracy doesn't ruin gaming. It doesn't make it that much better either - depending on what you consider your goals (artistic vs financial, an artist wants more people to experience it, the business guy wants to choke the most money out of it), but overall it's more or less neutral.

And as you MIGHT have noticed, it's PS ONE. As in, 1. As in, the ORIGINAL Playstation, that console from the 90s. No games are being released on it, the console is discontinued and has been replaced with backwards compatible PS2 almost a decade ago, which was replaced by not-so-much backwards compatible (to my knowledge) PS3. There are NO games still produced for PS1 - that would be like making computer games for Windows 95. It's out of official circulation, no intellectual property owners for any games for PS1 receive any profit from them anymore.

 

[DrScoobs]

oh how horrible... is this gonna be on the appstore at some point?

 

[Swifteye]

So they never thought to make this legal......

Make legal app
Make game store
???????
PROFIT!!!!

Seriously. I always had that idea that if somebody made a emulator handheld device that would allow people to put in whatever(fronting with legal content that no one will probably use) then they could make a killing. They could still make tons of dosh if the only game you could play on that emulator was just the fully custmizeable(and intivtively designed) mugen.

 

[Billion Backs]

The app's existence seems to float in a nebulous legal area where the application itself isn't illegal, but the files it runs are. While the emulator allows users to play games without a secondary device (nor does it require a person to jailbreak their phone), the ROM files necessary to play these games violate copyright law. That means that there's no getting around the fact that you have to commit piracy in order to play PSOne games on your Android.

...then why is the Escapist advertising such a feature? I mean, granted, it's nifty I'm sure, but whenever someone promotes piracy in a regular post they get slapped with a probation at least for promoting illegal activity. Why is this any different?

You can promote an illegal activity and not get probated, it's called being careful. And it's not entirely illegal, the actual program - the emulator - is NOT illegal by any means, and it's sold legally from a site that would have removed it if anyone threatened with a lawsuit.

Plus piracy and intellectual ownership laws in general are pretty hot issues in any computer or gaming-related nerd crowds, and that can hardly be ignored. Only through people changes can come.