In a perfect world, there'd be millions of people....

[isamu]

....playing ZSNES online via Classic Gaming Arena.

I'd wake up in the morning, fire up CGA, and see literally millions of people playing everything from Donkey Kong Country, to Super Mario World, to Final Fantasy VI, to Seiken Densetsu III and beyond.


But in reality, that is not the case. Instead, you have millions of people playing a bunch of silly Xbox Live Arcade games, and next gen retail games like Halo 3 and COD 4. Why do you suppose this is?

Why is it that there are millions of people playing Xbox Live and hardly no one in CGA?

I'm I the only one that thinks these online apps, and their ability to play old school 2D 16bit console games have been CRIMINALLY overlooked? Is there ANY possibility of ever seeing more than 100 people in CGA at one time, and on a daily basis?

Does no one feel nostalgic about reliving the 16bit good old days...only this time ONLINE against people all over the world?

Is Xbox Live's popularity a result of people being too lazy to learn about emulators and how to configure apps like CGA so they can play 16bit console SNES games online? Or is it a result of superb(if not overkill) promotion and marketing by Microsoft?

If only CGA had the numbers of Xbox Live.....the world would be a much better place. I hope we can get the word out so that someday I will wake up and actually see those millions of people playing SNES games in CGA

[sweener2001]

xbla has braid, and mega man 9, and puzzle quest, and rez, and e4, and castle crashers, and uno(!....?..!), and carcasonne, and geometry wars, and .........etc.

i'm not saying that the snes library is at fault, but current consoles have some excellent quality titles out there. and they're a lot easier to use.

i understand your pain, though

[isamu]

xbla has braid, and mega man 9, and puzzle quest, and rez, and e4, and caslte crashers, and uno(!....?..!), and carcasonne, and geometry wars, and .........etc.

i'm not saying that the snes library is at fault, but current consoles have some excellent quality titles out there. and they're a lot easier to use.

i understand your pain, though

I acknowledge the greatness of the games you mentioned. But there is no way Xbox Live Arcade's catalog of games can a candle to SNES' entire library. In my opinion, if it came down to being able to play current gen games on 360, wii and PS3...or playing ZSNES online via CGA or Zbattle with a HUGE amount of active users on a daily basis, I'd choose ZSNES(as well as Kega Fusion and Virtua NES via CGA) in a heart beat.

[Man]

I'm I the only one that thinks these online apps, and their ability to play old school 2D 16bit console games have been CRIMINALLY overlooked?

Interesting choice of words... I think you're forgetting that as long as SNES games remain copyrighted, the user base will be limited to people willing to walk on the wild side.

[isamu]

I'm I the only one that thinks these online apps, and their ability to play old school 2D 16bit console games have been CRIMINALLY overlooked?

Interesting choice of words... I think you're forgetting that as long as SNES games remain copyrighted, the user base will be limited to people willing to walk on the wild side.

That is an interesting point and I hadn't thought about that.

[jj_frap]

I doubt that's the reason: People are generally very lax about pirating things (especially in Europe and in the third world, where various factors ranging from poverty to a perception of entitlement due to being dicked around by the gaming industry have made piracy well-accepted)...Unless they're not able to find the ROMs, I don't see any reason aside from the fact that there are more gamers now than there were in 1995ish.

[isamu]

Fun fact: I've been playing Call of Duty W@W for the past two weeks straight. Even at 2:00AM PST, there's always at least 150,000 people playing(360 version). The kiddies want their next gen games and don't care about old 2D games anymore. The day of the 2D retro game is all but over. 2DF and GGPO combined don't even come close to those numbers at their peak.

[funkyass]

And never will. The vast majority of 16-bit era games are single player ones.

Very few support more than 2 player at the time max, and none of them were designed with internet play in mind.

Even if they had a perfect solution for internet play, they never see the numbers games that support hundreds of people at once can.

Its a scalability issue plain and simple.

[Johan_H]

The day of the 2D retro game is all but over.

2D retro games = 2D games that mimic the style of games from an earlier time. Like Megaman 9.
Was there ever a day of those?