Nintendo may not have put their name on the takedown notice, but they don't really need to after recent events made it clear that they're out for emu blood. Yeah, I'm trying to get PETA interested by declaring Nintendo the enemy of emus.
Unfortunately, if you're PETA and you've gotten this far, I've bad news - I'm not talking about animals but retro game emulators. And when it comes to emulators, EmuParadise is one of the oldest of them all, with 18 years on the job of preserving all sorts of classics, including Atari, Dos, Nintendo, Sega and other platforms.
EmuParadise's owner took to his website to announce that the site will be changing, starting off with immediate takedown of their online library. He said that he "cannot in good conscience risk the futures of [their] team members", which is pretty understandable all things considered.
After all, Nintendo's undead horde of legal representatives recently went after LoveROMs and LoveRETRO websites, who may be forced to shell out for each trademark infringement. Well, that and $150,000 per Nintendo game they hosted, along with handing over domains, websites and the whole shebang.
In case you're too far from a calculator, I'll help you out - it amounts to a whole lot. The business ending type of whole lot. Admittedly, EmuParadise isn't really comparable to these types of websites, but it's probably wise to pre-empt anything that this category of big wigs may throw at you.
As you'd expect though, the fans don't like it one bit, especially since EmuParadise hosted much more than just Nintendo games. I happened to find some rare Commodore 64 gems on the service myself and can't help but feel for the website team. With 18 years on the clock, you can bet your behind there's some exquisite stuff up there, or should we say - was.
Atari
Ultimately though, it's more on a sad note that EmuParadise will not be the go-to place for retro games because masses always find a way. The comments section on EmuParadise's can already give you hints, if you're that dedicated but you didn't hear about it here, wink wink.
