Words from Marrez

I have been prompted to write about this by a conversation I had on IRC this morning with Jandaman from EmuHQ and Sardaukar, what sparked off the debate was the immortal line by Sardaukar

"I hope Sony kicks bleem's ass in court".

Now, this statement just about sum's up what's wrong in the emulation world today. Anyone who has spoken to me at #emuunlim about Bleem will know my feeling's on the program, but for those who havent, my opinion of bleem is this.

Promising Emulator which was obviously released before the authors were ready to release it, bowing to public pressure for the emulator.

Now, I know alot of shit surrounding bleem has to do with the high expectations that the authors have created for themselves, but for the love of god, why do so many people want to see Sony kick bleem's ass in court?

Sardaukar's reason was that "commercial emulator's are retarded". I beg to differ. There are some superb commercial/shareware emulators out there at the moment, David Michels Magic Engine, and the Blue Sky Rangers Intellivision emulator are probably the two best ones out there today. Sure, bleem aint great yet, but its getting there.

Lets look at Sardaukar's reasoned argument for his controversial point of view "I wont buy it, just saying sony should win b/c bleem dorks are profiting from their console". Now, this may be a valid point if we all didnt play games on all kind of emulators. The bleem crew have stated since day 1, that the reason they are charging for the emulator, is so they could fight Sony in court and hopefully win. I dont know how much a litigation against the corporate might of Sony might be, but Id reason that it would be expensive, after all Sony are one or the world largest companies in the world, thus, they can afford the best lawyers in the world.

Look at Bleem's initial batch of orders, somewhere in the region of 20,000 at $20 each. That would net them around $400,000. Take off the cost of development, packing, and delivery. They maybe have around $200,000 left to fight Sony. In modern day USA, 200k aint a big amount of money to be bringing to the table when your playing with the baddest player in town. Now I know the guy's at bleem arent doing this all "for the good of emulation" but at the end of the day there not creaming off the kind of money that people may think they are.

Emulation is a grey area, in fact, its so grey, its nearly black. If Bleem win's its case against Sony (and I sincerely hope it does) then it is a victory for all of us, for everyone who plays galaga on mame, or Gran Turismo on Bleem or psemupro.

Ill let Jandaman sum things up with this quote

"theres nothing wrong with profiteering from your own work"