NiGHTS into Dreams HD announced

I'm pretty excited for this! I remember having a real blast playing a demo for this at a Target YEARS ago. I never did own a Saturn (until recently), and I rather enjoyed NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams on the Wii (me and like 3 other people, I imagine), so I feel like I'm getting a second chance at this! Now I just need a bigger HDD on my Xbox360, it's nearly full...

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Originally Posted by Da_Shocker

This was covered by somebody that use to work for Sega but basically they really didn't give a shit about there stuff so all kinds of source code would loss. Hell they downloaded the roms online for the Smash Pack lol.

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It's a common practice. Virtually every source code prior to the PS2 generation is gone. This is not a sega-only practice, and they didn't "lose" it like it was an accident. They threw it out, like everybody throws out their source.

There is evidence that every single Zelda source code is lost, too. And confirmation that the Link's Awakening source code is gone. Nintendo disassembled a rom from the internet for Link's Awakening DX.

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Originally Posted by jerry coeurl

Why would having the source code matter, can't they just play the game and replicate it?

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At that point you're making an entirely new game.

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I guess they're probably too lazy for that. Is there no way to look at the data that's on the disc and start working back from there?

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You write source code in a high level language, like C++, or in NiGHTS case, SH2 Assembly. You then compile them into machine code, literal 1's and 0's. You can disassemble the machine code back into assembly, but it becomes unreadable.

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Originally Posted by TheSonicRetard

It's a common practice. Virtually every source code prior to the PS2 generation is gone. This is not a sega-only practice, and they didn't "lose" it like it was an accident. They threw it out, like everybody throws out their source.

There is evidence that every single Zelda source code is lost, too. And confirmation that the Link's Awakening source code is gone. Nintendo disassembled a rom from the internet for Link's Awakening DX.

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Sort of like how many early movies are more or less completely lost now, unless some obscure collector out there in the world just so happens to have a movie reel? That saddens me deeply :/

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Originally Posted by Waterfaller

Sort of like how many early movies are more or less completely lost now, unless some obscure collector out there in the world just so happens to have a movie reel? That saddens me deeply :/

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Pretty much. People forget how young this medium is. We're barely 30 years removed from a period where programmers were forbidden to credit themselves with the creation of a game. We're 20 years removed from an era where the names of the people who made said games were accessible only via a special code, and they'd go by pseudonyms during the normal credits. It was just a different time. Why save the source code to your games? The idea that we'd need them to port a game to another console 20 years later never crossed these people's minds.

That's not a good analogy. The games are available in pressed form, and the machines that ran them can be emulated bit-by-bit. The only exception I can think of is the silly 64DD.

As for disc-based platforms like the Xbox and later, not to mention DRM-bullshit-consoles of late, it will prove more difficult to preserve current games once the Cloud goes down, or when the last 360/Xbox/PS3 disc drive fails. The EU recently ruled that digital goods must be eligible to the same rules of "resalability" as physical ones, but that still doesn't address that once the server-side OFF switch is flipped your rented games on XBL/PSN and Steam/Origin are lost for good save for a working cracking mechanism.

Reverse engineering the compiled disc contents of a game is certainly possible. In fact, a number of recent HD re-releases were made in this way, when the original source code wasn't available for whatever reason. It's just not an easy task, so there needs to be enough demand to make it worthwhile.

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Originally Posted by Pulstar

That's not a good analogy. The games are available in pressed form, and the machines that ran them can be emulated bit-by-bit. The only exception I can think of is the silly 64DD.

As for disc-based platforms like the Xbox and later, not to mention DRM-bullshit-consoles of late, it will prove more difficult to preserve current games once the Cloud goes down, or when the last 360/Xbox/PS3 disc drive fails. The EU recently ruled that digital goods must be eligible to the same rules of "resalability" as physical ones, but that still doesn't address that once the server-side OFF switch is flipped your rented games on XBL/PSN and Steam/Origin are lost for good save for a working cracking mechanism.

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Did you imply that the only game system that isn't currently emulated is the 64DD?

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Originally Posted by Devil N

Reverse engineering the compiled disc contents of a game is certainly possible. In fact, a number of recent HD re-releases were made in this way, when the original source code wasn't available for whatever reason. It's just not an easy task, so there needs to be enough demand to make it worthwhile.

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They didn't reverse engineer those games. They're emulated, with the emulator doing special shit like displaying beyond the bounds of a normal tv.

It's frustrating how misused the phrase "reverse engineering" is.

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Originally Posted by Waterfaller

I'm pretty excited for this! I remember having a real blast playing a demo for this at a Target YEARS ago. I never did own a Saturn (until recently), and I rather enjoyed NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams on the Wii (me and like 3 other people, I imagine), so I feel like I'm getting a second chance at this! Now I just need a bigger HDD on my Xbox360, it's nearly full...

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I'm a huge NiGHTS fan and I played the shit out of the first game. I think I played it every day for at least 5-6 months, I was addicted haha. That being said I was highly disappointed with NiGHTS: Journey of Dreams on the Wii. If you liked Journey of Dreams, you will LOVE the original Waterfaller.

That being said I'm really glad to see NiGHTS get a re-release. Though I wonder how it will control with the 360 controller...the Saturn 3D Controller is just so well-designed for the game, hard to top it!

All modern emulators are reverse engineered. All hardware docs we have that are edited in any way by homebrew coders are reverse engineered. As far as the term has ever been used, it simply means that somebody figured out how the hardware worked without the help of the company that owns the rights to it.

Companies probably destroyed the source codes for their IPs because they didn't have the resources to handle security for protecting it all.

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Originally Posted by sheath

All modern emulators are reverse engineered. All hardware docs we have that are edited in any way by homebrew coders are reverse engineered. As far as the term has ever been used, it simply means that somebody figured out how the hardware worked without the help of the company that owns the rights to it.

Companies probably destroyed the source codes for their IPs because they didn't have the resources to handle security for protecting it all.

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No, not all modern emulators are reverse engineered. Even under your (loose) definition. Do you think Nintendo reverse engineered their N64 emulator for their Zelda games?

Reverse engineering refers to a very specific practice. Reverse engineering is not simply building something from scratch without documentation.

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Originally Posted by TheSonicRetard

They didn't reverse engineer those games. They're emulated, with the emulator doing special shit like displaying beyond the bounds of a normal tv.

It's frustrating how misused the phrase "reverse engineering" is.

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I'm not talking about emulation, I'm talking about a recent high-profile HD disc-based re-release of a PS2 game. There was an article recently about the creation of these HD remakes and one of the people interviewed explained that they really reverse engineered the compiled code from the original game disc and reworked that into a modern-day codebase. I'm not sure exactly which game that was, I'll have to dig through some game sites to find it again.

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Found it. It was the ICO/Shadow of the Colossus HD collection by Bluepoint, and they seem to imply that the same goes for the Metal Gear Solid HD collection:

http://www.1up.com/features/the-prob...pager.offset=2

Notice the remarks: "We take retail discs of the game and reverse engineer them. (...) We don't emulate any of this stuff, we hand convert it."

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Originally Posted by TheSonicRetard

No, not all modern emulators are reverse engineered. Even under your (loose) definition. Do you think Nintendo reverse engineered their N64 emulator for their Zelda games?

Reverse engineering refers to a very specific practice. Reverse engineering is not simply building something from scratch without documentation.

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I have never once put one thought on what Nintendo did with their Zelda games before this moment. Please enlighten me. Also, please explain what real reverse engineering is and help me track down the origins of all official and unofficial emulators. That would make for an interesting article.

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Originally Posted by sheath

I have never once put one thought on what Nintendo did with their Zelda games before this moment. Please enlighten me. Also, please explain what real reverse engineering is and help me track down the origins of all official and unofficial emulators. That would make for an interesting article.

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Reverse engineering means looking at the final retail hardware or software as you find it in the stores, then taking it apart and figuring out what makes it tick, and finally when you've gathered enough knowledge, create your own implementation. Nintendo wouldn't have to do that because they have all the original design documents for their hardware, and the people who worked on it, so they don't need to figure out how their own stuff works.