Bleem! Making Return as a Digital Games Marketplace (like a GOG for console games).

So basically in short another store coming, like GOG but then for old console games it seems.

I wanna see where this will go.. It's different..
But old games deserve some respect some are awesome! And I hope they don't get lost in time for nothing.. (licenses, no support, etc)

Huh, interesting. I like that they're including roms for people who want to play on PC with an emulator but also want a legal copy.

From where i see this, is Epic games / GoG all over again. They want a slice of the cake. In less then a year they will start hoarding exclusives, releasing a software and all that they are now claiming they won't.
Hope i'm wrong, but history has teached me that they all are pretty much the same.
Wait for a new war of game platform in 2021.
The only good thing would be more competition to steam and the rest, so if they want to stay on the top or competitive they would have to manage better prices. It will all depends on how Piko manage the situation i guess.
We will see how this goes, for now is all in the air (with a legend of "Under Construction" ).

Thanks for sharing the news Lugum ;)

Oh, Piko.

I remember when they got the rights to a game that had been free in public domain for 20 years then made it pay only. I wasn't a fan of that.

This will be ROM files with a crap emulator. Probably the only advantage is that this would allow users to legally purchase ROM files if they want.

are they gonna sell abandonware?

Bleem does what Nintendon't? It'll be interesting to see Nintendo take on this. Will they force them to cease or desist or will they finally open their eyes and see a potential market for their old games?

GamePump tried to do something similar, release old console games, but they ended up canceling the whole thing before it even started. They did give Lit for free to the people that subscribed or just registered don't remember properly.
At first it was going to be a subscription service then just publishing but at the end nothing came of it, hopefully this does better and release good games.

so, tl;dr: console GOG with some legal ROMs?

(I remember the Bleem brand, even seeing it in stores, but don't remember what it was about in the 90s(?))

People will pay for quality, so this could work if the emulators used are REALLY good. But if they cheap out and just slap games in cheap junk emulators with all sorts of inaccuracies and bugs it'll fail (unfortunately this is the norm for companies that re-release old games). While as people will put up with crackling audio, micro stutter / shader loading pauses, texture warping, jittering polygons, and other issues commonly found in emulators when they're getting the games for free, when paying for it they will expect better.

They should probably start by trying to license cycle-accurate emulators (bsnes/Higan for example), and for systems where cycle-accurate emulators don't yet exist they should hire a team of programmers to work on the ones deemed possible. They also need to make sure their system supports a wide range of controllers, and has extensive CRT-filter options. Games should always come with high-res boxart + manuals too.

All the platforms announced have good emulators afaik, with the exception of PS1. DuckStation is probably the most promising PS1 emulator right now (but still has some serious audio issues), ePSXe is just hacks on top of hacks, and Mednafen/Beetle is full of bugs. The PGXP tech has helped push PS1 emulators to new heights in recent years, but the system still lacks its own bsnes/higan equivalent.

I thought I was losing my mind when I saw the thread title. I remember playing Ace Combat on Bleem! some 20 years ago.

so i'm wondering if these are gonna be actual classics that many want to play, or just homebrews? i couldn't see many people paying for legal roms when they're so easily obtainable for free, and anything pre-64-bit takes up barely any storage. i imagine those who want to emulate old school games for the nostalgias are already doing so.

I don't see much of a market for old roms that have been on the internet forever. If it's not on a CD it takes up a trivial amount of space, and they're easy to store and emulate.

And then there are licensed games, which tend to never get re-released due to rights issues. That won't change here.

Maybe there would be a small niche for games on old computer systems like the Commodore 64 or Atari ST since emulating that stuff is a little less straightforward. Or games that never left foreign markets, like those on the PC-88 and PC-98.