[wizzwizz4]

Because of the convenience of playing them on the new consoles. The only people I know who have bought Super Mario Bros Virtual Console releases are the sorts of people who'll buy additional ports of Portal to Nintendo consoles. They're buying the port (the emulator), not the ROM; the availability of the ROM image is not cutting into Nintendo's sales.

[cowsup]

I'm not so sure that's true. I simultaneously see people say:

> Nintendo needs to stop hurting ROM sites for games older than 20 years. There's little profit to be made from such old titles.

As well as:

> Why did Nintendo create the NES Classic? You can do the same for far cheaper with a Raspberry Pi. And why are there NES games locked away behind an online subscription? I can play them on my phone for free.

There are definitely many, many reasons to be unhappy with current copyright law. But claiming that Nintendo stands to gain nothing from retaining rights to their ROMs is not a valid critique, and does not pave the way for honest discourse.

[wizzwizz4]

The people saying “Why did Nintendo create the NES Classic?” (e.g., me-until-recently) usually have little interest in purchasing a NES Classic. They often have little interest in playing video games.

> But claiming that Nintendo stands to gain nothing from retaining rights to their ROMs

I claim that Nintendo gains little from not selling DRM-free copies of the ROM. There's a big difference between "take down all fangames with a character in a red hat called Mario" and “relinquish all monopoly rights to the public domain”: I suggest that Nintendo wouldn't lose much by being a bit less controlling. They might even recover some reputational damage!