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GOG, a DRM-free marketplace for PC games that sells a mix of modern and classic titles, has said that classic console games could be a possibility on the service, but it’s a legal problem rather than a technical one.
“I think it might be possible at some point,” Marcin Paczynski, head of product at GOG, says in the latest NoClip documentary, mentioning that he’d like to see titles from the original PlayStation ported to the PC to become part of GOG’s library.
However, the problem is "very, very complicated," says Paczynski, because of the way rights for these classic titles are handled. GOG, previously known as Good Old Games, is something of a specialist when it comes to unpicking tricky rights. The service returned SWAT 4 to storefronts after it spent a significant amount of time lost in the rights wasteland.
“I wouldn’t say that this is impossible and I would certainly love to have some of the console games on GOG. Because we would be able to make them work,” Paczynski says, adding: “Maybe we’ve already tried.”
Several great games are locked away in the mists of time. Navigating the legal issues of age-old video game rights seems like a real headache. Maybe after solving old consoles, GOG could go and sort out No One Lives Forever?
