Game Over Man! Nintendo Torpedoes Browser-Based Mario 64 Remake

We had a feeling Nintendo would take notice of developer Roystan Ross's recreation of the first level of Super Mario 64, which he made playable in a browser window. Sure enough, after attracting widespread media attention, Nintendo's legal team sent a takedown notice to Cloudfare, the company that was previously hosting the remake.

Ross didn't have any nefarious intentions when he built the level. Instead, it was supposed to serve as a proof of concept demo for his "Super Character Controller" platform that he made from scratch using Unity. He tested the demo with controllers for the Xbox One and Xbox 360, and DualShock controllers for the PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4, all of which presumably worked fined.


Unfortunately for Ross, Nintendo isn't concerned with Ross's intent and sees this as a clear violation of copyright. Here's the takedown notice it sent.

The copyrighted work at issue is Nintendo’s Super Mario 64 video game (U.S. Copyright Reg. No. PA0000788138), including but not limited to the audiovisual work, computer program, music, and fictional character depictions. The web site at http://mario64-erik.u85.net/Web.html displays, and allows users to play, an electronic game that makes unauthorized use of copyright-protected features of Nintendo’s Super Mario 64 video game. Nintendo requests that CloudFlare, Inc. immediately disable public access to http://mario64-erik.u85.net/Web.

Cloudflare obliged with Nintendo's request, though Ross seems unfazed by the game maker's legal threats. Rather than take the project down, he's found other hosting services for this games, which at the time of this writing were still available to download for Windows, Mac, and Linux.