For many years, people have referred to "the paradise site" as one of the best places to obtain ROMs of games. From the NES, to the GBA, to the PS2, and more, this site hosted thousands of games. Of course, doing so will bring about the ire of video game developers, and it appeared that Nintendo might have led to the site having to remove many of its ROMs from Nintendo systems as of last year. Now, after 18 years, things seem to be more dire, as Emuparadise will no longer host illegal content or ROMs. The site itself will still be around, and you'll be able to participate on their forums and download emulators, however all "warez" will be removed. The owner of the site plans to have Emuparadise be a retro gaming community, heavily changing how things have been for nearly two decades.

Many of you are aware that the situation with regards to emulation sites has been changing recently. What you probably don't know is that we at EmuParadise have been dealing with similar issues for all 18 years of our existence.

From receiving threatening letters in the early days to our hosts suddenly shutting down our servers due to complaints, we've seen it all. We've always complied with takedown requests but as you can see, that is no guarantee of anything.

I started EmuParadise 18 years ago because I never got to play many of these amazing retro games while growing up in India and I wanted other people to be able to experience them. Over the years, many folks have joined in and contributed to this vision and I think I can say that we've been successful in spreading our passion for retro games far and wide.

Through the years I've worked tirelessly with the rest of the EmuParadise team to ensure that everyone could get their fix of retro gaming. We've received thousands of emails from people telling us how happy they've been to rediscover and even share their childhood with the next generations in their families. We've had emails from soldiers at war saying that the only way they got through their days was to be lost in the retrogames that they played from when they were children. We've got emails from brothers who have lost their siblings to cancer and were able to find solace in playing the games they once did as children. There are countless stories like these.

It's been a long and beautiful journey with many ups and downs. When I started EmuParadise things could have gone either way. But right now the direction they are going in could not be more than clear.

So where does that leave us?

It's not worth it for us to risk potentially disastrous consequences. I cannot in good conscience risk the futures of our team members who have contributed to the site through the years. We run EmuParadise for the love of retro games and for you to be able to revisit those good times. Unfortunately, it's not possible right now to do so in a way that makes everyone happy and keeps us out of trouble.

This is an extremely emotional decision for me after running this site for so many years. But I believe it is the right thing for us at this point of time.

Thus, we have decided to make a new start. We will continue to be passionate retro gamers and will keep doing cool stuff around retro games. But you won't be able to get your games from here for now. Where we go with this is up to us and up to you.

We'll still have our emulators database, the community, and everything that comes along with that.

We have already made several plans of what is going to happen next. It's going to be a fun new beginning and there's going to be lots to come! We'd also love to hear from you in the comments about what you think we should do. But for now, we need to make this change. We've served the community for 18 glorious years and it's been a hell of a ride!

But every end is a new beginning and we're excited to find a way forward to continue being your #1 emulation destination.

Thank you for supporting us through this journey. We could not have done so much without you visiting us, telling your friends about us, uploading screenshots and descriptions, telling us when something was wrong, letting us know when we messed up, and more. Thank you for being a part of our community and encouraging us through all these years.

 

[RustInPeace]

I couldn't find most of what I searched for on there as of late anyways, which was mainly SNES and GB(A) games, so the news kind of falls on deaf ears.

 

[depaul]

Seriously nintendo? So what's the point of shutting down Emuparadise? the only "roms" they're hosting are for Gamecube and backward, which are found everywhere to be honest, even on Google/Apple App Store. Even Wii Isos, that are more than a decade old, can't be found on that site.

You'd rather shut down sites hosting Switch/3DS releases! That's where you should focus your energy!

 

[Chrisssj2]

GOod thing I got most from the site stashed somehwere. you can always PM me if youre searching for something. Stupid mafia nintendo guys.

 

[banjo2]

GOod thing I got most from the site stashed somehwere. you can always PM me if youre searching for something. Stupid mafia nintendo guys.

PM from somewhere else, you mean. Best not share them on this site.

 

[jt_1258]

dam shame when a rom/iso site goes down, not for piracy but for the fact that they are doing a much better job of keeping an archive of all these game rather then letting them be lost to time then any game company, it's a necessity as discs and game carts don't last forever

 

[KnightHart]

I can understand blocking other sites with roms, but blocking that paradise site...
Nintendo stepped on a road of war...

 

[DS1]

Very sad, especially since I feel like that 's where everyone went to get the rom of games that had been translated by prominent translation groups (a translation patch is nothing without the rom...). I know it's where I went any time I read about an interesting Japanese cult classic PSX or SNES title on HG101.

The worst part is that most of those games AREN'T readily available, even if you put in the money and effort. Around 2014 I went to Japan and spent a few days in around 20 retro game shops... I only found three games on my huge wishlist.

 

[hatchcanon]

I remember learning about roms in high school... This was where I went but damn it's been a long time

 

[the_randomizer]

Just stumbled upon a few treasure troves

 

[CallmeBerto]

Just stumbled upon a few treasure troves

Yeah a 5 second search will give you everything you need. Even if the speeds are trash half the time.

 

[the_randomizer]

Yeah a 5 second search will give you everything you need. Even if the speeds are trash half the time.

Oh, not where I found they're not.

 

[WiikeyHacker]

i got a 4tb hard drive with the complete game downloads of all the systems so i got no issues with the take down since i have everything.

 

[console]

I'm very sad about Emuparadise. I used for many years and share with my friends and family. I love Emuparadise a lot! Sad for this to be gone. Good old memories of huge game library files on internet.

But still plenty few websites on search engines. Don't use Google search that is why have built in filter system to block warez websites around in year 2012 - 2016 to make everyone look for games are get a lot of hard to find on internet. Startpage / Ixquick search engines do help us and people much easier find games on internet than Google/Bing/Yahoo/etc search engines that block warez websites.

RIP Emuparadise

 

[the_randomizer]

Glad I have a 2 TB USB HDD

 

[2DSGamerdude]

emudise was nice, shame, good thing for backups on HDD, tho if each rom site is taken down like these ones, is cool affected also?
it sucks this day and age for emulation. but if you've got backups on hdd etc, you're good I guess
if not, well it just sucks

 

[the_randomizer]

emudise was nice, shame, good thing for backups on HDD, tho if each rom site is taken down like these ones, is *redacted* affected also?
it sucks this day and age for emulation. but if you've got backups on hdd etc, you're good I guess
if not, well it just sucks

That one cool location doesn't have Nintendo ROMs, but other places, well, see for yourself.

 

[2DSGamerdude]

That one cool location doesn't have Nintendo ROMs, but other places, well, see for yourself.

yeah, that cool in the past at one point used to host nintendo games, but after sometime stopped,
I just hope that there will be some sites that will have games etc still up, not everything is taken down I mean,
cause the way this looks, it's spreading like a damn virus.

and the net isn't company CDN, lol.

 

[depaul]

You can't fight piracy that way.
This will only lead to more and more rom hosting sites, since hosting costs nowadays are very cheap. Simply people will soon forget about emuparadise and new ones will emerge instead (romparadise, romhistory, romfactory... yes just my imagination, with all my respect to emuparadise)

The only way to fight piracy imho is to prevent it in the first place, i.e create a console that is hard to hack (example : Xbox one, PS4 previously).

 

[SG6000]

Khinsider has a massive archive of video game music that you can use

Just google khinsider video game soundtracks and its the first link

This is the site I worry about because it has mountains of rare music material. Between vgmrips and one or two other vgm repositories a lot of what I'm interested is covered nicely but khinsider is the only place with great quality audio rips of, say, 80's Japanese VGM vinyl.

 

[banjo2]

I'm very sad about Emuparadise. I used for many years and share with my friends and family. I love Emuparadise a lot! Sad for this to be gone. Good old memories of huge game library files on internet.

But still plenty few websites on search engines. Don't use Google search that is why have built in filter system to block warez websites around in year 2012 - 2016 to make everyone look for games are get a lot of hard to find on internet. Startpage / Ixquick search engines do help us and people much easier find games on internet than Google/Bing/Yahoo/etc search engines that block warez websites.

RIP Emuparadise

Even then I will often stumble upon ROM sites just when Googling a game without "ROM" or "download" in the search term.