Microsoft’s Edge extension store is believed to have hosted “illegal copies” of classic games such as Mario Kart 64, Super Mario Bros. and several other titles such as Sonic the hedgehog, Pac-Man i Tetris. Even the IP owned by Microsoft Minecraft era unofficially available.
According to The Verge, the developers behind these tokens were no Microsoft, Nintendo or “any other” related party. Although the pages were immediately removed, some user reviews on these game loads are supposed to go back to last October, meaning these lists have gone unnoticed so far.
In addition, the official Twitter account of “Microsoft Edge Dev” allegedly went so far as to promote these “vintage” games. Here is an image that was apparently taken before deleting the tweet, which appealed to all Mario Kart lovers:
A bold individual by the name of @ olinatiu on Twitter he ventured with the Mario Kart 64 extension and said he was downloading a ROM of the game.
Some of the lists that are now no longer available apparently clarified that they had no affiliation with the gaming companies that got the titles. Obviously, that still doesn’t cut it.
“IMPORTANT: This emulator is not affiliated with or endorsed by Nintendo. All graphics, games, and other media files are copyrighted by their respective owners and authors. This game is for ALL Mario fans.”
Once again, most of these game tokens have already been acted upon and removed. We doubt Nintendo’s ninjas would have been too impressed if they had run into them. The crisis has been avoided.