Not that I know of, and part of the problem is that any given game, such as Doom 64, might have been licensed by Nintendo or whoever, and if the license has since ran out (which it will have if Doom 64 was licensed, since it's 20+ years old), then sorting out who has the rights to sell downloads of the roms can be a nightmare. Hence why NIntendo, for example, mainly only sell Nintendo roms (or roms with presumably simple licenses) on their live service.

What you can do is buy the Doom 64 cartridge itself, and that way, legally and morally, you own the game (as in, you legally have the right to play the game, via the cartridge and on a real N64). When you own the physical cartridge (and so the right to play the game), then downloading and playing a rom file of it on your PC, whilst still perhaps a legally grey area, would probably be morally OK for most people (certainly in my view).

Granted, you buying a used cartridge (I *really* doubt you'll find a NEW Doom 64 cartridge now) won't give even a penny to the people who made the game, but that's true of all used game sales (and used records, used books, etc) and used sales are perfectly legal and accepted, and if there's no longer any way to legally buy the game from the game's makers or publisheres, then there's no way for you to give the game's makers your money.

Basically, if you ask me, just buy the original game cartridge, and then morally I'd say you'd have every right to play the PC port of the game. And if the port you play is Doom 64 EX then you're in for a treat. Doom 64 on console was superb (except that it lacked multiplayer, grrr) and Doom 64 EX (by Kaiser, who is a genius at porting console games to the PC, look at Powerslave EX, Turok, etc) is brilliant and amazingly authentic. Plus there's Brutal Doom 64, though play that after Doom 64 EX, so you can appreciate Doom 64 for itself first.

There are several other, earlier, ports of Doom 64 to the PC, by other people, but I've only played Doom 64 EX, and by all accounts it's the best of the bunch.

https://doom64ex.wordpress.com/

Have fun!

or trade in the doom 64 cartridge for a rom, tit for tat

Legally, you can't download a ROM, even if you own a cart.
Your only 100% legal option is to rip the ROM from the cart.

That said, there isn't really a way to prove you DIDN'T rip the ROM from the cart instead of downloading it...

Navigating today's copyright system is like trying to get the Babel Fish in Infocom's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Weird there isn't a GOG for console games yet. Or is there?

kolderman wrote:

Weird there isn't a GOG for console games yet. Or is there?

I don't think that would be legally possible. As far as I know, the console manufacturer has a legal say in every game that they allow to be made for their console (i.e. a PS4 game can't be published for the PS4 without Sony allowing it), and Sony, for example, wouldn't want anyone else to run a digital game download website for the PS4, as it would take custom away from Sony.

I mean, you never see third party console games released (either on physical discs or as digital downloads for consoles) for the PS4 that don't have Sony (or Microsoft or Nintendo, for their consoles) on the label, and that clearly have no official connection to the consoles' maker.

Kerr Avon wrote:

I don't think that would be legally possible. As far as I know, the console manufacturer has a legal say in every game that they allow to be made for their console

I still don't see how that's legal. Printer manufacturers tried to lock out third party ink cartridges and that was ruled illegal. More specifically, it was ruled that it was legal for other companies to manufacture ink cartridges to work with another company's printer's.

Before that, Atari tried to stop Activision from creating games for the Atari 2600, but they failed.

Nintendo also failed to prevent third party companies from making unauthorized NES games.

So how is it legal for Sony, Microsoft or any other console manufacturer to prevent anyone from making games that run on their consoles?

Probably a stipulation in the terms of use for the official SDK.

It's pretty simple on recent consoles where all content must be signed.

So no site in general to get Roms legally but In your specific case for doom 64 there is apparently a re-release coming up.
https://www.vg247.com/2019/10/22/doom-64-pre- … s-doom-eternal/
EDIT:
Willing to bet then you can get just Doom64 (switch only?) through somewhere online if not now, soon.

Rekrul wrote:

I still don't see how that's legal. Printer manufacturers tried to lock out third party ink cartridges and that was ruled illega […]
Show full quote

Kerr Avon wrote:

I don't think that would be legally possible. As far as I know, the console manufacturer has a legal say in every game that they allow to be made for their console

I still don't see how that's legal. Printer manufacturers tried to lock out third party ink cartridges and that was ruled illegal. More specifically, it was ruled that it was legal for other companies to manufacture ink cartridges to work with another company's printer's.

Before that, Atari tried to stop Activision from creating games for the Atari 2600, but they failed.

Nintendo also failed to prevent third party companies from making unauthorized NES games.

So how is it legal for Sony, Microsoft or any other console manufacturer to prevent anyone from making games that run on their consoles?

Legally, iirc, they can't, and this was something that dates back to non-atari made 2600 cartridges but came to a real head with Tengen making their own NES cartridges. The Famicom didn't have any built-in lockdown to prevent independent manufacturers from making Famicom games without Nintendo's permission, which infuriated them (and in their eyes, stole a lot of profits they felt they were obliged to receive for having created the platform). When they made the NES, they created a basic lockout (forget the details, I think it was hardware and a bit of code in every game) which is why NES games always had that Nintendo Seal of Quality on them. Tengen figured out how to circumvent it, Nintendo sued, but since Tengen followed the Compaq white room model in developing their workaround, they won. IIRC they didn't really last much longer because that's when Nintendo switched to their current method of enforcement, and the reason why nobody can make games without their authorization:

They sue you until you're broke and blackball you in the industry.

bifo78 wrote:

They sue you until you're broke and blackball you in the industry.

I wish it was possible to wave a magic wand and and show these companies what the world would be like today if Microsoft and Apple had only allowed approved software to run on their respective operating systems. I have a feeling that the current state of computer software wouldn't anywhere near as advanced as it is today if everyone needed permission from the OS maker to write software for a computer. BitTorrent almost certainly wouldn't exist, along with probably half the video and audio codecs that are in use today. We'd all be forced to use WMV and Quicktime. UGH!