Ok I know this is a supremely unlikely idea and that it's already on the site wishlist, but does anyone know if the guys at GOG have ever seriously considered the idea of selling ROMs and ISOs of console games and partnering with an emulator developer to release them? Have they ever broached this idea to any big companies like EA or Ubisoft or Sega?

Game console emulators on PC are almost universally associated with piracy so it might be hard to get publishers to associate themselves with it but Nintendo is basically already doing this on the Wii and WIi U with the "Virtual Console", it's just locked down and coming straight from Nintendo, and Sega already have a Mega Drive emulator with a whole bunch of games up on Steam (though annoyingly you can't get at the ROM files to use them in a better emulator like Kega Fusion) and games from Sega's systems are on Nintendo's Virtual Consoles.

So yeah has there even been any word from the guys at GOG on this idea? Would it be possible? If GOG partnered with EA to release the SNES Shaq Fu would Nintendo have legal grounds to sue either party or prevent it?

Sega would be the obvious party to try and kick this off with. They're an ex-console manufacturer that's still alive and owns the rights to their own consoles and a large number of proprietary games for them so GOG would only have to worry about the rights of the company they were dealing with, not the company and worrying about the original manufacturer of the console too. Sega no longer have their own consoles though so they have no vested interest in keeping customers locked to their boxes like Nintendo do with the Wii U and Virtual Console, they're a growing player in the PC and digital distribution space and they even already sell Mega Drive ROMs on Steam. The only thing GOG would really be asking them is to let players use their own emulators to play them (while probably having a sponsored one that comes with the download too).

Then if it succeeds they could take that to other publishers and get them to sign on for putting their old Mega Drive, Master System, Game Gear, Sega CD, etc games on GOG and if that takes off then maybe start worrying about other consoles.

Ha. When I lay it out like that it sounds simple. Of course it's not and I wouldn't blame GOG if they didn't try to risk it or even pay the idea any mind, but I would like to know have the given any answer on this idea at some point?

There is already this pretty successful community wish: Console Games added to GOG.com (using emulators, like with DOS games)

Also, I think DotEmu does this already: http://www.dotemu.com/en/download-game/5472/dotemu-exclusive-sega-genesis-community-bundle

The problem with the games from Sega is, as you pointed out already, that you can't get the ROM out of their emulator. That's just stupid, Sega has to realize they can't treat PC gaming like console gaming. These old Megadrive games have copied to death and can be found on every ROMs site withing less than five seconds of Google searching. If people really want to pirate them that's how they are going to do it. I don't want to play in Sega's crappy Windows-only custom emulator, I want to play in OpenEmu on my Mac, but they don't give me any way of doing so. With GoG games there is no one preventing from takign the DOS game files from GoG's DOSBox and putting them into Boxer. I already payed for the game, so why would they care if I played it on my toaster?