Comment 3 for bug 854196

$ sudo apt-get install zsnes:i386
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Some packages could not be installed. This may mean that you have
requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable
distribution that some required packages have not yet been created
or been moved out of Incoming.
The following information may help to resolve the situation:

The following packages have unmet dependencies:
 zsnes:i386 : Depends: libsdl1.2debian:i386 (>= 1.2.10-1) but it is not going to be installed
E: Unable to correct problems, you have held broken packages.

This is what happens when I try to install libsdl1.2debian:i386:

$ sudo apt-get install libsdl1.2debian:i386
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libcaca-dev libaudiofile-dev libesd0-dev libaudio-dev
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following extra packages will be installed:
  gcc-4.6-base:i386 libasound2:i386 libc6:i386 libgcc1:i386
  libsdl1.2debian-alsa:i386
Suggested packages:
  libasound2-plugins:i386 libasound2-python:i386 glibc-doc:i386 locales:i386
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  ffmpeg gnome-mplayer gnome-mplayer-dbg gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse
  libmjpegtools-1.9 libsdl-image1.2 libsdl-image1.2-dev libsdl-ttf2.0-0
  libsdl1.2-dev libsdl1.2debian libsdl1.2debian-pulseaudio libxine1-x mplayer2
  ubuntu-desktop virtualbox-4.0 vlc
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  gcc-4.6-base:i386 libasound2:i386 libc6:i386 libgcc1:i386
  libsdl1.2debian:i386 libsdl1.2debian-alsa:i386
0 upgraded, 6 newly installed, 16 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 4,490 kB of archives.
After this operation, 121 MB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

It seems like apt should offer i386 replacements for every package that has to be forced out and therefore shouldn't force ubuntu-desktop out.