I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Fuck Nintendo.
I never thought to emulate the switch until they killed the first emulator. Now I download the latest emu and roms nearly every month. Fuck Nintendo.
Nintendo succeeded in killing Yuzu because they had decryption keys which Nintendo could argue is breaking their copy protection, which is why they settled for 2.4 million dollars in sales damages because they knew they wouldn’t be able to win in court.
All of these forks have since removed the key and require the user to supply it (legally from your own console).
So in theory they should be protected under US law since emulation and reverse engineering is completely legal.
However
Nintendo also has infinite money to throw at the problem, and FOSS devs are usually not willing to deal with insane amount of personal liability because of a hobby, which is how they killed Ryujinx.
So you better hold onto your guts if you plan to fight Nintendo.
Or move to i2p so they can’t disable you lol.
which is how they killed Ryujinx.
Plus sending goons to his house.
Allegedly.
Emulation isn’t protected.
That was the use of emulators in advertising to show performance differences.
It does not protect emulation as the company went bankrupt before that could be decided.
No that’s was the second lawsuit, Sony v Bleem!, which was a different emulator.
Meh, emulate it and get better frame rates and higher resolution.
Why would I buy a console that plays the game at an inferior state?
Nintendo is free at any time to release their games on Steam or even their own PC storefront and if I could play it with my hardware then I’d buy most games at full price.
Until then, nah I’m good.
Agree, as long as we are forced to bullshit, I’ll just keep my hands dirty.
And it will still not improve the sales of the Switch 2.
Isn’t it selling well?
Unfortunately, yes. They outsold switch 1 by about 2 mil so far in it’s first year and there’s still a few months to go. I will eventually get one I’m sure, but probably second hand.
It’s a meaningless battle.
I mean Nintendo could always lower games prices, add the features you get from emulators, and make the experience vastly superior on the console, then these emulators would be far less relevant.
No, I’m sure they will just keep killing better options and charging their consumers as much as humanly possible without having to innovate their products.
Funny, here I am still using Yuzu
I love when this shit happens and it’s like oh, not the one I know about that literally has torrents bundling single games on pc to one click run the games lol
Fuck Nintendo. Don’t buy their shit.
I was considering a Switch 2 but now… not so much.
Just wait until an emulator for switch 2. Then don’t buy it.
Good thing I’m not bothered by downvotes, because here they come.
As a retro gaming nerd with a ton of older Nintendo hardware, as well as modern emulation hardware, I don’t think it’s ethical to emulate the current gen. If the current gen supports the software, buy the game and play it on the current hardware. Shit, the physical games from prior eras have outperformed my retirement account in some cases.
That said, when you are given no legitimate options to purchase and play the game, well, you know, use your “legally acquired backup”
The legality of emulating current gen hardware has already been decided. (At least in the US)
Its legal if you bought the game and dump the cartridge
I get what you are saying, I’m not discounting it whatsoever. I mean I’m an accountant, I could talk all day and night about ways to maximize and protect your profits and cash flows.
That said, Nintendo has to be the laziest company from a coding perspective. Their stuff is always the first of the current gens to get jailbroken, and then it’s open season. I think we should have learned by now not to fight piracy like this either, because it’s both inevitable and it’s a terrible look. The smarter companies know how to use it to their advantage. They also don’t always go thermonuclear on their perspective clientele. It’s a rotten look. Make a product that people want to buy and they’ll buy it. If you make shovelware and then price it in the AAAA tiers, I think we all know what’s going to happen…
To be fair the switch 1 only got hacked because nvidia messed up the firmware. I think there still isn’t a software hack for switch 1 so nintendo’s os security is pretty good
The emulators have always been in a gray area, since they can play illegal copies of games with illegally sourced bios, etc. The emulator itself is simply the tool, which on its own isn’t proof of piracy much like owning a bong isn’t definite proof you smoke weed… just very suggestive (it can be used for tobacco I guess?)
As for current vs retro gen piracy, they’re equally illegal but obviously criminalized differently. And the ethics are obviously complex, you have people who pirate who otherwise wouldn’t be able to pay, you have people who pirate for a convenient copy of something they already own, and maybe people who could pay but simply don’t want to (although research has suggested this isn’t a huge group). And since it’s digital, there isn’t a loss in the same way as actual theft.
Personally, I just like taking control of the hardware and tweaking shit. I belong mostly to the folks who download copies of things I’ve already “bought” (which is a licence in many cases, as they don’t sell physical copies). A good example is Pokemon Scarlet, which ran like dogshit on the original hardware. I’ve been meaning to try it in an emulator to see if it works better, although I haven’t bothered yet. Would that be considered immoral, given I own the game and several switches?
Emulation doesn’t just apply to games. The entire legality is based off of the fact that reverse engineering is also legal, which is how companies can replicate ideas or concepts from competitor products, or how 3rd party vendors make products compatible with other platforms.
It would be stupid to have to wait for a patent to expire before you can utilize the concept in your own product. Patent cockfighting would be a completly new level of hell, and no one would get anywhere.
Imagine having to wait 10 years before you can use 3rd party controllers for your switch because Nintendo uses a proprietary bluetooth driver. 3rd party Wiimotes wouldn’t even exist.
The only ethical conundrum is the aide in piracy, but we’ve already seen how little that has to do with emulation due to homebrew and flashcarts.
If anything, Nintendo has a higher moral ground on ROM libraries which they can argue aides in piracy due to “bypassing” copyright protection.
At least on Android emulating your Steam library has become pretty good. A couple more years at this rate and any phone with a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 or better processor and you’re good to play most games that would run on a Switch and more anyways
Switch emulation on PC is already great anyways. Getting there on Android. Sucks that progress has slowed down because of Nintendo takedowns
How do you emulate it? Need to root it?
Gamehub, GameNative, Winlator
Gamehub is the most streamlined. As long as you have a recent as of the last like 3 years flagship snapdragon phone, you can emulate PC games pretty well. No root. Uses FEX, WINE, DXVK, etc. Pretty much the same software used for playing windows games on desktop linux
Thanks, this sounds really interesting!
Good to know, will get them now
