I imagine the steam deck will be capable of emulating switch 2 titles nearly immediately, so there’s little reason to buy it. They really need to make their hardware comparable to their software (minus the notoriously awful Japan™ netcode)
Emulating Switch 2 games on the Steam Deck would be a challenge. Even though it’s on an outdated process node, I think it’s fair to say it’s in the same class of hardware as a Steam Deck (which is 3 years old at this point).
Hardware aside, to my knowledge no one is really actively developing any of the Switch emulators due to the prior legal action that was taken.
Now, eventually it’s possible someone might do it for the Switch 2, but I wouldn’t expect anything quick as whomever does so will very likely incur the mighty wrath of Nintendo’s legal team.
Good luck getting someone to continue emulation development. The only potential chance for development is exclusively on the under web, and the dev has said that “this was supposed to be a hobby” meaning they have an out if they don’t want to continue
Idk their emulation is garbage except for the suspension and rewind. A lot of the open source emulation I have seen, especially of Nintendo products, is immaculate.
That’s just not true. They have their own emulators, but most of the time they are inferior to community ones. I think Virtual Console releases used some kind of optimized emulators for their hardware, but didn’t care about accuracy, etc.
Nintendo 5 years from now: "After suing multiple fan projects and intimidating them to cease projects, Nintendo admits that they were just fan projects"
This is the company by the way that's behind on the times of technology. Like, how long did it take them to adopt broadband technology on their consoles? The Wii?
They killed Splatoon's grassroots Esport community thanks to them making a quick buck with splatoon 3, that promised a bunch of network functionality improvements that never materialized.
So now, a game that used to have multiple small but growing international tournaments now has nothing. Hell, they used to have tournaments on the main stage at PAX East.
It’s a great game with a very high skill ceiling, but the MMR and team balancing was absolute garbage. It was very rare that it was a close match. You usually clapped or got clapped.
How they treated professional Melee and especially Project M was the moment I realized Nintendo was just another out-of-touch company. So many indie devs would kill for fans that passionate, let alone a modding scene that robust. Nintendo threw it all away.
Edit: and that ignores the graveyard of fan games Nintendo has killed. AM2R, Pokémon Uranium…
I recommend going the extra mile and no longer buying their hardware or software.
Emulation is in a great state right now, and it’s only getting better. The fewer resources scummy companies like Nintendo have from sales, the fewer resources they’ll have to go after community products.
Really hoping this isn’t a 3DS situation where they added a notch to gamecarts. Its so dumb that we can’t use game consoles like a PC and just fucking install discs if we want to without a shitty checking system.
I never understood why they abandoned Splatoon 2. Like, I get that they have a new game, and that’s great, I guess…but why not support Splatoon 2 until Switch 2 comes out? I never bought the splatoon 3, because I JUST bought splatoon 2 like 2-3 years prior when it came out. You NEED online to play that game.
So you’re paying $59.99 for the game, and then $20 a year for online. All for a game that exists in a time bubble. Once it’s time for the next game, fuck you. Buy the new game. Your old game means nothing.
Well fuck you too Nintendo. I’ll just not buy Splatoon 3, and not pay for online anymore. How about that?
As one of the leaders in said community for the NA scene I wouldn’t lay the blame entirely on Splat3. Things were slowing down before then and a lot of the old guard were hanging up their hats.
Networking left much to be desired, but we also started the grassroots on the Wii U after all.
Fair, I have connections to a few that were fairly serious during 2, most of which were in tournies, one of those never bought 3, but the rest gave it a shot.
The ripoff that is S3 seems to be nails in the proverbial coffin.
Yeah the transition between games was hard. 1 to 2 was ok-ish as there was excitement on the switch. 2 to 3 was rough as the average comp player was between high school and college aged which had less disposable income to get the game right away. Not to mention each time was a hard reset on both maps and equipment that slowly rolled out over time made getting cohesive teams extra hard…
Like, how long did it take them to adopt broadband technology on their consoles? The Wii?
As on addon or built-in? I know the GameCube had an Ethernet add-on and I think the N64 had a dialup addon (Would have been the fastest at the time for home users, nobody had home broadband on N64 release)
Yep, and some PS2s (like mine) came with the network adapter built-in!
Never going to forget the days of having a 30-foot ethernet cable running across my living room (right under the doorway) so I can play Battlefront 2, Ratchet and Clank 3, and of course, MGS3 online.
Folks pointing out GCN/Wii internet abilities are missing that the experience was awful. Like sure, the guts of broadband were there, but actually playing a game with friends online was way more trouble than it was worth.
So to your point, real online gaming was indeed way behind other consoles (IMHO).
I stopped playing Mario Kart online with others on the Wii. Some players had set an infinite blue shells hack on. Just wasn’t fun to play. Complained to Nintendo and they replied like there was nothing they could do or something like that.
Yup, they changed their minds. Bluetooth, Titles on mobile. It’s this mish-mash of bullheadedness for the sake of being bullheaded, then the try like a decade later.
Nintendo is competent at exactly 1 thing - designing great video games.
They are run by the equivalent of dwarven master blacksmiths… They’re one of the few gaming companies with employees on staff with more than 40 years experience of game dev (and whom have ONLY ever worked at Nintendo their entire careers) in charge of things.
That’s great if you like Zelda and Mario games… but because they’re run by a bunch of old-school grandpas… they’re not good at much else.
Terrible store, multiplayer, ancillary modern network-driven services like voice chat and partying up, little to no 3rd-party support (whether it’s games, media apps, or even tech integrations with formats like Dolby ATMOS), and - as a benefit - really terrible device security so it’s usually pretty easy for folks to reverse engineer, run custom boot-loaders / jailbreak / scrape their store servers / etc. - stuff that companies like Sony and Microsoft either never had issues with - or have taken seriously long enough that they have locked down.
The only reason they’re still in business is that they still do the one thing that matters most the best - design really great game-play mechanics for IP that is beloved by multiple generations of gamers who will overlook everything else.
I don’t think people remember, but there was a time when no twitch streamer or youtuber would play Nintendo games because they fucking take down their streams for copyright infringement.
That’s not entirely true, you could keep the videos up if all the ad revenue went to Nintendo. In other words, if you paid them so you could promote their game.
I’m personally surprised by Nintendo continuing to include user accessible SD cards in their consoles from the DS through the Switch. It becomes incredibly convenient for piracy and I would have thought they were doing it on purpose to at least sell the hardware if it wasn’t for all the evidence you the contrary.
The ps5 port only requires one screw to access. I know the hard drive on the PS4 was only one screw to access as well. I’m uncertain of the Xbox, they had a proprietary hard drive for the 360 so I didn’t go down that path. While that is slightly more complicated than inserting a SD card, it is not technical.
M.2 seems easier for normies to mess up and SD cards have traditionally been significantly cheaper… plus a microSD card is smaller than M.2 by an order of magnitude.
Like, how long did it take them to adopt broadband technology on their consoles? The Wii?
While I agree they’re behind the times on their consoles re online, I think it’s more a software issue. I don’t think criticising the hardware functionality is quite fair.
The predecessor to the Wii was the Gamecube which came out in 2001, where few people had broadband internet
The other consoles in that generation were the ps2, xbox, and briefly dreamcast. Of those, only the xbox came with built in networking, until the playstation slim release in 2004. The dreamcast, ps2 and Gamecube all offered additional adapters to provide ethernet (and the dreamcast and Gamecube had dial up modems available too). So the Gamecube was in line with most of the competition.
The Wii had out of the box WiFi (and an adapter for ethernet available) which put it in a similar space to its competitors. Only the ps3 had both WiFi and ethernet out of the box at launch. The 360 only had ethernet until a refresh that added WIFI. And the Wii was also coming in at a significantly lower price point.
That’s a rumor. All we know is that they talked with the dev behind closed doors and he deleted everything related to Ryujinx afterwards. Sure, they could have paid him but it’s just as likely that they just threatened him. Let’s not forget how Nintendo made its money.
Yes, this wasn’t an admission because it’s a well-known fact that is not inconsistent with Nintendo’s earlier actions. The headline is deceptive and people don’t read the article. The article itself contains no new information and it is only worth reading for someone who has been deceived by the headline and needs to be set straight by the same people who wrote the deceptive headline. It’s click bait that shouldn’t exist.
Nintendo used to have a page on emulation on their website incorrectly claiming that it was always illegal and all emulators had solely been created to enable piracy. This new claim is not compatible with their previous action of having that page.
Nintendo never said that all emulation is illegal. Nintendo just does not like that their current gen is being emulated and lot of games are easily available on pirate sites for everyone. Otherwise Nintendo would have tried to shutdown emulators for previous systems too. They were especially worried about the Switch 2 being emulated easily with current emulators, as it doesn’t seen too different. I think that’s all to it.
However, there are still a number of ways that emulators can violate the law. For example, the Nintendo Switch has certain “technical restriction measures” that prevent it from playing pirated games. If a Switch emulator seeks to bypass those measures, it opens itself up to legal trouble.
Which law exactly? There are exceptions for making personal backup copies. So its not really court tested law and we don’t know if it violates the law. As the article said, these cases never went to court and we don’t have a decision by law. Nintendo did all of that out of court.
It makes sense from argumentation standpoint, because Nintendo argues that there are protection mechanisms in the Switch that is illegal to ignore, in emulators. I don’t know if this is true and you don’t know either, because this was not tested in court. Nintendo never ever said that ALL emulation is illegal, which i stated in my initial reply. Otherwise Nintendo would go and take down ALL emulators. Not every kind of emulation is the same.
In example the Dolphin emulator ships with keys extracted from the console. Some say its illegal to distribute these keys, others argue keys are not copyrighted and its not illegal to share, but it was never tested in court either. If Nintendo had a case, they would definitely go against that emulator, as the keys are in the source code in the open public. Nintendo never said that Dolphin or Wii and Gamecube emulation is illegal. Or any other prior console and emulator of Nintendo systems. Nintendo console emulators exist in the public since the 90s.
Its much more nuanced than people are making or understanding. And lot of articles, like the one stated before, are plain and simple wrong and cite without context. And people who don’t understand the situation take this and believe it.
There’s similar legal issues with the “right to a private copy” many European countries have. Those laws were made to allow people to make a copy of their media, in case the original breaks. Important to note is that those private copies weren’t allowed to be distributed to anyone, not even lent to a friend.
This worked well at the time for cassettes and VHS, which did break occasionally.
But at some point most CDs came with copy protection, which got broken pretty quickly. But at least in Germany, they are still considered “working copy protection” and thus are illegal to circumvent, even for a otherwise legal private copy.
The same is the case with Switch games: Copyright owners use copy protection to make otherwise legal use cases illegal.
E.g. Nintendo made it so that Switch games can only be played by decrypting the ROMs, which is illegal for anyone except Nintendo.
At least that’s their standpoint which was never tested in court but it’s not unlikely that it’d be accepted.
But this is still to be discussed, because if the emulator does not circumvent any copy protection and the games are dumped with the protection in place, and the copy protection is reverse engineered, then the games would play with the copy protection decrypting. It does not circumvent the protection, it actively “uses” it. So from that standpoint making backup copies is not illegal in theory. Now would this hold in court? I don’t know. Nintendo does not know either and rather like to take things out of court. Because if Nintendo looses such a case, it would be devastating.
I’m in Germany too and the right to a private copy is exactly what I had in mind too. Not all copy protection measures were accepted for the right to not copy. What I mean is, there was some extremely simple protection mechanisms that were not accepted as a working and effective copy protections, and you were allowed to do a copy; even with the so called copy protection in place. Therefore it effectiveness was kind of important to the discussion too. I guess the Switch has a much more advanced one, so its probably not an exception.
the paragraph after the one you quoted answers this question:
Note that this discussion was based on Japanese law, but the same language is found in the DMCA Section 1201(a)(1)(A): “No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under this title.” That law is more than 26 years old, going into effect a month after Google was founded, but the language remains in place.
It makes no sense to cite a little part of the US DMCA law if the discussion was based on Japanese laws. If you look at www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/1201 , its much more complicated than one sentence. As for the DMCA, this is the next paragraph after the cited above one:
I admit not really to understand, as the language is hard to read for me. It would even be hard in my native language. Does the Japanese law have such clauses and exceptions?
both the DMCA in the US as well as that Japanese law are implementations of the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaty. that is why they can be discussed in a fairly interchangeable way.
With the Switch 2 announcement, it’s kind of clear that they aren’t even trying to be a tech company anymore. While not every last one of their consoles released was a true innovation, it did feel like something that was built into part of their brand. Now we just have the Switch 2 which is mostly what you’d expect with some decent QoL upgrades.
Nintendo is pursuing the walled garden approach. You’re barely even buying a console anymore, a lot of this hardware has more or less converged. What you’re buying is access to the cultivated ecosystem. Like everything else these days, they entice you in with the big, recognizable brands and hope there’s enough else to keep you there. Emulators straight pierce that veil and it’s why they went so hard on them.
I’m not criticizing (too heavily) the people that choose to hold on to the franchises they love, but once you step outside and choose alternatives, there’s very little to bring you back. Pokemon lost me a few gens ago, honestly not the biggest Zelda fan, and Mario alone won’t do it for me. Metroid and Starfox are scattershot … Personally I’ll stick with the Steam Deck and wait for Switch 2 emulation to roll around. And if it doesn’t, there are just so many other games to play these days.
. You’re barely even buying a console anymore, a lot of this hardware has more or less converged. What you’re buying is access to the cultivated ecosystem.
Bingo. In an age where most people’s phones have better hardware than the Switch, it’s all about access to the walled garden instead of hardware.
Not that I disagree with your point about walled gardens, but “better” hardware for a handheld gaming machine needs to have a decent balance between performance and battery life. Longest plane or train journey that I’m likely to take is about five hours, and I’d need to rate any gaming hardware on the ability to run for that length of time. On that basis, the Switch is pretty much optimal. My phone has a higher resolution and can probably push more frames, but it would run hot for about forty-five minutes maximum. Plus, I’d then not be able to make calls or listen to tunes at my destination.
Steam deck would probably be a better choice, though. Fuck Nintendo.
What walled garden are you talking about? Exclusive games? Literally every console ever made has those.
Nintendo bad for making QoL console releases? Again, Nintendo is not the only company to do that. PS4/PS5 Pro, the recent Xboxes, etc
With emulators, they’re only trying to protect their current hardware. They’ve put basically zero effort into shutting down emulators for consoles they don’t sell anymore. Yeah, I’m with everyone else in wishing they didn’t shut down the switch emulators but it’s somewhat understandable that they’re trying to protect their revenue from hardware sales
Nintendo bad for making QoL console releases? Again, Nintendo is not the only company to do that. PS4/PS5 Pro, the recent Xboxes, etc
Nintendo has a history of doing something different each hardware generation: Snes had the 4 button + shoulder buttons controller. N64 controller was designed for someone with 3 hands, DS had 2 screens, 3DS had 3d without glasses, Wii had motion controls, Wii U the tablet controller, Switch is a console and portable… Every system had something that made it unique. What’s unique about the Switch 2?
Nintendo is not able to compete with other consoles on power, it’s the unique hardware that gives a reason to own it over something else.
They’ve put basically zero effort into shutting down emulators for consoles they don’t sell anymore.
Technically correct. They may not be shutting down emulators, but if they hear a whisper of a ROM for Mappy Land on the NES they have their lawyers on speed dial. ( Me typing that sentence means someone from Nintendo is now watching this thread to see if anyone links to a ROM.)
I don’t think Nintendo ever tried to be a tech company. They have always been a game company first and foremost. If they were ever a kind of tech company, the closest analogy would be Apple, another company that focused on consumer electronics.
I was a life long Nintendo fan boy. I have every system excluding the virtual boy cuz of the headaches, and the Wii u because I was under employed when it released. I stopped buying Nintendo after Gary Bowser, their software is janky, and bad for 2000’s level of web portal. I had already complained to Nintendo as a long term investor, and instead of innovating their software and hardware, they litigate away anything that might be considered competition and sue into poverty anyone that alters the devices. I never altered my switch, but I stand on the side of the hackers because Nintendo desperately needed to create a quality software core for their switch family. They want their software to be an extremely basic game launcher, and in modern software terms, that’s just incompetent. I stopped buying Nintendo because Nintendo stopped innovating their software, started litigating their profits, and relied solely on old worn out IP instead of creating something new and fresh. You know how many new games are gonna launch on switch 2? Less than 5. Know what one of the first 10 games is gonna be? Mario. Want another? Probably a racing game that’s another rehash but has something blandly new and shiny, like space ship racing with gerbils(instead of diddy Kong racing, or jet ski racing etc). Nintendo has no new IP ideas, and while I was mostly OK suffering through the tired old crap to get to whatever gameplay innovation they made, they seem to have abandoned the gameplay innovation entirely, and are just suing people to force them to play their games the way they want, even if they already received money for the game and system. Whatever they might have in store for the switch 2, so long as Gary Bowser is living in debt to Nintendo, I will never purchase another Nintendo product new, ever again, and I will only purchase used if they have an absolute banger of a game, but I’m only buying that used as well. No profit to Nintendo. I can buy off eBay.
There’s nothing new in this article. And I don’t think Nintendo ever said that emulation is illegal, just emulating their games is, which technically is true to some part at least in the United States, where sometimes you need to circumvent some security measures to get games emulated which is a forbidden (this is mentioned in the article).
Yea, if I recall correctly, the Yuzu team was sharing roms of latest Nintendo releases internally and Nintendo was able to prove it. At least Jeff Gerstman podcast suggested something to that accord when reporting on it.
Yeah and the Yuzu people had made something like 4 million bucks on the project too. When you start making serious cash off of tools for piracy (and when we’re talking about a current-gen console that’s essentially what it is, not a tool for preservation like older emulators) then you should expect some heat to come your way.
Nintendo has always been a bit on the bastardly side of things when it comes to fan projects but I can’t say that I blame them for going after Yuzu when they felt like they had a winnable case.
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