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Nintendo Goes DMCA on Switch Emulation

Hard to blame them, but maybe issues like this will adjust their sails and push them towards more powerful and secure hardware.

Eh, probably not.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Obligatory

1626059517932.png
 
I don't get people who think Nintendo has no rights to its own software. It doesn't matter if you can't handle 20fps, 15, or 5. You're playing their software illegally and nothing you can say justifies that, at least acknowledge that and don't give yourself excuses.

I have no idea if they have a case or not.
That's what I never understand aswell.

Also how many of these people doing this to their console are also producing their own ROM legitimately?
 

ShaiKhulud1989

Gold Member
I don't get people who think Nintendo has no rights to its own software. It doesn't matter if you can't handle 20fps, 15, or 5. You're playing their software illegally and nothing you can say justifies that, at least acknowledge that and don't give yourself excuses.
Nintendo just had Alanah Pearce suspended from Twitch mid-stream for watching Nintendo-approved preview footage of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

Oh, they has all the rights in the world. Doesn't make the corporate Nintendo less boneheaded.
 

Big Baller

Al Pachinko, Konami President
Nintendo can just FUCK OFF with their abysmal and overpriced hardware and $70 prices for horribly compromized games with 20 FPS caps. It's their own effin' fault for not making modern home only and traditional console with 4K support. People should not pay $70 for horrible experience just cuz you refuse to give a better one, hense they must be free to do whatever they want with what they bought to get it without your effin' permission, you greedy fucks! So, FUCK OFF, eat shit and leave people and emulation scene alone! JFC, man...

denzel-washington-pissed.gif


P.S. Same goes for people making their own games and remakes based on Zelda, Metroid etc. and without asking people for money and not having any plans to commercialize their work for profit.

what-is-wrong-with-you-messed-up.gif


Nintendo's always been like this. Be happy you can emulate while you can.
 

RoadHazard

Gold Member
Nintendo can just FUCK OFF with their abysmal and overpriced hardware and $70 prices for horribly compromized games with 20 FPS caps. It's their own effin' fault for not making modern home only and traditional console with 4K support. People should not pay $70 for horrible experience just cuz you refuse to give a better one, hense they must be free to do whatever they want with what they bought to get it without your effin' permission, you greedy fucks! So, FUCK OFF, eat shit and leave people and emulation scene alone! JFC, man...

denzel-washington-pissed.gif


P.S. Same goes for people making their own games and remakes based on Zelda, Metroid etc. and without asking people for money and not having any plans to commercialize their work for profit.

I don't think Nintendo has released a game with a 20fps cap since the N64 days, lol.
 

UnNamed

Banned
About emulation, people are usually hypocrite: they said emulation is for preservation, but they can't explain why the same people are interested to preserve commercial games easily and already available and not obscure cards for MAME. So people spend 40K dollars a year to help Ryujinx and Yuzu but Mamedevs struggle to buy and dump cards.


People don't want to preserve Switch, people want to play the last Zelda and make excuses to justify things they are not supposed to do.
Like:
-Games are so expensive, and my son is soooo annoying
-I already gave them money at the movie theaters, I deserve my cam rip in VHS, fuck off greedy companies
-95% of my file can be transfered with a floppy, but now I need a CDROM drive, there are chances in the future I could produce totally original huge files...



When your main market is almost piracy, it's difficult to say your product is not for piracy. Let's not pretend Napster, Kazaa and company didn't disappear after they went legal.
 

cireza

Member
So people spend 40K dollars a year to help Ryujinx and Yuzu but Mamedevs struggle to buy and dump cards.
Do you seriously expect people who play on Switch to even know what MAME is, not even talking about whatever obscure arcade board ?

People who have the choice to play Zelda in 4K@60fps can make this choice without it being illegal. It is not about preserving Switch, not yet. Maybe in 20 years who knows.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Cases like this already went to court a couple of times in the late 90's with Sony. And Sony lost. Some might remember Bleem!
They lost but they bullied the team out of business with continous pursuit of legal action. Could be Nintendo's approach here.
 

winjer

Gold Member
They lost but they bullied the team out of business with continous pursuit of legal action. Could be Nintendo's approach here.

You can be certain that is what Nintendo is doing. They know these are just regular people, that don't have the time and money to waste in frivolous lawsuits.
This is what Nintendo has been doing against youtubers and streamers, even when the law is on the side of the those people.
 
About emulation, people are usually hypocrite: they said emulation is for preservation, but they can't explain why the same people are interested to preserve commercial games easily and already available and not obscure cards for MAME. So people spend 40K dollars a year to help Ryujinx and Yuzu but Mamedevs struggle to buy and dump cards.


People don't want to preserve Switch, people want to play the last Zelda and make excuses to justify things they are not supposed to do.
Like:
-Games are so expensive, and my son is soooo annoying
-I already gave them money at the movie theaters, I deserve my cam rip in VHS, fuck off greedy companies
-95% of my file can be transfered with a floppy, but now I need a CDROM drive, there are chances in the future I could produce totally original huge files...



When your main market is almost piracy, it's difficult to say your product is not for piracy. Let's not pretend Napster, Kazaa and company didn't disappear after they went legal.

Are there legit people that uses emulators where they dump their own roms to play games? Of course. But I'm willing to bet the number is minuscule. Just look at the Tears of the Kingdom thread on any forum or place on the internet discussing the game. It's mainly about piracy and justifying it. Yeah, they're playing Tears of the Kingdom right now that's not officially released, but playing on an emulator because they are preserving the game. lol

Imo, Emulators are like p2p filesharing software, sure there are legit users that do share legal files, but let's be honest that number is very small. It's mainly used for piracy.
 

ShaiKhulud1989

Gold Member
About emulation, people are usually hypocrite: they said emulation is for preservation, but they can't explain why the same people are interested to preserve commercial games easily and already available and not obscure cards for MAME. So people spend 40K dollars a year to help Ryujinx and Yuzu but Mamedevs struggle to buy and dump cards.


People don't want to preserve Switch, people want to play the last Zelda and make excuses to justify things they are not supposed to do.
Like:
-Games are so expensive, and my son is soooo annoying
-I already gave them money at the movie theaters, I deserve my cam rip in VHS, fuck off greedy companies
-95% of my file can be transfered with a floppy, but now I need a CDROM drive, there are chances in the future I could produce totally original huge files...



When your main market is almost piracy, it's difficult to say your product is not for piracy. Let's not pretend Napster, Kazaa and company didn't disappear after they went legal.
We're having this discussion ever since the Bleem! days.

If you own a legal copy of the game you have the right to backup said copy and use it via emulation you see fit. I buy every game I emulate because I like to pay for games I love. I want to play the games I own with better controller, better resolution and better sound. With Xbox/PS I have PC ports and plethora of emulators. With Nintendo the only way to play, say, a lot of N64 games w/o emulation is to buy a used N64. Wii U and Wii doesn't count since the store and virtual console are dead.

Piracy is whole another can of worms, but you should ban ISO tools too if we're following that logic.
 

Kikorin

Member
Truth is that emulation is legal, but 99% of people use it for illegal purpose (pirate games). If you are pirating a game (or a movie, pay-per-view sports service, etc...) you can try to justify it in any way, but the simple truth is that if there would not be people that pay for the service, it would not exist even for pirates. This not make you more smart, this just makes you a thief and a parasite.
 
Wouldn't it just be easier to track the keys being used in the emulation. If there's only one key for one user then its legit, 200 folk using the same key cloned from some website download is likely piracy? Seen as you have to actually own a Switch to emulate it I don't see the problem then.

We're having this discussion ever since the Bleem! days.

If you own a legal copy of the game you have the right to backup said copy and use it via emulation you see fit. I buy every game I emulate because I like to pay for games I love. I want to play the games I own with better controller, better resolution and better sound. With Xbox/PS I have PC ports and plethora of emulators. With Nintendo the only way to play, say, a lot of N64 games w/o emulation is to buy a used N64. Wii U and Wii doesn't count since the store and virtual console are dead.

Piracy is whole another can of worms, but you should ban ISO tools too if we're following that logic.

I think everyone accepts playing your own backups is legit, the grey area for emulation these days is whether the emulator used is reverse engineered or not and requires a bios etc. PCSX2 for example requires a bios, which your are supposed to get from your own PS2 (simple enough if you have free mcboot) Using someone else's bios and not even owning the console is where the illegality of the emulation comes in I guess
 

ShaiKhulud1989

Gold Member
I think everyone accepts playing your own backups is legit, the grey area for emulation these days is whether the emulator used is reverse engineered or not and requires a bios etc. PCSX2 for example requires a bios, which your are supposed to get from your own PS2 (simple enough if you have free mcboot) Using someone else's bios and not even owning the console is where the illegality of the emulation comes in I guess
Yup. But that's a lot of 'ifs'.

Emulation and key dumping is legal. The way you use them (for piracy or backups) is up to you. But same could be said about a car or a kitchen knife. It's an empty discussion.
 

supernova8

Banned
I always thought the argument for emulators and emulation was a bit like what the pro-gun lobby does.

"Guns are literally designed to shoot (ie injure or kill) living things!"
met with
"Pfft! Nothing wrong with guns, totally legal. I shoot watermelons in my yard for no apparent reason and collect a bunch of 50 cal machine guns because I feel like it. Not our a fault a few basket cases go and shoot up a school"

"Emulators are literally designed to (and developed on an ongoing basis to optimally) play games from a certain device on another device!"
met with
"Pfft! Nothing wrong with emulation, totally legal. Look at these absolutely dogshit homebrew games I played for a whole 30 seconds. Not our fault a few spotty kids pirated the entire Nintendo DS library onto an R4 flash cart and never actually bought any games because they didn't need to"

I'll gladly admit to emulating here and there. Mainly I emulate BOTW on CEMU (I do actually own it on Switch) because it looks and runs like shit on the Switch itself, but I'm under no illusion that it's probably not 100% legal.
 
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SeraphJan

Member
But you do understand that will kill off their business model of also profiting from Hardware.
Of course it will if they release new games on PC.

However porting old games is actually open for discussion, the old game could incentivize people to buy their hardware and boost the sales number of that old game's sequel, it have ups and downs, they just need to be very selective about which to port, which not to.
 
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Spaceman292

Banned
Nintendo can just FUCK OFF with their abysmal and overpriced hardware and $70 prices for horribly compromized games with 20 FPS caps. It's their own effin' fault for not making modern home only and traditional console with 4K support. People should not pay $70 for horrible experience just cuz you refuse to give a better one, hense they must be free to do whatever they want with what they bought to get it without your effin' permission, you greedy fucks! So, FUCK OFF, eat shit and leave people and emulation scene alone! JFC, man...

denzel-washington-pissed.gif


P.S. Same goes for people making their own games and remakes based on Zelda, Metroid etc. and without asking people for money and not having any plans to commercialize their work for profit.
I don't even care about Zelda but this post has encouraged me to pirate it anyway.

🦜
 

ShaiKhulud1989

Gold Member
I always thought the argument for emulators and emulation was a bit like what the pro-gun lobby does.
Oof.

I understand that preservation argument is kinda flimsy with the current hardware, but even Wii U emulation is the only way to play a lot of Wii U titles, especially with turned-off store and high street prices on an actual rare hardware. Same could be said about consoles like Saturn or Jaguar. Or any console before PS4 era. I dare you to find a DualShock 3 in a mint condition, let alone an intact PS3 to play MGS4 and not spending a fortune on it. And PS3 was a popular console.

But once again, this thred will be full of takes that sound like a broken record. The gun lobby take is 20 years old at least.
 

Spaceman292

Banned
I always thought the argument for emulators and emulation was a bit like what the pro-gun lobby does.

"Guns are literally designed to shoot (ie injure or kill) living things!"
met with
"Pfft! Nothing wrong with guns, totally legal. I shoot watermelons in my yard for no apparent reason and collect a bunch of 50 cal machine guns because I feel like it. Not our a fault a few basket cases go and shoot up a school"

"Emulators are literally designed to (and developed on an ongoing basis to optimally) play games from a certain device on another device!"
met with
"Pfft! Nothing wrong with emulation, totally legal. Look at these absolutely dogshit homebrew games I played for a whole 30 seconds. Not our fault a few spotty kids pirated the entire Nintendo DS library onto an R4 flash cart and never actually bought any games because they didn't need to"

I'll gladly admit to emulating here and there. Mainly I emulate BOTW on CEMU (I do actually own it on Switch) because it looks and runs like shit on the Switch itself, but I'm under no illusion that it's probably not 100% legal.
dumb take
 

Kamina

Golden Boy
When you buy a game, you sign a contract were Nintendo let you play games on a specific hardware.
When i buy a game, i sign a contract with the company / store selling the physical medium which holds a permanent license for the software, which is hardware locked to operate on a specific device.
At no point do i sign a contract with nintendo. And they cant revoke that license without taking the physical medium from me.
Now digital is slightly different.
 
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DareDaniel

Banned
Nintendo can keep their switch for 5 more years bc the emulation is so fucking good now. Having a blast with metroid dread in 4k/60 fps!
 
I don't get people who think Nintendo has no rights to its own software. It doesn't matter if you can't handle 20fps, 15, or 5. You're playing their software illegally and nothing you can say justifies that, at least acknowledge that and don't give yourself excuses.

I have no idea if they have a case or not.
Not in Europe. If I own the game, It's legal to export the iso and play it with an emulator. You, or Nintendo can't change that. It's not excuse, it's the state of the law.
 

UnNamed

Banned
When i buy a game, i sign a contract with the company / store selling the physical medium which holds a permanent license for the software, which is hardware locked to operate on a specific device.
At no point do i sign a contract with nintendo. And they cant revoke that license without taking the physical medium from me.
Now digital is slightly different.
Ehm

https://www.nintendo.com/sg/support/switch/eula/usage_policy.html

Anyway, I don't think these agreements are limited to videogames, I think there is something similar and much older for music and movies etc.

For example, you can share a pair of boots, but just one people at the time, and that's OK, but you can't share a movie to everyone with a projector. So to avoid this to people who think "I've bought the movie so I do whatever I want", there are laws to limit your freedom.

You can share a physical Nes game to any people and Nintendo can't do anything even if you sign an agreement with them. But you can't share with everyone a ROM just be use because you have bought it.

I guess we need a lawyer to have a better opinion on this subject.
 
Ngl Nintendo making it harder to rip roms from their own carts will just make people less likely to rip the rom. They are literally going after the only legit legal way to play switch emulators lmao.
 
Yup. But that's a lot of 'ifs'.

Emulation and key dumping is legal. The way you use them (for piracy or backups) is up to you. But same could be said about a car or a kitchen knife. It's an empty discussion.

The thing about a car and kitchen knife is that those are used for legit purposes by a vast majority of people, it's only a small number that will use them for illegal purposes. Can you say that with emulation software or hell, p2p filesharing software? That the vast majority are using it for legal purposes and not for piracy?
 

SomeGit

Member
The thing about a car and kitchen knife is that those are used for legit purposes by a vast majority of people, it's only a small number that will use them for illegal purposes. Can you say that with emulation software or hell, p2p filesharing software? That the vast majority are using it for legal purposes and not for piracy?

Software emulation is used all over the place in commercial software even outside their respective console like the megaman collection on Xbox and the old castlevania collection on PS4 or even all the DosBox ports on Steam, or should we count all of these out to just leave the “dirty ones” out?
 

ShaiKhulud1989

Gold Member
The thing about a car and kitchen knife is that those are used for legit purposes by a vast majority of people, it's only a small number that will use them for illegal purposes. Can you say that with emulation software or hell, p2p filesharing software? That the vast majority are using it for legal purposes and not for piracy?
I won’t dive into details because this whole argument is tired af, but did you know that p2p tech is used mainly for legit video streaming and even online gaming, right?
 

ShaiKhulud1989

Gold Member
Software emulation is used all over the place in commercial software even outside their respective console like the megaman collection on Xbox and the old castlevania collection on PS4 or even all the DosBox ports on Steam, or should we count all of these out to just leave the “dirty ones” out?
PS Mini by Sony is running on an open-source PSX emulator for god’s sake!
 

SomeGit

Member
PS Mini by Sony is running on an open-source PSX emulator for god’s sake!

You're right, but I don't like to use that example or NSO, since it can easily be countered with "oh well it's their platform, of course they are allowed to do that". It's easier to point out something that Sony/Nintendo would not be okay with, like their systems being emulated on competitors platforms.
 

AJUMP23

Parody of actual AJUMP23
When the tentpole Leaks the creator Freaks.

I would say if you want to dump your own roms and keys that should be legal. But Nintendo is going to go scorched earth on this.
 

Eotheod

Member
Nintendo can just FUCK OFF with their abysmal and overpriced hardware and $70 prices for horribly compromized games with 20 FPS caps. It's their own effin' fault for not making modern home only and traditional console with 4K support. People should not pay $70 for horrible experience just cuz you refuse to give a better one, hense they must be free to do whatever they want with what they bought to get it without your effin' permission, you greedy fucks! So, FUCK OFF, eat shit and leave people and emulation scene alone! JFC, man...

denzel-washington-pissed.gif


P.S. Same goes for people making their own games and remakes based on Zelda, Metroid etc. and without asking people for money and not having any plans to commercialize their work for profit.
You tell that multi-billion dollar corporation whose boss. Yell at Sony and Microsoft next please regarding their overpriced hardware in non-US countries.
 

StereoVsn

Gold Member
I think Nintendo would probably win in court. I think the chances would be slim that a court would find that you own any of the actual software that powers your console, including keys stored on it, or that you have the right to use that software in a way that circumvents the EULA. If these folks had clean room reversed engineered the entire process, including creating and validating keys, I think Nintendo would lose. But since it relies on keys Nintendo created being used for something other than their intended purpose I think Nintendo has a case.
There have been cases shown that you can circumvent encryption for personal use. Keys are extracted by users themselves. Keytool allows users to run it and it doesn't store/hold keys.

That said, I am no lawyer. Ooh, I will talk to an IP lawyer at work instead. Somebody should pitch Legal Eagle on YouTube to do an episode around this.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
After that stupid Kotaku article near to the TotK release I was expecting Nintendo doing something about.

Kotaku sucks, but I’d think its more about ToTK leaking early and being downloaded by tons of people. That kinda broke the camel’s back
 

darrylgorn

Member
Pretty sure Yuzu has a subscription model. If Nintendo could work out a deal with Yuzu and incorporate a licensing fee into that model, they would easily make up for any lost revenue and everyone would have legal access to the content.
 

zcaa0g

Banned
Nintendo is the most arrogant of The Big Three. They're a "fuck your family!" friendly company. Their arrogance is astonishing given their under powered hot garbage hardware and low poly, blurry texture, and too cheap to get voice actors little toddler games. Fuck Nintendo and the Pokémon they rode in on.
 

Sleepwalker

Member
I hope nintendo loses.

Regardless, the legal status of the tool in question or emulation as a whole has never stopped people and won't start doing it now.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
There have been cases shown that you can circumvent encryption for personal use. Keys are extracted by users themselves. Keytool allows users to run it and it doesn't store/hold keys.

That said, I am no lawyer. Ooh, I will talk to an IP lawyer at work instead. Somebody should pitch Legal Eagle on YouTube to do an episode around this.
It would be interesting to see what an IP lawyer would have to say, that's for sure.
 

darrylgorn

Member
It would be interesting to see what an IP lawyer would have to say, that's for sure.

Considering distribution is the problem that Nintendo fears, the onus would be on them to prove that simply making the key would necessarily lead to illegal distribution.
 
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