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[ReyBrujo]

The funniest thing though is Nintendo has even sold an illegally dumped NES rom recently, which was proven by the rom's header or something like that, i'm not sure about the technical details. So yeah, they didn't even bother to create their own dump, they just downloaded one from the internet and sold it. These are the same company who now attacks emulation. The irony is reaching cringe worthy levels here.

Being the IP owner they can sell rehashes or make emulation of their own games, in extreme cases they can raid dumps or products from counterfeit and sell it themselves giving it their blessing. Konami has been known to do the same. They might even use the same dumpers or the result of the dump might even be the same if you dump the same game multiple times.

 

[Astray]

Sony could make a N64 emulator if they wanted (as long as it doesn't have any Nintendo copyrighted code in it) and bundle it with free homebrew games and offer it for free on PS5. What they can't do is sell/offer retail/copyrighted N64 games with it. It's the games that are the illegal part, not the emulator.

Been reading the case filing (still not finished, mainly doing it during breaks in work), and Nintendo's contention isn't that they built an emulator. Their contention is that their emulator relies on cracking Nintendo's encryption on Switch units and games in order to work, and that they knowingly provide detailed guides for users to be able to crack said encryptions (the guide literally says at the start that you need to start with a "hackable Nintendo Switch".

Additionally, one of the lead devs (Bunnei) openly acknowledged in a public discord that most Yuzu users don't even bother with said guides, and "just use pirated folders". From the filing (pg 15):

Yuzu’s lead developer Bunnei has also acknowledged that the Quickstart Guide can be confusing and “users probably just pirate a yuzu folder with everything.”

The more I read through this, the more I think Nintendo's gonna win this on the merits. There guys are sloppy jokers and need to be kept far away from the emulation scene. Their strategy seems to have been about outsourcing illegality to their users instead of keeping the project about homebrew or something that keeps it legal.

People don't understand the consequences of this bullshit, those will be the same people who will whine in future threads about Digital-only future and shit like that.

 

[Ron Mexico]

Thing is Bleem had to go out of business due to overwhelming legal fees. That's the problem with all of this. Nintendo doesn't need to win. They just need to overwhelm Yuzu with legal bullshit until they have no more money to pay lawyers.

And this with only one thing I'd add-- time. They need to overwhelm Yuzu with legal bullshit until ideally for them a) the Yuzu legal fund runs dry and/or b) the next console releases and they can capitalize on the upscaled releases and fewer eyeballs looking back at the Switch and more looking towards the new product.

If Yuzu itself were truly the existential threat they're purported to be, a company with pockets as deep as Nintendo could have started this whole process FAR earlier. This is addressing a short term need for them with long term consequences for the emulation landscape.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Being the IP owner they can sell rehashes or make emulation of their own games, in extreme cases they can raid dumps or products from counterfeit and sell it themselves giving it their blessing. Konami has been known to do the same. They might even use the same dumpers or the result of the dump might even be the same if you dump the same game multiple times.

Its not a matter of whether they can or can't do this, it just something that shows how piracy is the best way to preserve games. Why did they go after rom dumps and not their own archived versions? Probably because they've been lost. You can also see many older games that implemented DRM that are now sold with scene cracks installed. If those cracks didn't exist, would these games have been lost forever?

 

[Astray]

If Yuzu itself were truly the existential threat they're purported to be, a company with pockets as deep as Nintendo could have started this whole process FAR earlier. This is addressing a short term need for them with long term consequences for the emulation landscape.

Yeah no. It's very clear that they took the time to prep a strong case instead of just rushing to it.

Judging from what I'm seeing from the filing, they really did some super deep research into how Yuzu works and how its devs conduct themselves to users and how they collect info on usage (this case will have the most fire discovery ever btw, Yuzu has telemetry on everything their users do, which means they know for sure how many people dump their own copies vs just going torrent shopping).

 

[Panajev2001a]

Yeah no. It's very clear that they took the time to prep a strong case instead of just rushing to it.

Judging from what I'm seeing from the filing, they really did some super deep research into how Yuzu works and how its devs conduct themselves to users and how they collect info on usage (this case will have the most fire discovery ever btw, Yuzu has telemetry on everything their users do, which means they know for sure how many people dump their own copies vs just going torrent shopping).

F, Nintendo’s lawyers do not screw about…

 

[Panajev2001a]

Its not a matter of whether they can or can't do this, it just something that shows how piracy is the best way to preserve games. Why did they go after rom dumps and not their own archived versions? Probably because they've been lost. You can also see many older games that implemented DRM that are now sold with scene cracks installed. If those cracks didn't exist, would these games have been lost forever?

Lobby your politicians to make things right.

Also be aware that if the company suing is much much much bigger than the defendant they can sue them with the smallest foothold and destroy them with legal bills. Unfair, I know… that is something else that should be fixed (accounted for before the trial goes forward, size of the company suing vs size of the defendant should be considered).

 

[SHA]

 

[Guilty_AI]

this case will have the most fire discovery ever btw, Yuzu has telemetry on everything their users do, which means they know for sure how many people dump their own copies vs just going torrent shopping

Does the data they collect is even that detailed tho? From their website most of it seems to be about PC specs and info on Yuzu itself. On games they only seem to have performance information.

 

[Ron Mexico]

Yeah no. It's very clear that they took the time to prep a strong case instead of just rushing to it.

Judging from what I'm seeing from the filing, they really did some super deep research into how Yuzu works and how its devs conduct themselves to users and how they collect info on usage (this case will have the most fire discovery ever btw, Yuzu has telemetry on everything their users do, which means they know for sure how many people dump their own copies vs just going torrent shopping).

I would answer all this with a single question-- do you believe Nintendo wants this to go to trial?

If your answer is yes, there's no argument that's going to change your mind and that's fine. However, actually taking this to a trial would be a huge risk for them and a significant departure from their past playbook (see: past ROM sites, Joy-Con drift, the array of C&D for fan-made projects, etc etc). Even in the most obscenely generous "odds" that they take this case to court and win. Hell, let's make it a 99% Nintendo chance of victory (though I don't believe that number). That 1% is a huge risk for them. It's incredibly easy to say that "longshots" like that will never come in because, duh, they're longshots, but they can and do happen. Hell, Nintendo sued Blockbuster over rentals in a case they were absolutely certain they'd win. And they lost (with the exception of BBV having to use their own instructions). I worked for Blockbuster before quitting and heading to EB. Double nostalgia trip for the day.

I think we both agree that Nintendo knows exactly what they're doing and chose their timing deliberately. Just for significantly different reasons.

 

[tkscz]

Yeah no. It's very clear that they took the time to prep a strong case instead of just rushing to it.

Judging from what I'm seeing from the filing, they really did some super deep research into how Yuzu works and how its devs conduct themselves to users and how they collect info on usage (this case will have the most fire discovery ever btw, Yuzu has telemetry on everything their users do, which means they know for sure how many people dump their own copies vs just going torrent shopping).

That.... that changes things. I don't think any other emulator creator tracks their users that closely, giving them a damn good out (besides the fact that Nintendo doesn't make money off older games directly). Tracking their users, however, lets them know exactly who is pirating and who is dumping, that knowledge could be stretch to having them be an "accomplice" to the pirating. Not sure how the lawyers found that out though. They can't say or the evidence will be void in court but I am curious to know.

 

[Deerock71]

Sure sign I need coffee: I read this as "Nintendo Sue: Creators of Emulator "Yuzu"." I thought Nintendo Sue were the creators. ️

 

[ReyBrujo]

Their strategy seems to have been about outsourcing illegality to their users instead of keeping the project about homebrew or something that keeps it legal.

Exactly. Not sure if it holds but without allowing certain talk about piracy in their site and discord they wouldn't be getting 30k in donations per month.

Its not a matter of whether they can or can't do this, it just something that shows how piracy is the best way to preserve games.

You are mixing software preservation and piracy though. In the US you are allowed to dump the games you have a license for (for preservation, for example) but you aren't allowed to distribute them. Piracy is not the act of dumping something per se, it's the act of distributing it or using it when you don't have that license. Buying a physical game is literally licensing the use of the software inside the media for your own usage. So you can make a copy so that the media can last longer (especially in the case of discs that can be scratched) but once you sell the media it to someone else (a second-hand sale) you are no longer a licensee and therefore should destroy any backup copy you might have.

 

[Deleted member 1159]

Yeah no. It's very clear that they took the time to prep a strong case instead of just rushing to it.

Judging from what I'm seeing from the filing, they really did some super deep research into how Yuzu works and how its devs conduct themselves to users and how they collect info on usage (this case will have the most fire discovery ever btw, Yuzu has telemetry on everything their users do, which means they know for sure how many people dump their own copies vs just going torrent shopping).

Even if they know some large majority of their users aren’t doing things the way they’re supposed to be doing them (ripping their own encryption keys and ROMs or whatever), that’s still not the same thing as the Yuzu developers doing this or providing these things themselves. Also, there’s a need for Nintendo to prove taking these shortcuts actually damages them, which they can’t really do if someone legit owns a Switch and the software but is too lazy to do all that.

Again, just because something seems scummy, that doesn’t mean it’s illegal. Nintendo’s bar to clear is proving the Yuzu developers are doing something illegal. If they are, fine, prove it in court and collect. If not, they can wipe their tears with their billions of dollars they sleep on.

And just to reiterate a huge fact: piracy is rampant on Switch hardware. It’s trivially easy, and if you don’t have a powerful PC, it’s much less expensive than emulation. While I have a day 1 Switch on stock firmware with dozens of games I bought and Nintendo online etc., it would take me like 20 minutes to soft mod it and run any code I wanted on it and not a single line of Yuzu code would be involved

 

[Guilty_AI]

You are mixing software preservation and piracy though. In the US you are allowed to dump the games you have a license for (for preservation, for example) but you aren't allowed to distribute them. Piracy is not the act of dumping something per se, it's the act of distributing it or using it when you don't have that license. Buying a physical game is literally licensing the use of the software inside the media for your own usage. So you can make a copy so that the media can last longer (especially in the case of discs that can be scratched) but once you sell the media it to someone else (a second-hand sale) you are no longer a licensee and therefore should destroy any backup copy you might have.

What i'm saying is, without the piracy scene, those games could've been lost forever even to the publishers themselves. Seeing as they had to rely on pirated copies and cracks to re-distribute them.

 

[Topher]

Even if they know some large majority of their users aren’t doing things the way they’re supposed to be doing them (ripping their own encryption keys and ROMs or whatever), that’s still not the same thing as the Yuzu developers doing this or providing these things themselves. Also, there’s a need for Nintendo to prove taking these shortcuts actually damages them, which they can’t really do if someone legit owns a Switch and the software but is too lazy to do all that.

Again, just because something seems scummy, that doesn’t mean it’s illegal. Nintendo’s bar to clear is proving the Yuzu developers are doing something illegal. If they are, fine, prove it in court and collect. If not, they can wipe their tears with their billions of dollars they sleep on.

And just to reiterate a huge fact: piracy is rampant on Switch hardware. It’s trivially easy, and if you don’t have a powerful PC, it’s much less expensive than emulation. While I have a day 1 Switch on stock firmware with dozens of games I bought and Nintendo online etc., it would take me like 20 minutes to soft mod it and run any code I wanted on it and not a single line of Yuzu code would be involved

Personally I still think it is hilarious that those early Switch models can be "hacked" with a paper clip.

 

[RaduN]

Been reading the case filing (still not finished, mainly doing it during breaks in work), and Nintendo's contention isn't that they built an emulator. Their contention is that their emulator relies on cracking Nintendo's encryption on Switch units and games in order to work, and that they knowingly provide detailed guides for users to be able to crack said encryptions (the guide literally says at the start that you need to start with a "hackable Nintendo Switch".

Additionally, one of the lead devs (Bunnei) openly acknowledged in a public discord that most Yuzu users don't even bother with said guides, and "just use pirated folders". From the filing (pg 15):


The more I read through this, the more I think Nintendo's gonna win this on the merits. There guys are sloppy jokers and need to be kept far away from the emulation scene. Their strategy seems to have been about outsourcing illegality to their users instead of keeping the project about homebrew or something that keeps it legal.

People don't understand the consequences of this bullshit, those will be the same people who will whine in future threads about Digital-only future and shit like that.

Absolutely nothing you presented is illegal. It's fucking outrageous that talking about emulation, regardless if you are a dev or not, could be held against you. They do not provide stolen code on discord or anywherw else (did any emu ever actually had that?) and do not provide keys and similar.

If i am a gun producer/seller and i am recorded randomly saying: The guy that bought that magnum last year, probably looked like a pro assasin... And that guy is involved in an assasination, with the gun he legally purchased from me, you can bet your smelly shorts i am not legally at fault for the crime he commited.

Nintendo is full of shit as always, and i'm hoping the bleem precedent will set thing straight with little damage to the Yuzu guys.

 

[GeekGuyWithGlasses]

I have no idea about that but it's a slippery line of thought

I mean to run Switch software on PC requires to "reverse engineer" software and hardware that are copyrighted

It's true that emulation doesn't mean piracy in itself but let's be realistic, the end result is the same for the vast majority of people.

I don't actually believe people rip their own games and they have a Switch console while emulating those very same games

It's just a pipedream

It doesnt matter what people are using for, its not Yuzu's responsibility as long as the emulator itself doesnt contains copyrighted codes/ bios files etc.

They cannot exactly sue based on assumptions and let alone take down a software that contains none of their proprietary code.

 

[Sleepwalker]

Personally I still think it is hilarious that those early Switch models can be "hacked" with a paper clip.

Yup and you can even mod the lite/oled/other models.

Emulating on PC actually costs more than hacking a Nintendo product, so you can run pirated software natively without ever downloading yuzu.


How many of those torrent downloads were from people wanting to emulate rather than pirates playing on hacked switches?

It seems to me Nintendo couldn't find a target to aim for so they settled for the lowest hanging fruit.

 

[Ron Mexico]

And just to reiterate a huge fact: piracy is rampant on Switch hardware. It’s trivially easy, and if you don’t have a powerful PC, it’s much less expensive than emulation. While I have a day 1 Switch on stock firmware with dozens of games I bought and Nintendo online etc., it would take me like 20 minutes to soft mod it and run any code I wanted on it and not a single line of Yuzu code would be involved

Correct-- and the one thing that Yuzu can do that a modded Switch cannot is run at settings beyond the capabilities of the existing hardware...for a company that is about to release new hardware.

The fact that Yuzu is a single entity (speaking of the LLC here) rather than the decentralized nature of ROM hosting of all kinds does make them an easier target but this is the legal team asserting themselves and doing something.

From purely a business standpoint, I also see the justification to try-- Nintendo is publicly traded. They have a responsibility to protect their (future) value as that's what drives their valuation. I don't have to like it and I can find it frivolous but they're doing exactly what you would expect a company in their position to do.

 

[Deleted member 1159]

Personally I still think it is hilarious that those early Switch models can be "hacked" with a paper clip.

It’s awesome. I just put Windows on my Steam Deck so I can run Gamepass games natively on it. Valve doesn’t give a shit, I’ve got a 20 year old Steam account and have given them thousands of dollars. Imagine Nintendo acting the same way…

 

[Guilty_AI]

Been reading the case filing (still not finished, mainly doing it during breaks in work), and Nintendo's contention isn't that they built an emulator. Their contention is that their emulator relies on cracking Nintendo's encryption on Switch units and games in order to work, and that they knowingly provide detailed guides for users to be able to crack said encryptions (the guide literally says at the start that you need to start with a "hackable Nintendo Switch".

Additionally, one of the lead devs (Bunnei) openly acknowledged in a public discord that most Yuzu users don't even bother with said guides, and "just use pirated folders". From the filing (pg 15)

In US law, modifying a hardware you own is not illegal, bypassing encryption or whatever else. Also, acknowledging that most users probably (notice the wording here, implies they don't really know if that's really the case) pirate their software instead of following the guide also doesn't make them liable.

 

[Fabieter]

Thing is Bleem had to go out of business due to overwhelming legal fees. That's the problem with all of this. Nintendo doesn't need to win. They just need to overwhelm Yuzu with legal bullshit until they have no more money to pay lawyers.

The other problem with this is that winning by default means we get no ruling on what is legal and what is not. Guarantee you Nintendo does not ever want this to get to the point where a judge has to make a ruling. Far too much risk there.

Dolphin's use of keys was highlighted in Nintendo's cease and desist letter.

Even if Nintendo loses one lawsuit, it doesn't imply lasting disadvantages for them. Legal outcomes can be specific to each case, and one loss doesn't necessarily impact their overall legal standing or future actions.

 

[Deleted member 1159]

Correct-- and the one thing that Yuzu can do that a modded Switch cannot is run at settings beyond the capabilities of the existing hardware...for a company that is about to release new hardware.

The fact that Yuzu is a single entity (speaking of the LLC here) rather than the decentralized nature of ROM hosting of all kinds does make them an easier target but this is the legal team asserting themselves and doing something.

From purely a business standpoint, I also see the justification to try-- Nintendo is publicly traded. They have a responsibility to protect their (future) value as that's what drives their valuation. I don't have to like it and I can find it frivolous but they're doing exactly what you would expect a company in their position to do.

Yeah I think this actually makes sense from a “protect the IP and the business” standpoint, but it’s not necessarily the only or best option.

I get why they’d go to court and say “look at this scummy shit these guys are doing!” But on the other hand, I think a smarter move would be to take the Valve approach: hire these ridiculously talented people supposedly using your IP and use them to enhance the value of it for your customers.

 

[ReyBrujo]

What i'm saying is, without the piracy scene, those games could've been lost forever even to the publishers themselves. Seeing as they had to rely on pirated copies and cracks to re-distribute them.

That was just convenience. Obviously they don't keep a copy of every game they ever released but few games have been completely lost (and not sure if any Nintendo game that has been released as a media ever was). Supposing we (the end user) knew nothing about dumping and piracy and everyone stuck to legal terms had Nintendo wanted to release a game for a virtual console for which they didn't own the ROM they could have put a call for buying a copy of the physical game and dump it themselves. Would they have done that? Counterfactual.

Where I see your point is that the community helped develop tools, helped develop ROM formats (like the iNES one), helped document the chip and used that knowledge to create their own homebrew games which is where the legality of ROM dumping and emulator lies.

And in the end, licensing is temporal and the company who owns the IP decides when to kill something. Personally the discussion is different, it's about when copyright and patents expire. 75 years, even 20 years as with algorithms is way too long in this era.

 

[Topher]

Even if Nintendo loses one lawsuit, it doesn't imply lasting disadvantages for them. Legal outcomes can be specific to each case, and one loss doesn't necessarily impact their overall legal standing or future actions.

Depends on the ruling, but if precedence is established that strengthens the case for emulation then yes, that absolutely will have a lasting impact.

 

[Astray]

So many responses, so pls forgive me if I missed any.

Does the data they collect is even that detailed tho? From their website most of it seems to be about PC specs and info on Yuzu itself. On games they only seem to have performance information.

How would they know what games are problematic for the emulator without knowing at least the file name or folder path?

If your folderpath is C:\Yuzu\The Legend of Zelda - Links Awakening [FitGirl Repack], and it's included in the telemetry, then they "know" what the source of the game is.

Keep in mind the above example is conjecture, I don't know what's exactly in their telemetry, but it's almost certainly gonna come out in discovery.

I would answer all this with a single question-- do you believe Nintendo wants this to go to trial?

My answer is yes.

From their POV, the worst case scenario is they lose the case and get some sort of precedent that breaking game encryption is super legal (not likely, but let's assume), which big whoop, things stay as they are, and it doesn't stop them from bullying emu scene devs with lawsuits anyways (they have lawyers on retainers, so having them work on something is better than paying money for them to sit back and relax).

The best case scenario? They get some sort of legal precedent that kills emulation and they can use as a win button for all future emulator projects.

Who got us there? Idiot emulation devs who decided to emulate a current-gen system, created piracy guides and used illegally leaked game builds to test against and increase donation earnings. The case Nintendo is laying out is very clear tbh.

If your answer is yes, there's no argument that's going to change your mind and that's fine. However, actually taking this to a trial would be a huge risk for them and a significant departure from their past playbook (see: past ROM sites, Joy-Con drift, the array of C&D for fan-made projects, etc etc). Even in the most obscenely generous "odds" that they take this case to court and win. Hell, let's make it a 99% Nintendo chance of victory (though I don't believe that number). That 1% is a huge risk for them. It's incredibly easy to say that "longshots" like that will never come in because, duh, they're longshots, but they can and do happen. Hell, Nintendo sued Blockbuster over rentals in a case they were absolutely certain they'd win. And they lost (with the exception of BBV having to use their own instructions). I worked for Blockbuster before quitting and heading to EB. Double nostalgia trip for the day.

I think we both agree that Nintendo knows exactly what they're doing and chose their timing deliberately. Just for significantly different reasons.

I will keep things to what I'm familiar with: This case filing, which clearly no one is reading and they're letting their biases control their feelings about this shit.

Also while the filing has things I think are bullshit (like citing the existence of r/Yuzu_Piracy for example), there are things that will probably compel the judge to at least allow discovery imo.

It’s awesome. I just put Windows on my Steam Deck so I can run Gamepass games natively on it. Valve doesn’t give a shit, I’ve got a 20 year old Steam account and have given them thousands of dollars. Imagine Nintendo acting the same way…

Of course they don't care:

- You are paying for Gamepass. So you're not really pirating anything there.
- If you emulate an illegal copy of a Nintendo or Sony game then you are doing this of your own volition and at your own liability, and they won't support you if you ever get sued over it personally. They didn't post any guides for it, and notice how they notified Nintendo when Dolphin was about to be released on Steam, they clearly know to keep on Nintendo's good side.

It's a no-loss scenario for them rn. They aren't your friends.

Absolutely nothing you presented is illegal. It's fucking outrageous that talking about emulation, regardless if you are a dev or not, could be held against you. They do not provide stolen code on discord or anywherw else (did any emu ever actually had that?) and do not provide keys and similar.

Nintendo asserts in the filing that the only way Yuzu devs managed to get Zelda TOTK playable day 1 on PC was via using leaked game builds to test, if true, that alone is a potential smoking gun to them knowingly using piracy to further their own donation earnings.

Nintendo has more of a case than you think, this might not be going the same way as Bleem because Bleem case likely didn't have certain aspects that this case has.

Stop citing redditisms and start looking at the evidence at hand.

In US law, modifying a hardware you own is not illegal, bypassing encryption or whatever else. Also, acknowledging that most users probably (notice the wording here, implies they don't really know if that's really the case) pirate their software instead of following the guide also doesn't make them liable.

We'll see about that I guess. If the judge grants discovery I think we will see some wild shit.

I predict a lot of people won't be happy with the outcome (I know I wouldn't, I actually like emulation despite it seeming otherwise).

 

[Musashipan]

Goddess Nintendo should go after those criminals who downloaded roms and make them pay every cent of it.

 

[Guilty_AI]

How would they know what games are problematic for the emulator without knowing at least the file name or folder path?

If your folderpath is C:\Yuzu\The Legend of Zelda - Links Awakening [FitGirl Repack], and it's included in the telemetry, then they "know" what the source of the game is.

Keep in mind the above example is conjecture, I don't know what's exactly in their telemetry, but it's almost certainly gonna come out in discovery.

You don't really need folder path to get this kind of data. Of course, they could, just as they also could collect information on the game's ID and the prod.keys being used, though there's no reason for them to do that unless they wanted to specifically know if their users are pirating stuff.

 

[Topher]

My answer is yes.

From their POV, the worst case scenario is they lose the case and get some sort of precedent that breaking game encryption is super legal (not likely, but let's assume), which big whoop, things stay as they are, and it doesn't stop them from bullying emu scene devs with lawsuits anyways (they have lawyers on retainers, so having them work on something is better than paying money for them to sit back and relax).

The best case scenario? They get some sort of legal precedent that kills emulation and they can use as a win button for all future emulator projects.

Who got us there? Idiot emulation devs who decided to emulate a current-gen system, created piracy guides and used illegally leaked game builds to test against and increase donation earnings. The case Nintendo is laying out is very clear tbh.

Agree with much of what you are saying about the Yuzu devs. Seems like these guys got way too cocky and handed a ton of ammo for Nintendo to use against them. But whether or not Nintendo wants this to go to trial, from what I've read in their complaint they are not making the case that emulation is illegal. Correct me if I missed something, but I believe the crux of their complaint is with the use of keys, just like they referenced in the cease and desist against Dolphin. I agree that it is extremely unlikely that breaking game encryption is legalized, but if that were the case then an important part of the DMCA would be struck down as unlawful. That would be pretty huge.

 

[Deleted member 1159]

Of course they don't care:

- You are paying for Gamepass. So you're not really pirating anything there.
- If you emulate an illegal copy of a Nintendo or Sony game then you are doing this of your own volition and at your own liability, and they won't support you if you ever get sued over it personally. They didn't post any guides for it, and notice how they notified Nintendo when Dolphin was about to be released on Steam, they clearly know to keep on Nintendo's good side.

It's a no-loss scenario for them rn. They aren't your friends.

I don’t think Valve are my friends but I can look at their approach and Nintendo’s and articulate why I prefer one over another’s. I’m not going to get banned from Steam for running Windows on my Deck, but my Switch would be banned from anything Nintendo if I loaded “unauthorized” software onto it and connected to Nintendo’s servers, regardless of whether or not I acquired that software legally.

And while I do understand their approach to protecting their business, I also think there are better ways to go about it.

 

[NonPhixion]

Objection! "illegally" is weasel wording. Dumping of bios/prod keys from YOUR OWN system is a-ok and perfectly legal as long as you don't distribute them.
Otherwise yes, keys are required.

So then Yuzu only allows the use of unique bios/prod keys per user? They wouldn’t allow multiple people to use the same bios/prod keys, would they?

 

[graywolf323]

Dolphin's use of keys was highlighted in Nintendo's cease and desist letter.

yep, Nintendo did that to keep Dolphin off Steam but they didn’t bother to sue them over it

 

[Ron Mexico]

Agree with much of what you are saying about the Yuzu devs. Seems like these guys got way too cocky and handed a ton of ammo for Nintendo to use against them. But whether or not Nintendo wants this to go to trial, from what I've read in their complaint they are not making the case that emulation is illegal. Correct me if I missed something, but I believe the crux of their complaint is with the use of keys, just like they referenced in the cease and desist against Dolphin. I agree that it is extremely unlikely that breaking game encryption is legalized, but if that were the case then an important part of the DMCA would be struck down as unlawful. That would be pretty huge.

They're centering the complaint around the use of keys so as to avoid past precedent. It's a narrow target by design and part of their overall strategy on managing risk.

I'd also bet heavily against any of this even reaching discovery (which is the hope/fear/whatever) as while Nintendo's pockets are deeper than that of Tropic Haze, there's still a cost to litigate when all they really want is for the consumer to buy the same functionality (i.e. better performance on newer hardware). I think the general fallacy brought up, even unintentionally, is that Nintendo cares about emulation for emulation sake. They don't nor should they. Their shareholders sure as shit don't. Rather, all their emulation angst from Nesticle to Yuzu are the concerns about how they can jeopardize future earnings. See: Virtual Console, HD remasters, etc.

Or, to be even more cynical, nobody actually cares about right and wrong. Only dollars and cents.

 

[Topher]

So then Yuzu only allows the use of unique bios/prod keys per user? They wouldn’t allow multiple people to use the same bios/prod keys, would they?

The Yuzu app has no way of knowing where the keys originated. Yuzu provides a tutorial on how to extract the keys from your own system though.

 

[Guilty_AI]

So then Yuzu only allows the use of unique bios/prod keys per user? They wouldn’t allow multiple people to use the same bios/prod keys, would they?

To be able to even begin enforcing that they'd need yuzu to be semi-permanently connected to the internet. Needless to say this isn't a "feature" users tend to appreciate.

 

[NonPhixion]

Oh, so them not taking these secure measures to ensure no one is using their software illegally, some might say they facilitated piracy?

 

[Astray]

You don't really need folder path to get this kind of data. Of course, they could, just as they also could collect information on the game's ID and the prod.keys being used, though there's no reason for them to do that unless they wanted to specifically know if their users are pirating stuff.

I think the idea that they are tailoring their emulation solution to provide best performance to select big games (which from what I understand is what sets it apart from Ryujinx, that solution is trying to be a holistically accurate emulator) kinda proves that Nintendo is likely on the money with their allegations.

There's likely no legal way that Yuzu team makes their emulator good with TOTK on day 1.

Nintendo also mentions that their patreon doubled a week before TOTK released, did they give back the money? No. Which honestly points towards them knowing that piracy forms the basis of their "business".

Agree with much of what you are saying about the Yuzu devs. Seems like these guys got way too cocky and handed a ton of ammo for Nintendo to use against them. But whether or not Nintendo wants this to go to trial, from what I've read in their complaint they are not making the case that emulation is illegal. Correct me if I missed something, but I believe the crux of their complaint is with the use of keys, just like they referenced in the cease and desist against Dolphin. I agree that it is extremely unlikely that breaking game encryption is legalized, but if that were the case then an important part of the DMCA would be struck down as unlawful. That would be pretty huge.

So far they aren't really challenging emulation as a concept. But they are essentially challenging the mainstream use case of emulation, because almost any usage of Yuzu that isn't homebrew dev will likely involve decrypting something.

Keep in mind that I'm not a lawyer, I just have patience with legal docs and genuinely like reading them for fun. And I'm honestly shocked that people have such strong opinions about a lawsuit they clearly didn't even read.

I don’t think Valve are my friends but I can look at their approach and Nintendo’s and articulate why I prefer one over another’s. I’m not going to get banned from Steam for running Windows on my Deck, but my Switch would be banned from anything Nintendo if I loaded “unauthorized” software onto it and connected to Nintendo’s servers, regardless of whether or not I acquired that software legally.

And while I do understand their approach to protecting their business, I also think there are better ways to go about it.

My core disagreement with that statement of yours is that you think Valve is having a great approach when they are essentially keeping the responsibility on you and you alone.

That's not something to commend in any way, it's not condemnation-worthy either tho. They are just staying neutral for now between you and other rights holders.

But if they get sued over say, keeping mednafen or whatever on their platform, then they will have to take action and it's likely not gonna involve your benefit or your opinion.

Liking the status quo shouldn't prevent you from understanding it as it actually is, and understanding it keep you from being blindsided by developments that happen later and upend it.

 

[YeulEmeralda]

Thing is Bleem had to go out of business due to overwhelming legal fees. That's the problem with all of this. Nintendo doesn't need to win. They just need to overwhelm Yuzu with legal bullshit until they have no more money to pay lawyers.

The other problem with this is that winning by default means we get no ruling on what is legal and what is not. Guarantee you Nintendo does not ever want this to get to the point where a judge has to make a ruling. Far too much risk there.

Dolphin's use of keys was highlighted in Nintendo's cease and desist letter.

Nintendo can take it all the way to the supreme court if they want to.

 

[Holammer]

So then Yuzu only allows the use of unique bios/prod keys per user? They wouldn’t allow multiple people to use the same bios/prod keys, would they?

That's a Data Privacy can of worms nobody wants to explore.

 

[FeralEcho]

Nintendo finally admitting to being inept at trying to make good hardware that's not 2 gens behind and instead decided to take out the competition that makes their own games look better on a system they aren't even released on

Nintendo when building a system for the new generation that is not 2 generations behind:

To Nintendo,all I can say...

Git good bitch!

 

[RaduN]

Nintendo asserts in the filing that the only way Yuzu devs managed to get Zelda TOTK playable day 1 on PC was via using leaked game builds to test, if true, that alone is a potential smoking gun to them knowingly using piracy to further their own donation earnings.

Nintendo has more of a case than you think, this might not be going the same way as Bleem because Bleem case likely didn't have certain aspects that this case has.

Stop citing redditisms and start looking at the evidence at hand.

You...don't know how emulation works, at all, and Nintendo is grasping at straws with this one.

You don't emulate each game sepparately, you emulate the machine that plays all those games.
You add features and optimise code, to get as close to a perfectly accurate virtual environment as possible (100% is impossible though, not even the 8 bit emulators are there yet) and then games will play better, with less issues, other games will show graphics, etc.

The assumption that they had the game to test it (lol) and made it magically work over night (lol x 2) is fucking insulting.

And btw, Zelda has glitches to this day, so....yeah, Nintendo is full of shit.

 

[ResurrectedContrarian]

Emulators that try to create simple "1 click" installers, that try to put them on shops like Steam, or that make setups for every average joe's phone are a real cancer on emulation.

The only reason we usually get to have fantastic community emulation projects is that they aren't too accessible to the masses. That's a feature, not a bug; the barrier to entry is critical, or else you'll eventually bring too much attention, and particularly if you're stupid enough to do this with a current-gen system.

Couple that with taking money for the development, and you have a recipe for ruining the emulation world by antagonizing major companies with the obvious flood of thousands of youtube how-to's on a new game like Zelda days before it hits shelves.

The Yuzu guys are absolute pricks ruining emulation. Stop trying to make a huge profit by putting new or even pre-release Switch games onto every device in the world for random people who are obviously all pirating.

 

[Astray]

You don't emulate each game sepparately, you emulate the machine that plays all those games.

And how do you get these games to run? By breaking Nintendo's encryption (or having someone else either teach you how to do it, or just downloading their pirated keys).

Breaking anti-piracy encryption is by definition a violation of the DMCA.

You have no fucking clue what you're talking about.

Emulators that try to create simple "1 click" installers, that try to put them on shops like Steam, or that make setups for every average joe's phone are a real cancer on emulation.

The only reason we usually get to have fantastic community emulation projects is that they aren't too accessible to the masses. That's a feature, not a bug; the barrier to entry is critical, or else you'll eventually bring too much attention, and particularly if you're stupid enough to do this with a current-gen system.

Couple that with taking money for the development, and you have a recipe for ruining the emulation world by antagonizing major companies with the obvious flood of thousands of youtube how-to's on a new game like Zelda days before it hits shelves.

The Yuzu guys are absolute pricks ruining emulation. Stop trying to make a huge profit by putting new or even pre-release Switch games onto every device in the world for random people who are obviously all pirating.

Finally someone who sees what's happening.

 

[ReyBrujo]

You...don't know how emulation works, at all, and Nintendo is grasping at straws with this one.

Take it easy, man. We know how emulation works. What Nintendo is presenting are assumptions that the developers had access to a pirate copy of a game in order to have it working from day one and that they knew people interested in playing that game without buying the original joined their Patreon, in other words they had a monetary interest in having that game working before launch. Whether they convince a judge with those statements is left to be seen. Nintendo just needs to justify enough to start a case to then drain all resources from Yuzu.

Creating an emulator requires not only knowledge and time but also a lot of testing (either by you or by your users). I spent 3 months trying to write one for the NES just for gigs and giggles, got pretty much the 6502 working and passing many of the CPU tests available around but stopped shortly after starting with the PPU because of lack of time. These guys have made it their profession, they get paid monthly by an amount of people who want to use it mainly for piracy. And it looks like they indeed got cocky in order to please that audience. Nintendo might be reaching for straws but sometimes that's enough. I'm pretty sure they will go after MIG once they publicly release their product.

 

[Astray]

Not sure if posted already, but Hoeg thinks Nintendo has a path to winning:

Nintendo sues Switch emulator Yuzu for ‘facilitating piracy at a colossal scale’

Will developers give up or go to court?

www.theverge.com

“The important thing is that Nintendo is bringing the case as a DMCA circumvention claim,” says Richard Hoeg, a business attorney who hosts the Virtual Legality podcast. He tells me that that while emulators are broadly legal if engineered “correctly,” the DMCA also lets Nintendo focus on whether the emulator was only designed to break Nintendo’s control over its games.
“There is a real chance for them to win as the court ‘tests’ things like the effectiveness of the measure and just how the emulator was created,” Hoeg says.

 

[Astray]

Take it easy, man. We know how emulation works. What Nintendo is presenting are assumptions that the developers had access to a pirate copy of a game in order to have it working from day one

It's not even assumptions, they're working off simple logical inference.

Q: How can Yuzu team even make TOTK (and other games) work day 1 when there's no legal way to access the materials to test beforehand? A: By downloading illegal roms themselves.

There are rumors (not included in the Nintendo document) that Yuzu had a Google Drive's worth of pirated ROMs to use for testing.

 

[RaduN]

It's not even assumptions, they're working off simple logical inference.

Q: How can Yuzu team even make TOTK (and other games) work day 1 when there's no legal way to access the materials to test beforehand? A: By downloading illegal roms themselves.

There are rumors (not included in the Nintendo document) that Yuzu had a Google Drive's worth of pirated ROMs to use for testing.

My fucking God, you are clueless.

 

[Astray]

My fucking God, you are clueless.

OK I give up, they tripped on the street and got a brand new spanking copy of TOTK in their pocket.

Case solved!

 

[Topher]

Emulators that try to create simple "1 click" installers, that try to put them on shops like Steam, or that make setups for every average joe's phone are a real cancer on emulation.

The only reason we usually get to have fantastic community emulation projects is that they aren't too accessible to the masses. That's a feature, not a bug; the barrier to entry is critical, or else you'll eventually bring too much attention, and particularly if you're stupid enough to do this with a current-gen system.

Couple that with taking money for the development, and you have a recipe for ruining the emulation world by antagonizing major companies with the obvious flood of thousands of youtube how-to's on a new game like Zelda days before it hits shelves.

The Yuzu guys are absolute pricks ruining emulation. Stop trying to make a huge profit by putting new or even pre-release Switch games onto every device in the world for random people who are obviously all pirating.

I would not call Yuzu "accessible" or "1 click" by any stretch of the imagination. I get what you are saying otherwise. If they really did get hold of ToTK before it launched for their Patreon members then they couldn't have made themselves more a target of Nintendo. I don't know that this has any impact on the rest of emulation, however, unless these proceedings end up with rulings that have major impact across the board.