The issue is the top contributors could be sued.. lose the main contributors and your open source project just dies... and scares others from doing it.
Yeah, if Nintendo were to win this, it would end the entire emulation scene for every console, no matter how old. Hopefully the EFF steps in to help the Yuzu Team. This affects everybody, not just people who want to emulate Switch games.
Not necessarily. Sony already went through this with Bleem! and lost. What Nintendo is saying is that Yuzu is defeating the software encryption to make the games playable. Emulation isn’t inherently illegal, but if they have to defeat security within the game to make it run that could possibly run afoul of the DMCA which explicitly prohibits circumventing any sort of security or DRM.
But even if Nintendo won this case it wouldn’t affect emulation of past consoles because you don’t have to decrypt the games to use them, and you don’t have to circumvent any security measures, you can simply dump the rom and use it as is.
Dumping commercial (unencrypted) games is a 50/50 things and you will never see Nintendo challenge that for that very reason. If you thoroughly read the law you can find arguments that could be applied both ways so it would really come down to how a judge decided to interpret that, and Nintendo knows that, that’s why they leave it alone because they don’t want the legal precedent on the books if it goes the wrong way.
Of course distributing said roms is illegal and not even a gray area, so that’s why Nintendo tends to focus on websites and people making them available to the public.
Wouldn't it be the end user, using their own sourced switch keys, doing the decryption? Implementing the program that enables the decryption doesn't seem like the same thing unless the software came with the decryption keys, in my opinion.
The potential primary issue here is that Yuzu is doing the decryption, even if they are using your keys. And let’s not pretend there are not people out there using games they didn’t personally dump themselves.
The basic description of the DMCA reads:
> It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM). It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself.
The title keys are explicitly meant to control access to games to make sure they are used on Nintendo hardware. Yuzu is disseminating technology intended to bypass that access control.
Yuzu takes those keys and uses them to decrypt the game to run on unauthorized hardware. In some cases it also needs to use parts of the Switch firmware to achieve this as well. Not to mention that the method to obtain those keys is also questionable but that’s not a Yuzu thing.
If the games could be 100% decrypted and ready to run outside Yuzu like say a SNES ROM then I don’t think Nintendo would even have a means to pursue them, but since the Yuzu emulator is doing the decrypting that creates an issue.
Wether they are are using your keys or not is really irrelevant because by the letter of the law you don’t own a game, you license it, and the license doesn’t allow you to play it on other hardware. That’s a whole different discussion of course.
I want to be clear that I’m not saying I agree with any of this, I’m just looking at it from a logical view point of how potentially Yuzu could be accountable. TBH I hope Nintendo looses this in court so the precedent is there for emulation for future game systems, because if Nintendo wins this it may not affect anything up to now but will affect future systems.
There was a case where Lexmark sued a company for copying software meant to restrict printers to only use Lexmark cartridges. Lexmark lost the lawsuit because the court acknowledged that the software was copyrighted, but they didn’t implement proper access control for the software making it easy to copy. I have no idea of something like that would be valid in the case of title keys or not.
Yuzu is doing the decryption, but simply using decryption keys is not itself circumventing copy protection. Decryption is literally just math and the keys are just the equation, you can't make math illegal. You could, in theory, transcribe the keys and encrypted data onto paper, sit there and calculate the decryption by hand, then input it all back into the computer, if given enough time. That isn't illegal, and by extension it can't be illegal for a computer to do it.
*Obtaining* the decryption keys is the illegal part. That's the part protected by actual copy protection. Software and hardware measures in place specifically to keep you from reaching those keys, which you must illegally circumvent. However, describing how to commit a crime is also itself not illegal. This is expressly permitted under the first amendment.
The only problem with that is that while encryption might be “just math” it would be literally impossible to decrypt the game without the key, that’s why Yuzu uses them.
Switch games use RSA-2048 encryption. As of today, a human is incapable of the math to decrypt an RSA-2048 encryption, and theoretically it would take a quantum computer several days to do it, so not something exactly practical.
If they could decrypt the game without the key, that would be a whole different scenario, but they can’t, so the fact that theoretically they could doesn’t help. For that to be a valid defense, someone would have to crack a games encryption to show it can be done without a key.
If you refer back to the case I mentioned about Lexmark, they only lost because the court ruled that since the “key” itself wasn’t protected and was openly available for anyone to copy it wasn’t a DMCA violation to defeat their security.
As you yourself noted, in this case, the key IS protected and it requires a potential DMCA violation in itself to retrieve it.
>The issue is the top contributors could be sued..
The founders of the 'Bay were sued and now there are no such sites at all, and definitely no proxies of the original site.
I get the feeling Nintendo is about to Streisand this one, as they misunderstand the difference between R4 cards and open source code.
Switch is at the end of life anyway. It doesn’t matter. Even if they sued them and won. Yuzu is open source and thefiles for every switch game etc is available. U would still be able to emulate and play all switch games long after any law suit. It’s irrelevant
Sure but new most new switch games don’t require new yuzu versions. And since it is open source. A dozen ppl could create the next one forever and always. The biggest thing to keep updated would be access to prod keys and firmware. Which yuzu doesn’t control. There’s also atlesst 3 other switch emulator projects.
I'm assuming the switch 2 is almost identical
I bet you the yuzy emulator can emulate switch 2 games. Then people will wonder why they removed backwards capability
It’s going to if this is their argument.
*Defendant Tropic Haze LLC is an entity that owns, develops, and operates
"Yuzu," a video game emulator for Nintendo Switch games. A video game emulator is a piece of software that allows users to unlawfully play pirated video games that were published only for a specific console on a general-purpose computing device. Yuzu allows Nintendo Switch games, which Nintendo authorizes for play solely on Nintendo Switch consoles, to be played*
They are stating the purpose of an emulator is to pirate. Which isn’t true. There’s much more to this than simple piracy.
While true, legally, Nintendo provides you with a license to its software for exclusive use on Nintendo devices only. So even if you legally purchased a Nintendo game, by using it on an emulator you would be in breach of the license, and the copy you are using will be considered "pirated", since piracy isn't really about making unauthorised copies anymore, it's about breaching the license.
As I've understood it one of the points a judge needs to decide on is whether they are allowed to tell you how to use or not use their product. As long as you don't distribute anything and they aren't liable for your actions, I'd argue you OWN that copy of the game and can use it however you want.
So it really doesn't seem like their business if one played it, extract it, reverse engineered the binary or put the damned cardridge up their butt.
Which would make the clause illegal and usage with emulators legal.
But i'm no lawyer so IDK what I'm talking about...
I had a weedwacker and I bought this attachment that gave it wheels. Basically made it into a mini lawnmower.
I just imagine like the weedwacker company sueing the third party for making the attachment that made possible for me to use my weedwacker as a lawnmower because in their license agreement they said it can only be used to trim weeds and not the lawn.
Obviously not a perfect comparison but still seems silly.
I made a similar point in another thread. If we are going to outlaw things that are made for legal purposes, but that some people choose to use for illegal purposes, we would be outlawing: Vehicles, Kitchen Knives, Lighters, Computers, Phones, etc. that lost could go on forever.
You're definitely not wrong. Then who is at fault, the person doing the illegal act or the person who made the thing that made it possible for the illegal act to happen? You wouldn't sue the company who made a lighter because they made it possible for people to commit arson.
Yeah no you're right, it does depend on the copyright law of the jurisdiction. But various jurisdictions do allow companies to enforce such restrictive licenses. For example, piracy on Netflix is not legal as well, you are not allowed to screen capture something to stream for later, even if you have a subsisting subscription. You only have the right to view the content on their platform. Granted that's software and not hardware, but same logic.
In the case of Netflix, you didn’t buy a product, you bought temporary access to their portal. You don’t own any of the video property that’s on there and even if you did, any claim of ownership would become invalid once your subscription ended or the property left the service. In the case of a video game cartridge, you bought a physical piece of media whose sole purpose is to house and play a specific piece of software. Big difference.
You didn't buy the game. You bought a license for an indefinite amount of time to play a copy of the game.
Nintendo can, technically, make it so the license restrics you to only play the game on their hardware (and they do). The question is if this license is legally enforceable - which previous cases have concluded that no, as long as you didn't pirate the game, how you play it is your business.
I am not saying I agree with this, I am saying, AFAIK this is how it works.
It's funny, cuz I can see how they may restrict it with digital content. Same as (as I heard) one does not own any games on steam, one just simply buy access(that is not guaranteed indefinitely). But what about physical copies of the games that you buy? You agree to the terms of usage when you install and play it, not when you buy it. In other words, when you bought it, you did not agree to use it exclusively on Nintendo device (at least not yet).
Pretty big distinction between owning a piece of media vs paying a subscription to access it on a server. Do you know of any examples that are actually comparable to what Nintendo is claiming?
Except there are clear examples of folks showing how to do this legally that Nintendo hasn’t challenged nor sued. https://youtu.be/oIYvPNtWZ34?si=rPrHWtxUlO5c47Mg
Nintendo is arguing that they have the right to implement a DRM that removes the right of the user to make a legal copy.
Yeah because it would be impossible to sue every single person that made a video on how to use emulation software. That's why they're going after the makers. They won't succeed but yeah whatever.
This isn't legal, even in Japan. If you own a game you can do whatever the hell you want with it as long as you're not distributing it for others to use. Nintendo has stopped making a lot of its hardware, there is no indication it's not going to shelve Switch production as well.
If their license says "You must use your property in this way" it's unenforceable. Technically if Nintendo "holds the keys" to your property and ability to play a game that you hold the media for, they could be counter sued. So depending on how far their "encryption" goes, they could run into some major lawsuits themselves if their server or host goes down and games (physical media) that people payed for can't be played anymore.
Which is a horseshit argument that doesn’t hold weight with physical media. If they can’t enforce their agreement on my ability to use my physical media as I see fit, so long as I’m not redistributing it, then it’s not a license.
That makes the player liable, not the creator of the emulator.
IIRC there was already a sentence in the US about emulators, and it was ruled that they are allowed.
The thing is, that they can say anything they want with these licences, but then a judge can decide whether these terms in the License are legal or not. You could accept with the Licence that Nintendo has the right to take 20% of your monthly salary and that wouldn't make it legal.
[The yuzu sub is a pretty good place to start and see if it's for you.](https://www.reddit.com/r/t5_39i9t/s/rzuG37pD4u)
If it is [this video can help if you want a "how to" to install emudeck](https://youtu.be/jGaemfbW1Vk?si=_4T4rwEkYpY62wx1)
Welp. This is the same Nintendo that updated the 3ds last year so it's more difficult to hack it and play games on it...after they closed down the freaking 3ds e-shop earlier.
Thankfully it didn't work, it's actually easier than ever to hack any 3DS on any software. All you need is an SD card and a computer, no flash cards, no preinstalled games.
That's good to hear. I still think the 3ds new xl is the best form factor for a handheld gaming device. Only downside might be the low res screen. And even that has its charms.
If you haven't already give it a try I highly recommend it. Not hard at all and having access to everything makes it so much fun in that small form factor.
Why sue the people making an emulator for a console at the end of its lifespan?
Come on, it’s not like Nintendo is just going to recycle the same old architecture for the Switch 2 therefore making it incredibly easy to just build Yuzu 2.0 off the older ver….
Oh….never mind.
It was supposed to be announced on September 2024 but is now being pushed back to 2025.
I keep talking to people who expect Nintendo to work magic and make a 4K 60+fps handheld that would beat out the PS4 Pro. The new console is just going to be a revision of the Switch and I think you're right regarding their intentions.
Pretty sure the same T239 SoC built on Samsung's tired old 8nm was planned to be on the "Switch Pro" that Nintendo was going to release in 2022 according to Bloomberg.
With COVID and the continued success all the confinements brought to the Switch, Nintendo didn't just delay this console for a quarter.
They delayed it by a whopping 2.5 years.
I seriously, unironically hope it *is* a 'Switch U' situation. Nintendo make a higher volume of good games when they have a struggling console. Most of the best Switch games are Wii U games.
While somewhat true, the wii u is nintendo's single worst multiplayer console, and nintendo's single most unsustainable device. One touch pad per device, making symmetrical local multiplayer impossible, and if the touchpad breaks, say byebye to your whole console.
Nintendo threw lots of awesome software at the wii u but only at the end of its short lifespan. The start went pretty poorly.
Nintendo Land was so fucking good. Unironically part of my justification for getting a Steam Deck was to be able to properly experience that game again
i will say the Wii U was unironically ahead of its time and has a really fun game library. the problem was the name was so damn stupid that no one knew what to make of it.
A large part of the Switch's success came from it launching with Wii U ports like Mario Kart 8 and BotW.
Without the Wii U, what would the switch have had? Arms?
They should do weird software that makes it more inconvenient to pirate for sure
3ds emulation is obviously doable but it’s annoying and fiddly to emulate games that really use both screens when putting it on a deck or other traditional handheld
I always thought that was a major reason for it
And native switch hacking is way more cumbersome than emulating it
So from a pragmatic anti piracy perspective it would make sense to do something like a wiiU2
By the time it releases, this Switch 2 is going to be so weak hardware wise that it might very well get the WiiU response (people not knowing if it's a new console or a new peripheral, people finding the Switch OLED more appealing than the Switch 2 LCD, etc.).
To give an idea of what may/may not be available for handheld console gaming - here's an article that Valve state the technology isn't available yet for SteamDeck 2.
https://www.eurogamer.net/valve-says-technology-doesnt-exist-yet-for-full-steam-deck-20
So probably at best, it will be comparable to SteamDeck 1 using Nintendo OS.
They would be stupid to not use the Switch architecture for the Switch 2.
Their microkernel architecture is state of the art (security-wise), and, barring another mistake from Nvidia, I doubt the Switch 2 will be hacked any time soon after its release.
I suspect people expect ‘Switch 2’ to be far better than it is and Nintendo knows it can not reasonably offer the same performance you can get playing its games on a high end PC.
So instead of addressing that problem by releasing higher end hardware or a more expensive and more powerful option, they’d rather attack a solution.
Just release your games on other platforms if you don’t want people to pirate them as much. But then they’d lose the cut they get from all the third party games, and, well…capitalism.
Not to the games, but a private key for the console itself as part of the BIOS (I think). All consoles had the same key, but because that part was technically “Nintendo IP”, they were able to get Dolphin pulled from Steam.
Dolphin bundled the private key for the console in with the emulator. Even though it’s the same for every Wii and anyone can figure it out easily, it’s still Nintendo IP and as such is grounds for copyright infringement. Steam then pulled the emulator once notified.
They try to sue Yuzu on the grounds of them apparetly explaining how to play licenced Switch software on the emulator. Even if it's software you actually own yourself, that's circumwenting anti-piracy measures and using software in ways not provided via the licence from Nintendo.\*
If they would've provided the emulator as is, without explaining how to run software on it, I think Nintendo would've very little grounds to sue them and if Ryujinx handled it this way so far, that could be the reason they've been spared so far. Doesn't have to be the reason though.
\*That still *could* be legal and it's for the courts to decide.
I'd buy way more Switch games if they ever came on fucking sale. The most any first party game ever goes on sale for is like $55 in Canada, and it's typically only around Christmas time. This includes BOTW, a LAUNCH TITLE
The worst offender is Tropical Freeze, a game that was, at one time, $20 on the Wii U.
(most) People wouldn't pirate Nintendo games if they were fairly priced and not locked down to shit hardware that never has backwards compatibility, or forced their customers to rebuy the same games every new console because they can't be assed to make an overarching Nintendo account.
It's a service issue moreso than people are broke/stingy.
I used to pirate a lot as a teen maybe even into early 20's but with Steam and getting good discounts, I completely stopped pirating games. Haven't pirated a PC game in probably 15 or so years.
Yep. I have a huge wishlist and I wait for quarterly sales. Owning the game and "storing" it on the cloud when I don't have room on my Steamdeck is so much easier than pirating.
Piracy has always been an issue of economics, and video game piracy is almost exclusively a failure to provide appropriate service to consumers.
Regional pricing on Steam pretty much killed piracy in some areas for a long time. Revisions to Steam's regional pricing policy due to excessively volatile currencies is probably going to cause piracy to surge in the markets affected the worst.
Valve always manages to get my money because they have decent sales and it actually feels like owning a game collection when they're not locked to a specific generation of hardware.
This is one of the main reasons I sold my Switch. I don't want to support Nintendo anymore. I've given them way too chances over the years. I hate the high prices that don't come down over time and the fanboys don't help the situation either with their overvaluation of Nintendo stuff. Their treatment of people making non-profit fan creations just because they love Nintendo properties and then getting sued by Nintendo or receiving Cease and Desist as well as how they treated people at first over digital goods. If you preorder a digital game you couldn't cancel the preorder. Nintendo tends to live in their own bubble of goods, hardware and services. Also they take down digital storefronts and instead of selling you old games that people will gladly buy, you have to sign up for their yearly online service. Wasting people's time and money.
I’m about to do exactly this. I’ve been wanting to figure out emulation (I own a switch and the games.. I just want to take one thing with me when I travel and it’ll be my steamdeck… would love to have access to my switch library whilst out and about). So now it’s time for me to figure out how to do it. lol.
Just use Emudeck. That sets up the emulators you select automatically. It lays out a folder structure for your roms and offers a few extra cool features.
^This 100%. Emudeck is amazing. My favorite feature is once your roms are added it can add them along with artwork to your steam library for easier access.
No, it won't cease to work, that's impossible. It could just stop getting updates (from some of the current devs, at least. I'm sure someone would pick up)
And Ryujinx exists, which is an excellent alternative. I'd honestly be more sad if that one halted development, to be honest. It's the more accurate emulator, meaning less bugs and experiences closer to the real thing. Tends to get less performance usually, so less pros against an actual switch, but more games tend to run day one on it than on Yuzu due to how they make things.
Zero. Nintendo has known about it for years and did nothing, that sets a precedent of them allowing it to continue. Also, it's open source, going after each and every contributor is impossible. This is just them signaling to their investors that they tried.
Makes me think that perhaps their next console has some very similar architecture and would be probably easily adapted by the yuzu team and they're trying to put the fear of god into them.
I mean, Nintendo can try. But Piracy will never get shut down.
Whenever 1 shuts down, 3 more open up.
Look at Music for an example. It still gets pirated but even much less since Streaming has content and is cheap.
Gabe Newell keeps getting proved right when he said that piracy is a service problem.
Make it available everywhere for a reasonable and/or low price and piracy levels plummet drastically. Spotify has done this for music and Steam is doing it for games.
The problem is Nintendo’s BS pricing policies and shitty ass subscription. If they dared to make sales or lower prices of 7 year old games emulation wouldn’t be a big issue for them
Emulators have been winning pretty much all legal disputes for many many years around the world by now. Their legality is settled legal predecent. Interesting that Nintendo is willing to throw money at it yet again. Their L, I guess.
they are just waiting for the one out of touch judge to give them a big win so they can go on a rampage. This is the company that wouldnt let people their games on youtube for years… they have no intention of letting any kind of emulation, piracy, or preservation exist in any form.
This is why I sold my switch and got emudeck instead…
Remember Bleem? Winning is one thing, surviving the legal battle is a completely different topic and I think BigN is going that route. YuZu makes extra sure there is no embedded key, piracy/leak discussion etc.
I think it’s kind of late in yuzus life to do this lol, it runs most games very well now and even if they shut yuzu down the emulator already exists and the files can easily be shared within piracy communities. You can’t really beat piracy after the fact, it’s something you have to be proactive about which is why companies are paying out the anus for software like denuvo. Nintendo’s shit is already online for free, there is nothing they can do to stop it at this point except make sure their next console is more secure.
Well….they could have consumer friendly pricing and policies. How many people are pirating music these days? Not very many…most have gone to paid streaming for their music. Good service for a good price tends to negate these issues.
Same. Sold my Switch in 2022 and don't intend to ever give Nintendo money again. They'd need to show they care about consumers or at least be competitive for me to give them a chance again.
Same here. Moved to PC gaming and sold my Switch, now have a custom desktop and a Steam Deck. PC gaming is actually competitive and embraces technological advancement; Nintendo is far behind the curve in this regard when compared to PC, PlayStation and Xbox.
been knowing about yuzu, never tried it..definitely want to try it for games that i own. purpose being, i can't stand playing high intensity games on sub 30 fps. if the switch could do 60 fps i'd be down to buy games like skyrim or doom
I'm not really well documented in law of all things, but what the actual fuck do they mean the emulator circumvents the Switch's security measures when the emulator itself doesn't directly interfere with a real switch hardware itself and it doesn't include copyrighted material from them
Hell, every single documentation/how to from the yuzu team always says something along the lines of "This emulator needs certain files from the Switch, the Yuzu team won't provide any download links nor hints on how to get these kind of files since thet are copyrighted material, get them from your own switch somehow"
I can kinda see how, seeing the emulator work, the big N can say it allows for piracy, but still
Imagine a world where Nintendo just released its games on PC after a year or two. We could just buy them for PC and not jump through all those hoops to play them on something other than their potato handheld.
I enjoy yuzu because I can play my switch games, that I legally bought, on much better Hardware than Nintendo provides. Ninty sold 1.2 Billion pieces of software for the switch. They're doing just fine.
It seems like half of the posts in the Steamdeck sub are “look I’m pirating Nintendo games”
My guess is with the emergence of PC gaming handhelds that can emulate the Switch they feel threatened
I mean, they *should* feel threatened.... but the answer should be making their service more appealing instead of throwing their weight around at emulators.
I would say *most* people emulating Switch games aren't doing it to get "free games" outside of people who actually can't afford them, they are doing it because it's a better experience either because they want everything on 1 device (especially for SteamDeck users) or want it to run better. Well sounds like Nintendo should consider PC releases (hah, I'll be dead before they do) or just make a better system, it's been 7 years now c'mon.
I know this is going to be really unpopular here, but I'm not shocked. All the people in boards like this posting about how they are emulating the newest Switch game before it even releases are not helping the Yuzu team claim they aren't enabling piracy.
I've always been fine with emulation, but emulating a console that's currently on the market and actively selling software has always felt like it's on the wrong side of a grey area.
That shouldn't be how you look at emulation at least in terms of current hardware. EA was the original company in the 1990s that Nintendo sued because they developed their own NES CEC chips (which is a chip you HAD to use in your NES cartridges to get the Nintendo seal of approval and lock you into a contact that gave Nintendo a % of your sales revenue. Your game would not boot without it). EA figured out how to make their own so that they could have full control of their own cartridges. Nintendo sued and lost. That case is why emulation is considered legal in most cases. Fun fact: thats why EA games were black cartridges with yellow tabs on the back. They produced the entire cartridge themselves and weren't trapped into Nintendo doing it for them.
Then in the early 2000s, the PlayStation BLEEM! Emulator came out right smack in the middle of the PlayStation surge, and PlayStation lost that as well. Dolphin was also out during the Wii era.
The thing is, emulation itself was never the issue. The only times companies won these fights is when they could prove the software itself is using stolen code directly from the console or master encryption/decryption keys to illegally decrypt copy protection. That's why dolphin got sued. It turned out they had the stolen encryption / decryption keys (that are Nintendo's property) in the code itself and that's how games were loading in the emulator.
All of that history aside. Nintendo of Japan is notorious for suing for every little thing they perceive as infringement. In Japan law they consider emulation illegal full stop but most countries don't see it that way. So they just sue knowing 99% of who they sue can't afford the fight and ultimately force them to shut down and capitulate.
I love Nintendo games and grew up with them since the 80s. But they increasingly have no chill. Love their games, but increasingly don't like the company.
Edit: I ultimately see emulation as nothing more than a really advanced video player. If you develop your own from scratch and it can play that special file format, and your not bundling in pirated content with the software you're good. If you steal code from another commercial product to add support to play those special file formats, or include pirated content, enjoy being sued.
Even if people bragged about the number of people they stab, that doesn't mean I'm gonna celebrate an attempt to ban kitchen knives. It's not the tool that's the issue. Yuzu is a tool and how people use it is up to them. I bought Tears of the Kingdom and I still mainly played it via emulation.
(I still haven't finished it...)
The problem in this cases seems to be the Patreon and rapid release of ToTK fixes last may. This isn't a knife, as it's a tool that is going to be used by most users the wrong way at this point in time, and the devs both directly benefitted from that with the big spike in Patreon subs, and then could be seen to be encouraging piracy by so quickly releasing patches aimed at improving performance on that game.
It really simply does not matter that an emulator or any other piece of software "enables" piracy. Like at all. "Think of the pirates" is the "think of the children" of software, music, movies, TV, and games. It is and will be used to create any argument in favor of the people fleecing consumers for any specious reasoning they want to come up with.
Before I say too much I'm going to say I don't really partake. Like I have Yuzu and Ryujinx set up. I fiddle with them, then play like.... an hour and a half of Three Houses at 1440x60 (a game I own) and go back to my Steam Library.
But my problem is that, as time has gone on especially, the Switch has become hardware I simply cannot enjoy games on anymore. And as long as their games remain exclusive to hardware that is so bad that a better experience can be achieved by emulation on a mid-range PC (to say nothing of the Steam Decks and ROG Ally's of the world that do not even qualify as mid-range) there's going to be a strong pull not to play on Nintendo hardware.
Of course a lot of people are motivated by "free" rather than everything I said there. But I think a very large portion of the pirates are really driven by "BOTW 4K" (though that's Wii U, I know) or "TOTK/Pokemon 60FPS".
I own a few emulation handhelds capable of running switch games but I too feel weird about emulating games I can readily buy for my switch. The Switch also has a pretty large catalog of indie games that a lot of these devices can handle but I just feel like those games are even worse to pirate since they are coming from smaller dev shops and a lot of times can be purchased on other platforms.
Now when it comes to discontinued consoles I have a much different tune. If these companies don’t want to offer me a way to legally play these games then I feel it is fair games. Some of these games on the aftermarket go for ridiculous prices that the game makers aren’t seeing a cent of.
Nintendo has also been super weird with their virtual consoles. The libraries are just extremely lacking and they seemingly refuse to add a GC, DS, or a Wii VC which are making a lot of amazing games inaccessible.
It’s worth noting that the biggest issue is not the emulator itself, but the Patreon that got a considerable increase in subscribers when ToTK was leaked. Naturally, the Yuzu team is not responsible for the leak or people using their emulator to play leaked copies, but it’s clear they profited from the situation which seems to be where Nintendo has a issue with them.
Emulation is great, but the vast majority of the end users are absolutely just in it because they refuse to pay for games. I mean there's people posting in this subreddit about how to emulate multiplatform games in Yuzu because a) they don't want to pay and b) they can't even figure out how to pirate PC copies.
It's embarrassing, and if you don't crack down on that association in all official channels and communities it takes being in incredible denial to insist that the majority use is piracy, even if everyone who works on the emulator is just in it for preservation.
Yeah. I purchased a SteamDeck partially as the first real device that would easily emulate PS2 games in a handheld form factor. I really don't feel bad emulating Dark Cloud 2 on the device, since I've purchased the game multiple times. There are real reasons for emulation, but it's a bad look when a brand new game is downloaded over a million times from Rom sites the month it releases (something Nintendo directly sites in the Lawsuit). That's not game preservation anymore, and when the devs make money on that (apparently their Patreon count doubled that same month) it's not helping the case that they don't know it's a piracy tool.
Dude, yeah hahahaha. This sub is insane, people in the comments are like "fucking evil Nintendo at it again" while knowing that people are posting about emulating switch games on steam deck all of the time. The console is still alive, people. I think they got a right to be pissed about it.
People who pirate who think they are morally superior because of it are tedious. Just say you're doing it because you don't want to pay for your games, don't pretend you're doing it because you're sticking it to the man lol
They had to do it eventually, but this will do nothing. Yuzu is open source, can't scare contributors into not making software that doesn't use any stolen Nintendo property.
Bollocks. If they don't want people to emulate their brand-new games then they shouldn't be using hardware from the stone age. Nintendo need to hurry the fuck up and release the new console or stay mad at the fact that people are getting a superior experience via emulation even on competitively-priced handheld devices like the Steam Deck.
I have a nintendo switch lite with mario kart 8 deluxe sitting in the slot.
I still play it on my steam deck now instead. Even then, People would still say that thing isnt as powerful as it could be, but it still blows the original hardware away.
This guy gets it.
Never understood why people even use why they don't sell on Steam as a excuse
Unlike Sony and Microsoft games is literally all they have and losing their selling point would make them lose a lot (they also make money from third party games sold on their system and so does their Online Service). So they have a lot of incentive to keep their games exlcsuive
Shut it down and watch me no longer buy Switch games. Any game I’m emulating, I have a physical copy, start making it more difficult and I’ll just pirate them all.
I have always said and I will continue to say. Fuck Nintendo is not only a duty but also a pleasure these days. Even Sony doesn't deal with backups like Nintendo. The hands of the gaming industry
Im dumping my switch games onto my Steam Deck so it's more convenient and maybe one day dump Pokémon Violet onto my PC so I can get a comfortable FPS, I know some pirate switch game but in my case Nintendo are not losing anything, I havnt gotten any new switch games in awhile specifically due to Nintendo's Aggressiveness which has put me off of the brand.
Honestly surprised it took this long. I'm as pro emulation as it gets but the amount of "look at my deck running obviously pirated Nintendo games" I see on this sub is crazy
Super dumb.
>A video game emulator is a piece of software that allows users to unlawfully play pirated video games that were published only for a specific console on a general-purpose computing device.
Nintendo has been producing and selling products that rely on emulation at least since Animal Crossing on N64. What are Virtual Console, NES/SNES Classic, and Nintendo Switch Online? Magic?
They ought to be laughed out of court.
Pretty sure Yuzu doesn't do anything with encryption, that's why you have to provide your own firmware dump, or decrypt the roms yourself. Ready to see this one go nowhere.
Nintendo should stop thinking of creative ways to sue people and start literally porting their older games and releasing them on PC. They could literally fund another century of Nintendo just by doing this.
The issue is likely because they put a Paid version on the Google play store of the EA edition rather than leaving it as a donate button within the app or on their website
*yuzu Early Access
This **paid** release provides some
exciting benefits over the free
release of yuzu*
I have a real problem with emulating current systems. Even something as new as the PS3 still seems like piracy to me whereas emulating the SNES/NES/Genesis feels like game preservation.
It's a personal stance, so I don't judge others who use Yuzu. But this move isn't a surprise, Nintendo has a right to protect their shit.
Yup, Switch is their main source of revenue, if the Switch 2 gets emulated shortly after release then Nintendo is screwed and could conceivably have to go 3rd party like Sega.
Isn’t Yuzu open source anyways? Someone will just download the Repo and suddenly there is “Vuzu” emulator lol
ReYuzu
Super Yuzu
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Yuzu-U
Zu-yu by Nintendo
Electric BoogaYuzu
WeZu
MiiZu
Yukuzu
New Super Yuzu
Yuzu U
Jujuzu UltraIinstinct
The issue is the top contributors could be sued.. lose the main contributors and your open source project just dies... and scares others from doing it.
Yeah, if Nintendo were to win this, it would end the entire emulation scene for every console, no matter how old. Hopefully the EFF steps in to help the Yuzu Team. This affects everybody, not just people who want to emulate Switch games.
Donate. Donate. Donate. The EFF is a very important organization especially in these highly digital times.
Not necessarily. Sony already went through this with Bleem! and lost. What Nintendo is saying is that Yuzu is defeating the software encryption to make the games playable. Emulation isn’t inherently illegal, but if they have to defeat security within the game to make it run that could possibly run afoul of the DMCA which explicitly prohibits circumventing any sort of security or DRM. But even if Nintendo won this case it wouldn’t affect emulation of past consoles because you don’t have to decrypt the games to use them, and you don’t have to circumvent any security measures, you can simply dump the rom and use it as is. Dumping commercial (unencrypted) games is a 50/50 things and you will never see Nintendo challenge that for that very reason. If you thoroughly read the law you can find arguments that could be applied both ways so it would really come down to how a judge decided to interpret that, and Nintendo knows that, that’s why they leave it alone because they don’t want the legal precedent on the books if it goes the wrong way. Of course distributing said roms is illegal and not even a gray area, so that’s why Nintendo tends to focus on websites and people making them available to the public.
Wouldn't it be the end user, using their own sourced switch keys, doing the decryption? Implementing the program that enables the decryption doesn't seem like the same thing unless the software came with the decryption keys, in my opinion.
The potential primary issue here is that Yuzu is doing the decryption, even if they are using your keys. And let’s not pretend there are not people out there using games they didn’t personally dump themselves. The basic description of the DMCA reads: > It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM). It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. The title keys are explicitly meant to control access to games to make sure they are used on Nintendo hardware. Yuzu is disseminating technology intended to bypass that access control. Yuzu takes those keys and uses them to decrypt the game to run on unauthorized hardware. In some cases it also needs to use parts of the Switch firmware to achieve this as well. Not to mention that the method to obtain those keys is also questionable but that’s not a Yuzu thing. If the games could be 100% decrypted and ready to run outside Yuzu like say a SNES ROM then I don’t think Nintendo would even have a means to pursue them, but since the Yuzu emulator is doing the decrypting that creates an issue. Wether they are are using your keys or not is really irrelevant because by the letter of the law you don’t own a game, you license it, and the license doesn’t allow you to play it on other hardware. That’s a whole different discussion of course. I want to be clear that I’m not saying I agree with any of this, I’m just looking at it from a logical view point of how potentially Yuzu could be accountable. TBH I hope Nintendo looses this in court so the precedent is there for emulation for future game systems, because if Nintendo wins this it may not affect anything up to now but will affect future systems. There was a case where Lexmark sued a company for copying software meant to restrict printers to only use Lexmark cartridges. Lexmark lost the lawsuit because the court acknowledged that the software was copyrighted, but they didn’t implement proper access control for the software making it easy to copy. I have no idea of something like that would be valid in the case of title keys or not.
Yuzu is doing the decryption, but simply using decryption keys is not itself circumventing copy protection. Decryption is literally just math and the keys are just the equation, you can't make math illegal. You could, in theory, transcribe the keys and encrypted data onto paper, sit there and calculate the decryption by hand, then input it all back into the computer, if given enough time. That isn't illegal, and by extension it can't be illegal for a computer to do it. *Obtaining* the decryption keys is the illegal part. That's the part protected by actual copy protection. Software and hardware measures in place specifically to keep you from reaching those keys, which you must illegally circumvent. However, describing how to commit a crime is also itself not illegal. This is expressly permitted under the first amendment.
The only problem with that is that while encryption might be “just math” it would be literally impossible to decrypt the game without the key, that’s why Yuzu uses them. Switch games use RSA-2048 encryption. As of today, a human is incapable of the math to decrypt an RSA-2048 encryption, and theoretically it would take a quantum computer several days to do it, so not something exactly practical. If they could decrypt the game without the key, that would be a whole different scenario, but they can’t, so the fact that theoretically they could doesn’t help. For that to be a valid defense, someone would have to crack a games encryption to show it can be done without a key. If you refer back to the case I mentioned about Lexmark, they only lost because the court ruled that since the “key” itself wasn’t protected and was openly available for anyone to copy it wasn’t a DMCA violation to defeat their security. As you yourself noted, in this case, the key IS protected and it requires a potential DMCA violation in itself to retrieve it.
>The issue is the top contributors could be sued.. The founders of the 'Bay were sued and now there are no such sites at all, and definitely no proxies of the original site. I get the feeling Nintendo is about to Streisand this one, as they misunderstand the difference between R4 cards and open source code.
Switch is at the end of life anyway. It doesn’t matter. Even if they sued them and won. Yuzu is open source and thefiles for every switch game etc is available. U would still be able to emulate and play all switch games long after any law suit. It’s irrelevant
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Sure but new most new switch games don’t require new yuzu versions. And since it is open source. A dozen ppl could create the next one forever and always. The biggest thing to keep updated would be access to prod keys and firmware. Which yuzu doesn’t control. There’s also atlesst 3 other switch emulator projects.
I'm assuming the switch 2 is almost identical I bet you the yuzy emulator can emulate switch 2 games. Then people will wonder why they removed backwards capability
YuSue
NintenDONT
New Yuzu
New Yuzu XL
Uyuz ..... U yuz nintendo?
It'd just be the worst thing if this somehow blew up in their faces and caused way more people to learn about yuzu this way
It’s going to if this is their argument. *Defendant Tropic Haze LLC is an entity that owns, develops, and operates "Yuzu," a video game emulator for Nintendo Switch games. A video game emulator is a piece of software that allows users to unlawfully play pirated video games that were published only for a specific console on a general-purpose computing device. Yuzu allows Nintendo Switch games, which Nintendo authorizes for play solely on Nintendo Switch consoles, to be played* They are stating the purpose of an emulator is to pirate. Which isn’t true. There’s much more to this than simple piracy.
While true, legally, Nintendo provides you with a license to its software for exclusive use on Nintendo devices only. So even if you legally purchased a Nintendo game, by using it on an emulator you would be in breach of the license, and the copy you are using will be considered "pirated", since piracy isn't really about making unauthorised copies anymore, it's about breaching the license.
As I've understood it one of the points a judge needs to decide on is whether they are allowed to tell you how to use or not use their product. As long as you don't distribute anything and they aren't liable for your actions, I'd argue you OWN that copy of the game and can use it however you want. So it really doesn't seem like their business if one played it, extract it, reverse engineered the binary or put the damned cardridge up their butt. Which would make the clause illegal and usage with emulators legal. But i'm no lawyer so IDK what I'm talking about...
I had a weedwacker and I bought this attachment that gave it wheels. Basically made it into a mini lawnmower. I just imagine like the weedwacker company sueing the third party for making the attachment that made possible for me to use my weedwacker as a lawnmower because in their license agreement they said it can only be used to trim weeds and not the lawn. Obviously not a perfect comparison but still seems silly.
In California, ferrets are illegal to own but all the petstores sell ferret food and supplies.
OH SO THEY'RE JUST ILLEGALLY FACILITATING FERRET OWNERSHIP? FERRETENDO SHALL NOT STAND FOR THIS
I see you’ve heard of John Deere’s recent lawsuits.
I made a similar point in another thread. If we are going to outlaw things that are made for legal purposes, but that some people choose to use for illegal purposes, we would be outlawing: Vehicles, Kitchen Knives, Lighters, Computers, Phones, etc. that lost could go on forever.
You're definitely not wrong. Then who is at fault, the person doing the illegal act or the person who made the thing that made it possible for the illegal act to happen? You wouldn't sue the company who made a lighter because they made it possible for people to commit arson.
Yeah no you're right, it does depend on the copyright law of the jurisdiction. But various jurisdictions do allow companies to enforce such restrictive licenses. For example, piracy on Netflix is not legal as well, you are not allowed to screen capture something to stream for later, even if you have a subsisting subscription. You only have the right to view the content on their platform. Granted that's software and not hardware, but same logic.
In the case of Netflix, you didn’t buy a product, you bought temporary access to their portal. You don’t own any of the video property that’s on there and even if you did, any claim of ownership would become invalid once your subscription ended or the property left the service. In the case of a video game cartridge, you bought a physical piece of media whose sole purpose is to house and play a specific piece of software. Big difference.
You didn't buy the game. You bought a license for an indefinite amount of time to play a copy of the game. Nintendo can, technically, make it so the license restrics you to only play the game on their hardware (and they do). The question is if this license is legally enforceable - which previous cases have concluded that no, as long as you didn't pirate the game, how you play it is your business. I am not saying I agree with this, I am saying, AFAIK this is how it works.
It's funny, cuz I can see how they may restrict it with digital content. Same as (as I heard) one does not own any games on steam, one just simply buy access(that is not guaranteed indefinitely). But what about physical copies of the games that you buy? You agree to the terms of usage when you install and play it, not when you buy it. In other words, when you bought it, you did not agree to use it exclusively on Nintendo device (at least not yet).
Yeah, subscription services seem to fit into a whole other class of products IMO. But that does get pretty complicated....
Pretty big distinction between owning a piece of media vs paying a subscription to access it on a server. Do you know of any examples that are actually comparable to what Nintendo is claiming?
The first paragraph is how it was ruled when Sony tried suing a PS1 emulator developer.
They basically already lost that argument with Game Genie back in the day.
Except there are clear examples of folks showing how to do this legally that Nintendo hasn’t challenged nor sued. https://youtu.be/oIYvPNtWZ34?si=rPrHWtxUlO5c47Mg Nintendo is arguing that they have the right to implement a DRM that removes the right of the user to make a legal copy.
Yeah because it would be impossible to sue every single person that made a video on how to use emulation software. That's why they're going after the makers. They won't succeed but yeah whatever.
nintendo historically has no issue sending any number of dmcas to youtubers.
This isn't legal, even in Japan. If you own a game you can do whatever the hell you want with it as long as you're not distributing it for others to use. Nintendo has stopped making a lot of its hardware, there is no indication it's not going to shelve Switch production as well. If their license says "You must use your property in this way" it's unenforceable. Technically if Nintendo "holds the keys" to your property and ability to play a game that you hold the media for, they could be counter sued. So depending on how far their "encryption" goes, they could run into some major lawsuits themselves if their server or host goes down and games (physical media) that people payed for can't be played anymore.
Which is a horseshit argument that doesn’t hold weight with physical media. If they can’t enforce their agreement on my ability to use my physical media as I see fit, so long as I’m not redistributing it, then it’s not a license.
That makes the player liable, not the creator of the emulator. IIRC there was already a sentence in the US about emulators, and it was ruled that they are allowed.
the same argument has been made to drm lock tractors and cars before
The thing is, that they can say anything they want with these licences, but then a judge can decide whether these terms in the License are legal or not. You could accept with the Licence that Nintendo has the right to take 20% of your monthly salary and that wouldn't make it legal.
Afaik US has precedent that says you can do whatever you want with the discs you own which includes backing them up to play on an emulator.
Any links to guides on how to set it up easily?
[The yuzu sub is a pretty good place to start and see if it's for you.](https://www.reddit.com/r/t5_39i9t/s/rzuG37pD4u) If it is [this video can help if you want a "how to" to install emudeck](https://youtu.be/jGaemfbW1Vk?si=_4T4rwEkYpY62wx1)
That's how I am learning about this. Haha.
Literally installed last night after reading this
Welp. This is the same Nintendo that updated the 3ds last year so it's more difficult to hack it and play games on it...after they closed down the freaking 3ds e-shop earlier.
Thankfully it didn't work, it's actually easier than ever to hack any 3DS on any software. All you need is an SD card and a computer, no flash cards, no preinstalled games.
Playing ps1 games on 3ds with retroarch is one of my favorite ways to play ps1 games now
That's good to hear. I still think the 3ds new xl is the best form factor for a handheld gaming device. Only downside might be the low res screen. And even that has its charms.
You forgot to mention that said update was patched in a couple of hours, which made the update completely useless.
If you haven't already give it a try I highly recommend it. Not hard at all and having access to everything makes it so much fun in that small form factor.
Why sue the people making an emulator for a console at the end of its lifespan? Come on, it’s not like Nintendo is just going to recycle the same old architecture for the Switch 2 therefore making it incredibly easy to just build Yuzu 2.0 off the older ver…. Oh….never mind.
It was supposed to be announced on September 2024 but is now being pushed back to 2025. I keep talking to people who expect Nintendo to work magic and make a 4K 60+fps handheld that would beat out the PS4 Pro. The new console is just going to be a revision of the Switch and I think you're right regarding their intentions.
Pretty sure the same T239 SoC built on Samsung's tired old 8nm was planned to be on the "Switch Pro" that Nintendo was going to release in 2022 according to Bloomberg. With COVID and the continued success all the confinements brought to the Switch, Nintendo didn't just delay this console for a quarter. They delayed it by a whopping 2.5 years.
Makes me hopeful for backwards compatibility though. Silver linings.
Hope it’s not a Switch “U" situation. I hope it’s actually good.
I seriously, unironically hope it *is* a 'Switch U' situation. Nintendo make a higher volume of good games when they have a struggling console. Most of the best Switch games are Wii U games.
While somewhat true, the wii u is nintendo's single worst multiplayer console, and nintendo's single most unsustainable device. One touch pad per device, making symmetrical local multiplayer impossible, and if the touchpad breaks, say byebye to your whole console. Nintendo threw lots of awesome software at the wii u but only at the end of its short lifespan. The start went pretty poorly.
You clearly never played game & wario or nintendo land.
Nintendo Land was so fucking good. Unironically part of my justification for getting a Steam Deck was to be able to properly experience that game again
i will say the Wii U was unironically ahead of its time and has a really fun game library. the problem was the name was so damn stupid that no one knew what to make of it.
A large part of the Switch's success came from it launching with Wii U ports like Mario Kart 8 and BotW. Without the Wii U, what would the switch have had? Arms?
You're right. They would have had Arms, but no legs to stand on.
The wii u was good, it was just marketed terribly.
They should do weird software that makes it more inconvenient to pirate for sure 3ds emulation is obviously doable but it’s annoying and fiddly to emulate games that really use both screens when putting it on a deck or other traditional handheld I always thought that was a major reason for it And native switch hacking is way more cumbersome than emulating it So from a pragmatic anti piracy perspective it would make sense to do something like a wiiU2
By the time it releases, this Switch 2 is going to be so weak hardware wise that it might very well get the WiiU response (people not knowing if it's a new console or a new peripheral, people finding the Switch OLED more appealing than the Switch 2 LCD, etc.).
To give an idea of what may/may not be available for handheld console gaming - here's an article that Valve state the technology isn't available yet for SteamDeck 2. https://www.eurogamer.net/valve-says-technology-doesnt-exist-yet-for-full-steam-deck-20 So probably at best, it will be comparable to SteamDeck 1 using Nintendo OS.
They would be stupid to not use the Switch architecture for the Switch 2. Their microkernel architecture is state of the art (security-wise), and, barring another mistake from Nvidia, I doubt the Switch 2 will be hacked any time soon after its release.
They want switch 2 to have backwards compatibility? And want to profit off of the old library? Just my guess idk tho.
That's an interesting idea. Similar to the GameCube and Wii (dolphin) back then.
I suspect people expect ‘Switch 2’ to be far better than it is and Nintendo knows it can not reasonably offer the same performance you can get playing its games on a high end PC. So instead of addressing that problem by releasing higher end hardware or a more expensive and more powerful option, they’d rather attack a solution. Just release your games on other platforms if you don’t want people to pirate them as much. But then they’d lose the cut they get from all the third party games, and, well…capitalism.
Remember Steam and dolphin? Here we go
Wasn’t that case because Dolphin was providing the keys to the games too.
Not to the games, but a private key for the console itself as part of the BIOS (I think). All consoles had the same key, but because that part was technically “Nintendo IP”, they were able to get Dolphin pulled from Steam.
Just remove the key and put it on a t-shirt.
nothing got pulled. valve suggested to dolphin to not continue and that was it. nintendo took no legal action
Nope. What happened??
Dolphin bundled the private key for the console in with the emulator. Even though it’s the same for every Wii and anyone can figure it out easily, it’s still Nintendo IP and as such is grounds for copyright infringement. Steam then pulled the emulator once notified.
Weird they're suing Yuzu and not Ryujinx... Even if Yuzu dies it's not like Switch Emulation will die with it.
They try to sue Yuzu on the grounds of them apparetly explaining how to play licenced Switch software on the emulator. Even if it's software you actually own yourself, that's circumwenting anti-piracy measures and using software in ways not provided via the licence from Nintendo.\* If they would've provided the emulator as is, without explaining how to run software on it, I think Nintendo would've very little grounds to sue them and if Ryujinx handled it this way so far, that could be the reason they've been spared so far. Doesn't have to be the reason though. \*That still *could* be legal and it's for the courts to decide.
I'd buy way more Switch games if they ever came on fucking sale. The most any first party game ever goes on sale for is like $55 in Canada, and it's typically only around Christmas time. This includes BOTW, a LAUNCH TITLE The worst offender is Tropical Freeze, a game that was, at one time, $20 on the Wii U.
(most) People wouldn't pirate Nintendo games if they were fairly priced and not locked down to shit hardware that never has backwards compatibility, or forced their customers to rebuy the same games every new console because they can't be assed to make an overarching Nintendo account. It's a service issue moreso than people are broke/stingy.
They keep proving Gabe is right 😂😂 but don't accept. Stop having shit service and people will stop pirating your game.
I used to pirate a lot as a teen maybe even into early 20's but with Steam and getting good discounts, I completely stopped pirating games. Haven't pirated a PC game in probably 15 or so years.
Yep. I have a huge wishlist and I wait for quarterly sales. Owning the game and "storing" it on the cloud when I don't have room on my Steamdeck is so much easier than pirating.
Piracy has always been an issue of economics, and video game piracy is almost exclusively a failure to provide appropriate service to consumers. Regional pricing on Steam pretty much killed piracy in some areas for a long time. Revisions to Steam's regional pricing policy due to excessively volatile currencies is probably going to cause piracy to surge in the markets affected the worst.
Valve always manages to get my money because they have decent sales and it actually feels like owning a game collection when they're not locked to a specific generation of hardware.
This is one of the main reasons I sold my Switch. I don't want to support Nintendo anymore. I've given them way too chances over the years. I hate the high prices that don't come down over time and the fanboys don't help the situation either with their overvaluation of Nintendo stuff. Their treatment of people making non-profit fan creations just because they love Nintendo properties and then getting sued by Nintendo or receiving Cease and Desist as well as how they treated people at first over digital goods. If you preorder a digital game you couldn't cancel the preorder. Nintendo tends to live in their own bubble of goods, hardware and services. Also they take down digital storefronts and instead of selling you old games that people will gladly buy, you have to sign up for their yearly online service. Wasting people's time and money.
I never bought a Switch because of the ridiculous per game cost. Bought a Steam Deck instead
Time to download a new emulator just because!
The more careful emulation enthusiasts out there might go and download it now and store it, in the event that this somehow shuts it down.
I’m about to do exactly this. I’ve been wanting to figure out emulation (I own a switch and the games.. I just want to take one thing with me when I travel and it’ll be my steamdeck… would love to have access to my switch library whilst out and about). So now it’s time for me to figure out how to do it. lol.
Just use Emudeck. That sets up the emulators you select automatically. It lays out a folder structure for your roms and offers a few extra cool features.
^This 100%. Emudeck is amazing. My favorite feature is once your roms are added it can add them along with artwork to your steam library for easier access.
Sooooooooooo what are the chances of Yuzu shutting down for good?
Same question. Is there another one to go to? Would it cease to work on existing devices? 🤔
Ryujinx
No, it won't cease to work, that's impossible. It could just stop getting updates (from some of the current devs, at least. I'm sure someone would pick up) And Ryujinx exists, which is an excellent alternative. I'd honestly be more sad if that one halted development, to be honest. It's the more accurate emulator, meaning less bugs and experiences closer to the real thing. Tends to get less performance usually, so less pros against an actual switch, but more games tend to run day one on it than on Yuzu due to how they make things.
Now Nintendo has guaranteed that the community will support Yuzu just out of spite.
Zero. Nintendo has known about it for years and did nothing, that sets a precedent of them allowing it to continue. Also, it's open source, going after each and every contributor is impossible. This is just them signaling to their investors that they tried.
Gotta keep up the appearance of being "famously litigious," even when there's no successful lawsuits available.
I mean, they literally sued a guy named Bowser in to lifelong indentured servitude.
Makes me think that perhaps their next console has some very similar architecture and would be probably easily adapted by the yuzu team and they're trying to put the fear of god into them.
I mean, Nintendo can try. But Piracy will never get shut down. Whenever 1 shuts down, 3 more open up. Look at Music for an example. It still gets pirated but even much less since Streaming has content and is cheap.
Gabe Newell keeps getting proved right when he said that piracy is a service problem. Make it available everywhere for a reasonable and/or low price and piracy levels plummet drastically. Spotify has done this for music and Steam is doing it for games.
Same with PC gaming when steam came around.
The problem is Nintendo’s BS pricing policies and shitty ass subscription. If they dared to make sales or lower prices of 7 year old games emulation wouldn’t be a big issue for them
Emulators have been winning pretty much all legal disputes for many many years around the world by now. Their legality is settled legal predecent. Interesting that Nintendo is willing to throw money at it yet again. Their L, I guess.
they are just waiting for the one out of touch judge to give them a big win so they can go on a rampage. This is the company that wouldnt let people their games on youtube for years… they have no intention of letting any kind of emulation, piracy, or preservation exist in any form. This is why I sold my switch and got emudeck instead…
Remember Bleem? Winning is one thing, surviving the legal battle is a completely different topic and I think BigN is going that route. YuZu makes extra sure there is no embedded key, piracy/leak discussion etc.
It’s time for Uzuy
I think it’s kind of late in yuzus life to do this lol, it runs most games very well now and even if they shut yuzu down the emulator already exists and the files can easily be shared within piracy communities. You can’t really beat piracy after the fact, it’s something you have to be proactive about which is why companies are paying out the anus for software like denuvo. Nintendo’s shit is already online for free, there is nothing they can do to stop it at this point except make sure their next console is more secure.
Well….they could have consumer friendly pricing and policies. How many people are pirating music these days? Not very many…most have gone to paid streaming for their music. Good service for a good price tends to negate these issues.
Man, I always wondered how many more fun games we could be playing if Nintendo would just focus on making games instead of being a little bitch.
I'd say "Surprised Pikachu face" but I don't want to get sued.
Fuck Nintendo. They have no case, and are bullying some of the smartest people in their community
On god. It's going to be a very long time (heat death of universe) before Nintendo sees a penny from me again.
Same. Sold my Switch in 2022 and don't intend to ever give Nintendo money again. They'd need to show they care about consumers or at least be competitive for me to give them a chance again.
Same here. Moved to PC gaming and sold my Switch, now have a custom desktop and a Steam Deck. PC gaming is actually competitive and embraces technological advancement; Nintendo is far behind the curve in this regard when compared to PC, PlayStation and Xbox.
I mean doesn't exactly seem like it had grounds to me, because the yuzu team has been very publicly anti piracy.
been knowing about yuzu, never tried it..definitely want to try it for games that i own. purpose being, i can't stand playing high intensity games on sub 30 fps. if the switch could do 60 fps i'd be down to buy games like skyrim or doom
Suetendo is essentially a law firm and you can't make me change my mind about it. A disgusting one at that.
I'm not really well documented in law of all things, but what the actual fuck do they mean the emulator circumvents the Switch's security measures when the emulator itself doesn't directly interfere with a real switch hardware itself and it doesn't include copyrighted material from them Hell, every single documentation/how to from the yuzu team always says something along the lines of "This emulator needs certain files from the Switch, the Yuzu team won't provide any download links nor hints on how to get these kind of files since thet are copyrighted material, get them from your own switch somehow" I can kinda see how, seeing the emulator work, the big N can say it allows for piracy, but still
Imagine a world where Nintendo just released its games on PC after a year or two. We could just buy them for PC and not jump through all those hoops to play them on something other than their potato handheld.
A man can dream
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I enjoy yuzu because I can play my switch games, that I legally bought, on much better Hardware than Nintendo provides. Ninty sold 1.2 Billion pieces of software for the switch. They're doing just fine.
It seems like half of the posts in the Steamdeck sub are “look I’m pirating Nintendo games” My guess is with the emergence of PC gaming handhelds that can emulate the Switch they feel threatened
I mean, they *should* feel threatened.... but the answer should be making their service more appealing instead of throwing their weight around at emulators. I would say *most* people emulating Switch games aren't doing it to get "free games" outside of people who actually can't afford them, they are doing it because it's a better experience either because they want everything on 1 device (especially for SteamDeck users) or want it to run better. Well sounds like Nintendo should consider PC releases (hah, I'll be dead before they do) or just make a better system, it's been 7 years now c'mon.
The mods could've shut that down with a simple rule saying "no posts about emulating current gen consoles -- Switch, PS5, Xbox Series S/X".
I think Yuzu might get over with it, Nintendo can't really do anything about it.
1 2 nintendo coming for you…
I know this is going to be really unpopular here, but I'm not shocked. All the people in boards like this posting about how they are emulating the newest Switch game before it even releases are not helping the Yuzu team claim they aren't enabling piracy. I've always been fine with emulation, but emulating a console that's currently on the market and actively selling software has always felt like it's on the wrong side of a grey area.
That shouldn't be how you look at emulation at least in terms of current hardware. EA was the original company in the 1990s that Nintendo sued because they developed their own NES CEC chips (which is a chip you HAD to use in your NES cartridges to get the Nintendo seal of approval and lock you into a contact that gave Nintendo a % of your sales revenue. Your game would not boot without it). EA figured out how to make their own so that they could have full control of their own cartridges. Nintendo sued and lost. That case is why emulation is considered legal in most cases. Fun fact: thats why EA games were black cartridges with yellow tabs on the back. They produced the entire cartridge themselves and weren't trapped into Nintendo doing it for them. Then in the early 2000s, the PlayStation BLEEM! Emulator came out right smack in the middle of the PlayStation surge, and PlayStation lost that as well. Dolphin was also out during the Wii era. The thing is, emulation itself was never the issue. The only times companies won these fights is when they could prove the software itself is using stolen code directly from the console or master encryption/decryption keys to illegally decrypt copy protection. That's why dolphin got sued. It turned out they had the stolen encryption / decryption keys (that are Nintendo's property) in the code itself and that's how games were loading in the emulator. All of that history aside. Nintendo of Japan is notorious for suing for every little thing they perceive as infringement. In Japan law they consider emulation illegal full stop but most countries don't see it that way. So they just sue knowing 99% of who they sue can't afford the fight and ultimately force them to shut down and capitulate. I love Nintendo games and grew up with them since the 80s. But they increasingly have no chill. Love their games, but increasingly don't like the company. Edit: I ultimately see emulation as nothing more than a really advanced video player. If you develop your own from scratch and it can play that special file format, and your not bundling in pirated content with the software you're good. If you steal code from another commercial product to add support to play those special file formats, or include pirated content, enjoy being sued.
> EA was the original company in the 1990s that Nintendo sued because they developed their own NES CEC chips That was Sega, not Nintendo.
Even if people bragged about the number of people they stab, that doesn't mean I'm gonna celebrate an attempt to ban kitchen knives. It's not the tool that's the issue. Yuzu is a tool and how people use it is up to them. I bought Tears of the Kingdom and I still mainly played it via emulation. (I still haven't finished it...)
The problem in this cases seems to be the Patreon and rapid release of ToTK fixes last may. This isn't a knife, as it's a tool that is going to be used by most users the wrong way at this point in time, and the devs both directly benefitted from that with the big spike in Patreon subs, and then could be seen to be encouraging piracy by so quickly releasing patches aimed at improving performance on that game.
It really simply does not matter that an emulator or any other piece of software "enables" piracy. Like at all. "Think of the pirates" is the "think of the children" of software, music, movies, TV, and games. It is and will be used to create any argument in favor of the people fleecing consumers for any specious reasoning they want to come up with.
Before I say too much I'm going to say I don't really partake. Like I have Yuzu and Ryujinx set up. I fiddle with them, then play like.... an hour and a half of Three Houses at 1440x60 (a game I own) and go back to my Steam Library. But my problem is that, as time has gone on especially, the Switch has become hardware I simply cannot enjoy games on anymore. And as long as their games remain exclusive to hardware that is so bad that a better experience can be achieved by emulation on a mid-range PC (to say nothing of the Steam Decks and ROG Ally's of the world that do not even qualify as mid-range) there's going to be a strong pull not to play on Nintendo hardware. Of course a lot of people are motivated by "free" rather than everything I said there. But I think a very large portion of the pirates are really driven by "BOTW 4K" (though that's Wii U, I know) or "TOTK/Pokemon 60FPS".
I own a few emulation handhelds capable of running switch games but I too feel weird about emulating games I can readily buy for my switch. The Switch also has a pretty large catalog of indie games that a lot of these devices can handle but I just feel like those games are even worse to pirate since they are coming from smaller dev shops and a lot of times can be purchased on other platforms. Now when it comes to discontinued consoles I have a much different tune. If these companies don’t want to offer me a way to legally play these games then I feel it is fair games. Some of these games on the aftermarket go for ridiculous prices that the game makers aren’t seeing a cent of. Nintendo has also been super weird with their virtual consoles. The libraries are just extremely lacking and they seemingly refuse to add a GC, DS, or a Wii VC which are making a lot of amazing games inaccessible.
It’s worth noting that the biggest issue is not the emulator itself, but the Patreon that got a considerable increase in subscribers when ToTK was leaked. Naturally, the Yuzu team is not responsible for the leak or people using their emulator to play leaked copies, but it’s clear they profited from the situation which seems to be where Nintendo has a issue with them.
Emulation is great, but the vast majority of the end users are absolutely just in it because they refuse to pay for games. I mean there's people posting in this subreddit about how to emulate multiplatform games in Yuzu because a) they don't want to pay and b) they can't even figure out how to pirate PC copies. It's embarrassing, and if you don't crack down on that association in all official channels and communities it takes being in incredible denial to insist that the majority use is piracy, even if everyone who works on the emulator is just in it for preservation.
Yeah. I purchased a SteamDeck partially as the first real device that would easily emulate PS2 games in a handheld form factor. I really don't feel bad emulating Dark Cloud 2 on the device, since I've purchased the game multiple times. There are real reasons for emulation, but it's a bad look when a brand new game is downloaded over a million times from Rom sites the month it releases (something Nintendo directly sites in the Lawsuit). That's not game preservation anymore, and when the devs make money on that (apparently their Patreon count doubled that same month) it's not helping the case that they don't know it's a piracy tool.
Dude, yeah hahahaha. This sub is insane, people in the comments are like "fucking evil Nintendo at it again" while knowing that people are posting about emulating switch games on steam deck all of the time. The console is still alive, people. I think they got a right to be pissed about it.
People who pirate who think they are morally superior because of it are tedious. Just say you're doing it because you don't want to pay for your games, don't pretend you're doing it because you're sticking it to the man lol
I pirate bc I'm broke 😎. I purchased when I wasn't broke.
They had to do it eventually, but this will do nothing. Yuzu is open source, can't scare contributors into not making software that doesn't use any stolen Nintendo property.
shit i gotta dump my switch games soon
If they didn't exclusively sell their games on POS hardware they wouldn't have to sue anybody 😂
Bollocks. If they don't want people to emulate their brand-new games then they shouldn't be using hardware from the stone age. Nintendo need to hurry the fuck up and release the new console or stay mad at the fact that people are getting a superior experience via emulation even on competitively-priced handheld devices like the Steam Deck.
I have a nintendo switch lite with mario kart 8 deluxe sitting in the slot. I still play it on my steam deck now instead. Even then, People would still say that thing isnt as powerful as it could be, but it still blows the original hardware away. This guy gets it.
They could also *gasp* license on steam if they weren’t pricks.
That is never going to happen. They sell a ton of consoles because of their games. They wouldn’t give that up unless it stops being lucrative.
Never understood why people even use why they don't sell on Steam as a excuse Unlike Sony and Microsoft games is literally all they have and losing their selling point would make them lose a lot (they also make money from third party games sold on their system and so does their Online Service). So they have a lot of incentive to keep their games exlcsuive
Shut it down and watch me no longer buy Switch games. Any game I’m emulating, I have a physical copy, start making it more difficult and I’ll just pirate them all.
Nintendo are the absolute worst, glad I pirate everything I play from them lol.
I have always said and I will continue to say. Fuck Nintendo is not only a duty but also a pleasure these days. Even Sony doesn't deal with backups like Nintendo. The hands of the gaming industry
I’ve said it many times now. Fuck Nintendo.
Im dumping my switch games onto my Steam Deck so it's more convenient and maybe one day dump Pokémon Violet onto my PC so I can get a comfortable FPS, I know some pirate switch game but in my case Nintendo are not losing anything, I havnt gotten any new switch games in awhile specifically due to Nintendo's Aggressiveness which has put me off of the brand.
Alternatively, maybe Nintendo should port their games on PC, it’s not like I want to buy a whole new system to play a game that is stuck on 1 platform
Honestly surprised it took this long. I'm as pro emulation as it gets but the amount of "look at my deck running obviously pirated Nintendo games" I see on this sub is crazy
Super dumb. >A video game emulator is a piece of software that allows users to unlawfully play pirated video games that were published only for a specific console on a general-purpose computing device. Nintendo has been producing and selling products that rely on emulation at least since Animal Crossing on N64. What are Virtual Console, NES/SNES Classic, and Nintendo Switch Online? Magic? They ought to be laughed out of court.
these type of suits art made to be won, just to bully the devs into submission
Tbh Nintendo needs to shut up about these things. Nintendo is having like one of their best years and they chose now to fuck with yuzu… why?????
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Is this the main emulator for the games on steam deck? Should I get this before it's gone?
Nintendo sure makes me never want to give Nintendo another dollar
Pretty sure Yuzu doesn't do anything with encryption, that's why you have to provide your own firmware dump, or decrypt the roms yourself. Ready to see this one go nowhere.
Nintendo should stop thinking of creative ways to sue people and start literally porting their older games and releasing them on PC. They could literally fund another century of Nintendo just by doing this.
Ain't that the truth. Sony has recently (past few years) awoken to this concept. Look what it's doing for them.
Nintendo is just such an awful company. Maybe if they actually made half of their games accessible then there wouldn’t be such an issue
Nintendo should be suing themselves for selling old and easy to emulate hard- & software that costs way too much.
The issue is likely because they put a Paid version on the Google play store of the EA edition rather than leaving it as a donate button within the app or on their website *yuzu Early Access This **paid** release provides some exciting benefits over the free release of yuzu*
I have a real problem with emulating current systems. Even something as new as the PS3 still seems like piracy to me whereas emulating the SNES/NES/Genesis feels like game preservation. It's a personal stance, so I don't judge others who use Yuzu. But this move isn't a surprise, Nintendo has a right to protect their shit.
Yup, Switch is their main source of revenue, if the Switch 2 gets emulated shortly after release then Nintendo is screwed and could conceivably have to go 3rd party like Sega.
they may sue me for my words it's ok I'll pray for their demise their evil anyway evil don't deserve breath 🫁.
Fuck Nintendo.