The Steam deck doesn't just threaten the outdated hardware of the switch in terms of games and gaming performance, it threatens Nintendo's platform on its own turf.
Nintendo can't compete with the Steam deck on hardware terms or even game availability. Brand exclusives and a low console price are all it's got, and they seem to know that that's not enough to keep all of their customers glued to their platform.
A good rule to live by is to ask "what would happen if everyone did X?" In this case, Nintendo would cease to exist. Maybe you'd be happy about this. Plenty of people wouldn't. Switches are generally available and not that expensive. If you want to play Switch games, buy one. If you don't, don't.
And failing that if you want to just steal, then just steal. But what really rubs me the wrong way is when people who have chosen to steal start moralizing their position like they're standing up for some vague rights or principles. At least be honest about it. The hyporcrisy, intellectual dishonesty, bad faith arguments and self-delusion is in many ways worse than the theft.
For example: "What would happen if all companies blocked individuals from doing what they want with the hardware they bought?" You get a hacking community and people imprisoned for the unlocked hardware they paid for. Not to mention a whole lot of ewaste that could otherwise work for years.
No, that's not a good example. How about this one: "What would happen if all companies opened up their hardware and stopped forcing people to upgrade for no reason?" Eutopia, that's what! Less ewaste. Less consumerism. People can actually use the hardware they paid for the way they want to use it.
This argument has been (ab)used since piracy has been a thing. I'm not aware of any company going under directly because of piracy, especially not just because of emulators. If there is one, I'd love to know, but even so, the numbers is negligible. Also, emulation is not the same piracy. While emulation can be used for piracy, it is not the main use case.
Corporations like Nintendo are not your friend.
Sorry, but what is "X"? Emulation? If everyone emulated Nintendo games, we don't really know that Nintendo would cease to exist, but they probably would not cease to exist because plenty of folks who emulate Nintendo games still buy Nintendo products, because they are, you know, Nintendo fans. :)
> And failing that if you want to just steal, then just steal. But what really rubs me the wrong way is when people who have chosen to steal start moralizing their position like they're standing up for some vague rights or principles.
What really rubs me the wrong way is when commenters on HN paint people who use emulators as thieves, and emulator developers as enablers of theft, and nothing more. The irony here is that you're doing moral posturing yourself in this comment. The commenter you responded to never mentioned piracy. The article in question never mentioned piracy. So if by "X" you meant "piracy", well, nice strawman, otherwise you're equivocating emulation with piracy, which is wrong.
EDIT: By the way, a great reason to emulate Switch games is to experience them at higher resolutions and higher framerates. Thought you should know, not everyone does it to save a few bucks.
Nintendo needs to make a better argument for their hardware if they want people to buy it. Not by dictating laws about hardware usage. Simply put, they're living in the past where different hardware and different firmware mattered.
What's next, Microsoft doesn't let me run anything other than Windows on my hardware? Wait ... https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/windows/enable-tpm-2-0-o... https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2020/11/17/meet-the-...
Hey look, propaganda! Your favorite <3 Hopefully, this is a wake up call for you to read between the lines. In this case: No, Microsoft did not invent secure cloud computing.
You can apply this to literally anything to make it bad.
What would happen if everyone only ever emulated pirated Switch games? Nintendo would cease to exist. What would happen if everyone just stopped buying consoles and only played games on PC? Nintendo would cease to exist, Sony and Microsoft would take a massive hit. What would happen if everyone just... stopped playing games at all, ever? The entire video game industry would die.
Does that mean I can never decide games are a waste of my time and money? Obviously not. People are different and make different decisions.
And when I've done my duty and bought one, and bought the games, am I allowed to tinker then?
I see what you're driving at, but there are a great number of advantages to emulation and system hacks even for those of us that buy our games.
My PSP, when properly hacked, didn't need disks as I could store all the games I owned on a memory card or two. They loaded faster, used less battery and I didn't have to carry the damn things around. Similarly I had a PS2 with a hard drive so I could have all the games available on a menu system, and with faster load times. Same story on the Wii.
The other way around, I would play my Wii games that I had bought on Dolphin, which generally could render them at a higher resolution to target the 1080p tv I had at the time, where the Wii itself was limited to 576p. I routinely emulate the megadrive/genesis on all sorts of platforms including those hacked consoles, so I can play Sonic, which I bought many years ago.
I don't think these actions are wrong, nor do I think they hurt Sony, Sega or Nintendo, unless we're getting into the territory of "you denied them money they could have had if you re-bought everything multiple times". Sure, and I could give them 100 bucks a month direct from my paycheck, but I'm not doing that either.
This is an awful rule to live by. There are very few things in the world that _everyone_ would actually do.
Nintendo has a long habit of stopping console support and games become harder or impossible to buy; waiting for a Nintendo console to reach end of life before emulating and dumping the games means that some games are going to be missed. Also, emulating currently supported consoles allows for things like archival records of system OSes to study how they changed over time. (Because in 100 years, some graduate student will study how 20th and 21st century video gaming companies handled security updates).
I think a better question would be "what if it were possible to buy 90% of Nintendo's historic catalog to play on the switch instead of less than 1%?"
I emulate because I already know the retro games I want a) cost $15-30 b) would cost that if available, are never on the eshop anyways so I don't even bother checking and c) I remember when SquareEnix android games accidentally, and carelessly, deleted everyone's saves because they arbitrarily forced offline single player games (NES/SNES final fantasy series) to be online-only cloud saves.
We're at the tail end of a decade of being shat on and in some cases Nintendo just refusing to sell us the products we want to buy.
The entitlement is not with the users in this case.
That's a very nice strawman you're putting in the middle of that field. I can do the same too. What if everyone in the video game industry opened its games to mods and gave out tools? An unbelievable breadth of quality content and a new generation of excellent designers. What if everyone stopped buying video games because we now all own rubles? What if we all became blue?
Is piracy selfish? Yeah. I'll be the first one to admit it. I pirate it because I don't want to pay for it, or I can't. Is piracy wrong? No. Data wants to be free, and we collectively thrive when ideas, plays, music, creations of the mind flows freely. And if it causes a company to make a tiny bit less on the billions it makes, I won't be crying for them.
+1 I like hacking and tinkering with tech but these should not be socialized solutions for the masses. They are fun hobby projects, if you want the thing go buy it. The money supports the thing and is the reason it exists.
The same argument used to say pirated music would kill music. I hope you realize how ridiculous it is.
An emulator is just an API-compatible device. It is legal to make and sell an emulator. It can be used for playing legit and pirated copies of games, just as the original console can. It's a healthy form of competition (like between PC manufacturers), resulting in better performing hardware for the consumer.
The comment you're replying to doesn't mention or defend piracy. They're only saying Nintendo's Switch hardware is lacking so people are searching for a better performing alternative, and Nintendo is using anti-competitive legal trickery to suppress alternatives, instead of improving their product.
I don't understand when this rule should/should not be used. Clearly, the rule breaks down in certain situations.
For example: What if everyone decided to go into tech? That's not really good for society since we need things like doctors, but some people do need to go into tech.
I feel like these are the same people that haven't learned how to shut up in highschool
Nintendo's hardware business would cease to exist, and the world would have a little less e-waste in it. How would that be a bad thing?
If you steal then thats your problem, but its wrong morally and is gross to do without reasons.
Like PC game studios ceased to exist?
A lower price and better games is quite a lot actually.
I can imagine how disruptive a successful Steam entry into the console space could be once people realize they are tired of "renting" $60 games from ad-hoc console e-shops.
The quality requirements of the Nintendo's storefront are ridiculously low. I've seen footage of the Switch WWE game and frankly it should never have been allowed into any store front, let alone the one people expect to be better.
There are plenty of platformers out there, but only one company can use Mario. The games on the Switch are pricey, but the console is affordable, making it excellent for multiplayer gaming.
I don't think it has a lower price and better games in practice. They did manage to corner the portable gaming space with their 3DS and Switch, which all major competitors abandoned. Now they're at risk of losing that too.
Lower price, yes, but better games? Different games, sure but I wouldn't call them better given that it can run almost everything a windows PC can.
The fact Nintendo even exists at all in the face of competitors orders of magnitude bigger is impressive.
Nintendo’s position is and always will be that you can only play their games on their platforms.
I have an actual physical NES, SNES, Genesis, N64, Gamecube, and Wii, along with games. The NES and SNES don't reliably run games anymore. I expect the others to eventually follow. And emulation provides better graphics, better features, portability (e.g. playing on a device you can travel with), creativity (romhacks, translations, etc). So yes, emulation can be used with games you actually own, and doing so has great advantages.
We all felt the same way about SEGA in the early 90’s…
I'll be buying a Deck in a few months when my preorder is ready to ship, but it's a niche product for tech enthusiasts while Nintendo makes mass market products for the general public.
It is if you want it to be, but it's also a plug-and-play handheld console for PC gamers, which is not a niche market. Yeah, it runs a Linux-based OS but it's not like the user has to install it. Yeah, tinkerers and hackers are gonna do crazy stuff with it, but the vast majority of users will simply exchange $400 for a thing that runs video games.
For simple 2d games both should have 6-8 hours of battery life. From what I could find for Witcher 3 (moderately complex 3d, but not the very latest) steamdeck can run 4H, for Nintendo Switch the battery estimate as claimed by CD project red is 2.5 hours, but some newer materials suggest that on the new oled switch depending on mode it can 4-5H. And at least initially witcher3 on switch in portable mode was running at 540p resolution. So again no clear winner without properly controlled tests.
I really doubt it.
- It doesn't include a dock or any external controller without paying more. This was the entire pitch for the Switch
- It's more expensive and has worse battery life. Better graphics don't matter that much on a tiny screen. (Game Gear anyone?)
- Valve has a bad track record for committing to their own hardware. Remember how everyone also thought SteamOS was going to be the big takeover and it barely even happened?
- It runs linux. I run linux and love it, but running specific games, correctly interfacing with a variety of inputs and displays, it's just not going to be as smooth as a console with a dedicated OS. I'm guessing lots of people will install windows.
- Their marketing is basically non-existent next to Nintendo. It's impressive how successful Steam is without really marketing, but that won't fly in the console space. Having a successful console launch is incredibly hard. Nintendo only manages it about half the time.
- From what I've read, the emulation isn't perfect. Switch emulators even on desktop hardware can't necessarily handle every game well, why would the Steam Deck be able to?
You seem to be unaware that SteamOS was a a resounding success in its primary goal: to stop in its tracks Microsoft's plan to turn the Windows OS into a locked-down walled garden that would run only MS-approved software* (by threatening them to switch the majority of gamers to Linux). Microsoft has never attempted such thing again to the same extent, and even XBox games are largely PC compatible.
That Valve has learned a lot about porting Windows games to Linux and they went through all the early labor pains, so that a few years later they have a robust and stable platform for their new competitive device, is just icing on the cake.
* For a hint of this backstory, see https://www.pcworld.com/article/394953/why-does-the-steam-de...
> it's just not going to be as smooth as a console with a dedicated OS. I'm guessing lots of people will install windows.
This is a console with a dedicated OS (which just happens to be Windows retro-compatible, thanks to Valve's Proton layer). Given the success it looks set to have, publishers won't be able to afford not to optimize their future AAA games for the device.
They actually have a pretty good track record when it comes to long term support of their hardware. Steam Link and Steam Controller have been getting new features and updates even after becoming unavailable to buy, and from what I heard Index owners can't really complain either. You may be thinking about Steam Machines, but those weren't actually Valve's hardware at all.
> I'm guessing lots of people will install windows.
...and they'll quickly go back to SteamOS, as running Windows on a device like that will come with quite a lot of suffering.
did you miss the fact that they now sell undockable Switch versions?
> m guessing lots of people will install windows.
You will be surprised. A lot of customization went in steamOS that wont be easily done on a windows build
- I do wish I could take of the sides and plop the screen down like a Switch, mostly because it is cool. And it is less of a complete package without a dock, but if you don't want to play docked at least you aren't paying for e-waste.
- The Steam Deck is an enthusiasts device, I think the price is great for the hardware. And if graphics doesn't matter then with this enthusiast device you can lower the graphics and get comparable to switch battery life, or tune it to be better.
- The only hardware this applies to is the Steam machine, everything else is still supported, literally all of it is still supported with updates.
- With the steam deck verified system, they make you well aware when you are about to play a unsupported/unchecked title, if you stick to "verified" and "playable" then you'll have a console experience, one with more optional knobs to play with. Also installing windows on this thing would ruin so much of it.
- They have no marketing now, but after reservations are filled it does make sense to start having ads and maybe selling it in third party stores, we'll have to see.
- Emulation can only get better, it is just ARM.
I would think if you kept the game shots short and incidental the copyright would be fair use.
It's time to redo the DMCA, but I fear the copyright industry has only gained a bigger foothold since the DMCA was written.
So they don't just want to make money off of it, they want every emulated Nintendo title to survive the same way Grand Theft Auto or Skyrim does, except it's just you buying it over and over again on the newest Nintendo console.
But my impression is that Nintendo is working super hard to keep game developers happy. And that includes working DRM. Sorry if you don't like it, but that's why you see so many games on Steam and so relatively few on Gog. And can you really fault studios who put in 100+ mio USD into financing a new game that they hate with a passion those people who play but don't pay?
Nintendo has to act strongly against emulation, or else their game development partners will be upset.
The other thing that I believe Nintendo is extremely concerned about is making things family safe. With an actual Switch, you can put it into kids mode, set a play timer, and safely hand it to your kid. That's also why they do not have a web browser.
What did you expect would happen with a video showing DRM removal, software piracy, and the ability to mix in adult content?
You can't give me the archivist argument that there's no other ways to experience these games.
Nintendo is not targeting the same market as the Steam Deck. The Steam Deck still looks too much like a prototype for me to want to buy it. A very large percentage of games available on Steam will simply not work on a steam deck. Nobody knows if it's even possible to get Microsoft Game Pass running on it, and for many PC gamers that's a significant percentage of your library. Nobody knows if other storefronts are going to play ball.
For example, I really wanted to play the HD. Tony hawk. But since Epic has an exclusive deal, I dusted off my PS4 and played it there.
Compare this to a Nintendo switch, it's a small game console for me to play Smash Bros and Advance Wars. It's a vastly more polished experience. I don't need to worry about Photon compatibility issues , I can just play a video game.
It's as if someone posted "Here's how you get Netflix for free", and Netflix filed a DMCA request against it. You can't call Netflix the bad guy here. Likewise Nintendo isn't monopolizing an essential service, you can enjoy other content. You just don't have a right to enjoy theirs without paying the entry fee.
For example, if you decide you don't want to buy a Mac, and then your Hackintosh gets your Apple account banned, you have no one to blame but yourself.
What do you mean nobody knows? Just install windows on it, and play your Gamepass games? Same with the Epic launcher.
>>It's as if someone posted "Here's how you get Netflix for free", and Netflix filed a DMCA request against it.
That's not even remotely comparable. May I remind you that in US Sony has lost the legal battle against Blem! Emulator, for this exact reason, and the court was explicit in its ruling - the games that you own can be played on other systems using emulators and Sony doesn't get to have a say in it.
>>You just don't have a right to enjoy theirs without paying the entry fee.
No one said anything about playing games without paying for them. That's your own interpretation.
>>Compare this to a Nintendo switch, it's a small game console for me to play Smash Bros and Advance Wars. It's a vastly more polished experience.
Literally no one is making you get rid of your switch. Enjoy the system and the experiences on it.
Actually, taking the DMCA and Youtube policies out of the conversation for a moment—what is the legality of something like this? It's not illegal to share instructions on how to make a bomb, right?
Something something that's capitalism.
But seriously, what do we do as responsible consumers and voters to prevent this? Should there be a measurable penalty for knowingly lying on DMCA takedown orders, something proportional to the estimation of attempted damages caused? It's obviously anticompetitive, but can anything be done?
For example I am a Zelda and Metroid fan (by “fan” I mean “someone that enjoys playing those games”), but I don’t think I’ve ever cared about any video game to the point of actually subjecting myself to any suffering. I know even more diehard friends than me that happily use emulators for games that they can’t find/afford.
Maybe there is a masochistic style of being a fan that someone can choose to subscribe to, but it’s not clear that it’s Nintendo’s fault that one would make such a choice.
Because I can't think of any business who would tolerate this.
There's also a YT video from over a year ago with over 250k views with a title about pirating games, which I imagine would've gotten taken down if Valve cared since it references Steam specifically.
These videos aren't showing how to download games for free.
If you look into how much Nintendo spends on R&D and compare it to their revenues, you'll see they are _really_ serious about R&D. It would be detrimental to their business to allow that experience to be watered down.
There's nothing to be angry about. I dont think a product (at the scale and quality as Nintendo, Apple, etc) can exist in this world without it being in total control by the people who know how to create that experience. I'll happily pay more money to a company I trust to deliver quality (and fewer, polished options), much like people love Apple because it removes so many choices from people's lexicon.
Perhaps (I'll hesitantly say young) people don't realize that with freedom comes the more choices. And with more choices, you spend less time enjoying the product. You're a different market. You have time to research the hundreds of different flavors of Linux (as an example). There's nothing wrong with that; just be aware of what you're buying and dont complain when they aren't catering to your needs.
Sure there is? This story isn't about Nintendo's curated consumer experience - that's perfectly fine - it's about flagrant abuse of the DMCA.
I realize that's not a digital download, but these titles were never offered as digital downloads, and Nintendo isn't obligated to use the exact format which suits your needs. (And while Nintendo isn't directly profiting from used sales, high prices on the secondary market make their new games seem like good investments.)
(If we were talking about WiiWare exclusively, I'd have a very different attitude.)
That's not a good excuse.
> Nintendo isn't obligated to use the exact format which suits your needs
You're right. They're just providing a really good argument for the continuation of mass piracy of their products.
If a company ceases to provide something, does that give you rights to acquire that something illegally?
Provide older content, no, "allow" emulation, yes. It's not even "allow", Nintendo doesn't have the authority to allow or disallow anyone from making, distributing and running emulators.
You can argue current-gen emulators are irresponsible, you can say they're mostly used for piracy, but Nintendo doesn't have a right to stop people from talking about emulators. Taking down videos that talk about emulators is not Nintendo protecting its IP, it is an abuse of the DMCA or other non-DMCA tools in Youtube to shut down conversation that Nintendo has no legal right to shut down. Nintendo does not have the legal right to demand people not talk about emulators or share how they work, that's not a right that IP law grants. To say that they're protecting their IP is just false, they're claiming IP rights that they don't have.
Of course in this scenario, no one is going to challenge these takedowns because no one wants to get sued, and the stakes are ultimately unbelievably low. But a video about how to install an emulator is probably not copyright infringement, and (IANAL), I would be very surprised to see Nintendo get a positive ruling if they actually sued someone over showing how to install an emulator on a computer. Again, IANAL, but I'm not even sure you would claim fair use in a case like this. Fair use is a defense for violating copyright, and emulators don't violate copyright.
Discussions about the morality of emulation and the proliferation of piracy are fine, this can be a complicated subject with moral ramifications. But legally speaking, at least in the US, emulators are not piracy and talking about them is not copyright infringement.
I know you're talking about emulators, not ROMs. But it's also worth mentioning that the legality of Switch ROMs actually is quite different from Game Boy ROMs. I was recently surprised to discover archive.org has ROMs for older systems - IANAL, but apparently this is covered by a DMCA exemption for obsolete formats [1]. Also, Switch ROMs are encrypted on the cartridge, and while I really don't know the details, breaking the encryption also seems to open another legal can of worms (remember when people would get tattoos of the DVD encryption key?).
Once again IANAL, but I suspect Nintendo would have a better case against videos that include instructions on acquiring & decrypting Switch ROMs. I'm not sure if that's the case with these videos or not.
And breaking DRM is usually illegal regardless of whether or not you're doing it for a legal purpose. IANAL, but I think you're right, I suspect Nintendo would probably have a much better case if they went after people showing how to rip ROMs. I have a hard time keeping up with what is and isn't an exception to the DMCA, since it changes occasionally. There are some systems like phones where showing people how to bypass DRM is legal, every once and a while a big list of exception "categories" gets decided, and anything that's not on that list is illegal to bypass DRM for and illegal to show people how to bypass DRM.
It's a little weird. Emulators are legal and for many non-encrypted systems hacking and dumping your own ROMs is legal; but breaking DRM even if you're not doing anything illegal by breaking DRM -- the act itself is often illegal, and I don't remember if an exception was ever made for consoles or not.
One thing for certain, people will say that you can buy a game and then download the ROM, and maybe you can argue it's moral, but it's not legal -- the only way to legally extract a Switch ROM is to buy a Switch, hack it, and literally extract the ROM yourself (and like you mention, even that can be of questionable legality). So we run into a situation where the emulator is legal, talking about the emulator is legal, but getting media to run on the emulator, even if you're not "stealing it" by any commonly understood definition of the term is likely illegal.
Basically it boils down to whether bypassing the DRM falls into one of the current DMCA exceptions, whether you're a library, etc... and I'm embarrassed to admit I don't know if consoles are currently on that list or not.
Kinda funny, because... you're here claiming that Nintendo is (likely) doing something illegal here and are adding to the confusion.
The thing is, the removals that are in the press right now, especially the Steam Deck one, had gameplay in them... and as far as I know and understand US law and its current interpretation, Nintendo is likely well within its rights to DMCA gameplay.
> had gameplay in them... and as far as I know and understand US law and its current interpretation, Nintendo is likely well within its rights to DMCA gameplay.
No, not for informational purposes. Nintendo doesn't have the right to (for example) demand a review video come down just because it doesn't like the coverage -- even if the video includes gameplay. If the emulator tutorials showcased large swaths of gameplay then that would be a problem, but snippets would not fall into that category.
Copyright has limits. Companies often try to create the impression that every review, article, tutorial, or blog post that references their products only exists at their pleasure. But that's not actually how copyright works. You can't take down a news article or tutorial unless it's using those snippets in a way that goes beyond fair use.
Of course, Nintendo technically can take down those videos, but not because there's a legal right to or because they're protecting their IP; Nintendo can take down those videos because it has a bunch of lawyers and can threaten to ruin your life regardless of the eventual outcome of any lawsuit, and because Youtube will take down the videos for Nintendo without ever checking to see if Nintendo is abusing the DMCA/takedown process. But that's a separate conversation.
As always, IANAL, but including a snippet of gameplay from a Nintendo game in a tutorial about a Nintendo emulator is probably perfectly legal.
For what it's worth, using a brief clip of an emulated Switch game seems to me to clearly fall under Fair Use. It's transformative and does not substitute for the original work, often non-profit and/or educational, is a small portion of the copyrighted work, and fails to displace any sales.
According to a thread on Reddit this video only showed emulators and not ROMs. Pretty wild that there is no accountability for these actions.
I get why you might think this but it’s also almost categorically wrong nowadays. Sony and Microsoft have significantly larger portions of their old games available for replay or purchase than Nintendo does. The only virtual console content produced for the Switch has been locked behind their low quality online servers. I definitely look forward to BOTW2 and maybe an end-of-generation Pokémon game but otherwise I have a very dim view of Nintendo.
It is probably still in violation of the DMCA. The DMCA also makes illegal tools that are primarily intended for circumvention, which these emulators almost certainly are.
But, even moreso, removals of videos on youtube are typically not done through the DMCA directly, but rather through a private extra-judicial system youtube manages (content-id et al).
Of course youtube has the rights, as a private company, to remove videos for no reason. Of course Nintendo can request youtube to remove any video for any reasons, DMCA or not, with no legal issues.
I doubt any DMCA, false or otherwise, has actually been issued in this case, and "accountability for incorrect DMCAs" would not help as a result.
Nope. Emulators do not circumvent copy protection. When a ROM maker is extracting the game content from the original version, they are breaking copy protection. The ROM file they create and distribute does not have copy protection, so the emulator does not need to include copy protection circumvention.
> But, even moreso, removals of videos on youtube are typically not done through the DMCA directly, but rather through a private extra-judicial system youtube manages (content-id et al).
These are not, which is the point. Nintendo is doing this intentionally with their own DMCA takedowns. These aren't accidental false positives picked up by content id.
The other issue is that the manageable framerates only exist when the Deck is throwing everything it's got at the emulator. The advertised battery life of the Deck is shorter to begin with, and the chip constantly running at max power only makes that worse.
I doubt anyone is going to buy a Deck instead of a Switch to run Switch games. Any fan seeing clear footage of game performance should realise that to play Switch games, you should really just get a Switch. By killing the videos, they're giving off the signal that they're afraid of emulators encroaching on their territory, which will only drive Deck sales.
In my opinion, if you own a game (digitally or physically), there are absolutely zero moral qualms, and there should be zero legal issues, with playing a copy of that game on an emulator. Emulation is 100% legal and should be encouraged. ESPECIALLY because Nintendo makes it such a challenge to legally acquire old games, I understand why people turn to piracy and emulators.
I think Nintendo is within their rights to not want people showing videos of how to explicitly download pirated games and emulate them, but I don't see any way they can prevent people from simply showing an emulated game.
I agree.
However—What percentage of the people who visit a Switch rom site, and are scrolling through the list of games, think "oh, that game looks interesting, but I don't own it. I won't download that one. Maybe I'll buy an eShop code off Amazon, and then come back and download it."
I've been that person. I'd hazard a guess that people like me make up 0.1% of users, at most. And I'm being generous.
There's a problem here. Possibly one with no solution; I don't know the right thing to do. But, I certainly don't fault Nintendo for their hostility towards emulators.
Or just a hypothetical example: you bought a cool sandbox game in alpha and then some years later, some big IT corp comes around and requires that you now have to use their account system, hand over your data and agree to being tracked.
However their revenues almost entirely comes from the new and not the old. Games don't go into syndication and get tv reruns. They are kept alive by the emulation community and I would argue it builds support for Nintendo's IP rather than do them damage. I have a kid whose first exposure to Metroid was Metroid Dread which he loved. We have a Wii but it is struggling a bit and he is playing through the Prime trilogy on Dolphin. No question he is going to go nuts when Nintendo release Prime 4. Cheap marketing.
I have been tempted to rip our Switch games to run on Yuzu but to be honest the Switch (we have 3 in the house) is just an ideal platform for these games and playing on a PC is going to be a worse experience in almost every way. The story is very different with older platforms. These will be history soon without emulation.
Note that in this case, we're talking about a Switch emulator.
> Playing on a PC is going to be a worse experience in almost every way.
I mean, not necessarily. I would argue that Breath of the Wild is already a better experience on a powerful PC (not necessarily a Steam Deck), once everything is set up. You can play in 4K and 60 fps with a long draw distance.
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I wish there was an easy, accessible way to rip legitimate cartridges for emulation. The problem is that no reasonable person is ever going to buy a game to play it in an emulator, because it requires an order of magnitude more work than downloading the game for free.
(The only exception I can think of is the PS2; PCSX2 can play PS2 games directly from a standard optical drive, and was released in an era when such drives were standard.)
I'm not sure of anything else directly as easy, but both the PSP and Wii could be made to rip their own disks, with the appropriate firmware installed, and some PC DVD drives were apparently Wii-disc compatible, but not all.
As you say though, it's extra work even then. I think I would probably buy the game and then download from an internet source, if I wanted to emulate but stay honest.
With their stance it's no wonder their own first-party emulators are so poorly made.
That seems like quite an assertion, largely untested in Australian courts I would assume, as our consumer watchdog is usually pretty good at ensuring we’re able to exercise what relatively few rights we do have in regards to purchased products.
Nintendo's opinion is obviously false and easily ignored.
Before you say, "No reasonable person would believe that Switch games running on Steam Deck are authorized by Nintendo," that's an argument that you raise when you are sued for trademark infringement. No one wants that, so they take the videos down.
The PSTV generally has issues with updates or connectivity, but when it works it's roughly the same quality on my 720p projector as the switch and the steam link. And there's the answer to "why not just play the Playstation directly?" - in order to get sound that's synchronized with the screen, you need a way to get the video from the sound bar area where the playstation lives to the projector, which is a dozen feet away, on the ceiling. With the switch, the dock is next to the projector, and bluetooth sends audio fast enough for 99% of switch games. Steam link has built in BT as well. Sony doesn't. long range HDMI cables cost more than the PSTV did, so there's all the answers anyone could want.
When, once or twice a month i want to sit on the most comfortable chair in my house and play a game, it's the switch. I also try my best to only buy games with cartridges unless there's a serious sale and i have a gift card.
Everyone on HN when something they don’t want to pay for does the same thing: “How dare they, everyone be be mad at them with me.”
How dare they
(Obvious you most readers here I assume but it’s not just a headline issue - the same framing appears in TFA)
Where is dang yo?
This adoration for japanese companies is dangerous, the west really want to go extinct
