Cant help but think Nintendo's actions are too little too late now. That cat is out of the bag. About all they can do now is break compatibility on new releases.
this post was submitted on 01 Mar 2024
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They can't really break compatibility though. Because the keys are baked into the hardware and the rest of the hardware is, well, hard. Unless you're talking about Switch 2, which would of course work for Switch 2 games.
I just assumed they would blacklist the publicly available encryption keys and/or push an update that adds another security layer and has to be installed for new games to play. But I'm not super familiar with nintendo emulation so this may not be plausible.
how would they do this?
¯\(ツ)/¯ That's above my pay grade.
You assume this is about the switch, which is at end of life more or less. Its about the Switch 2.
Yeah I'm guessing the switch 2 is going to be the switch but slightly more powerful, using similar hardware to maintain compatibility with older switch titles. Meaning their new console is likely going to be able to be emulated at or very shortly after launch. Instead of competing on features, like upscaling, mod support, third party peripherals, etc, they've decided to sue people until the problem vanishes. So classic corpo Nintendo dumbshittery.
I own ToTK and 2 switches. I still emulate it. Nintendo your hardware is hot ass, your controllers have major drift issues, your online service is barely functional, and I don't want to pay to back up my own goddamn saves.
The Tegra processor in the switch was like 2 years old when the switch was released. How much you wanna bet they release the Switch 2 with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 (at best) in 2025 and call it a day? They know that emulating the Switch with that hardware will be possible right out of the gate on day 1 with current technology.
I see one of two things happening.
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Yuzu team calls it quits and throws in the towel due to insufficient funds.
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It goes to court and Nintendo wins due to the judge being technically illiterate and takes Nintendo's side because they appear more professional and legitimate.
I would love for them to challenge and beat this but I think it would require a very knowledgeable legal team such as those who work with the EFF or some similar organization.
It probably won’t make it to court because the devs cant afford it. Nintendo likely wouldn't win, it is just bullying them into shutting down.
Didn't they use an emulator in the nes classic or some product?
Yeah the nes and snes classic, also nintendo switch online gives you access to some nes, snes, n64, and gameboy/gba games with emulation.
They’ve stolen open source (or at least free) emulators for their own commercial releases in the past too, haven’t they?
They've taken ROMs and sold them to people, it was confirmed some time back. Idk about the emulators, but it would stand to reason that, given they support the ROMs, they've at least looked at other emulators' source code for ideas
No, they hired a guy who had already made an emulator to make theirs. He stuck with the rom file format he already knew. Because the rom files are based on the same source (the released binary on the game cartridge), they are byte-for-byte identical, as you you'd expect.
Are you telling me that I'm reading this wrong?
https://www.eurogamer.net/did-nintendo-download-a-mario-rom-and-sell-it-back-to-us
It was the same with the Wii too.
Interesting read, but a misleading title.
Most of the emulation developers basically said "no shit, maybe don't help pirates steal a game that isn't even on sale yet (referring to Yuzu supporting Tears of the Kingdom the day before it released)".
I thought Yuzu specifically did not support TotK until it was released (in New Zealand).
They only supported it because their emulator works, no game specific patches were published until the game was released and properly bought by the devs (and they were fairly strict on this in the discord)
Is Yuzu open source? What stops people from copying it and re-releasing it under a new name?
Nothing, that's not the point. The point is that the developers stop work on it and eventually it stops working. Then the Switch 2 comes out and Switch 2 games cannot be emulated. Nobody thinks that Yuzu, in the current state, will stop being available.
But if it’s open source, can’t someone else fork the project and continue?
They can. But I guess there is a limited amount of potential Switch emulator developers, and people who have an interest in that are already working on Yuzu. A new team can absolutely happen, and will also get sued until no one even tries anymore. I guess that's the idea on Nintendo's side.
Yu2u
Anyone else sitting right on the edge with Nintendo and this shit? It's like Lego and plastic ocean trash, how the fuck are these folks avoiding pitchforks?
Lego gets a pass in my books. I don't think I've ever seen a piece of Lego on the ground or washed up at the beach.
Nintendo can suck it. Though I'll give them credit for using outdated hardware because that makes their games easy to emulate.
I have LEGO bricks over 25 years old which still work perfectly fine. Such long lasting plastic products are definitely not the cause of plastic pollution in nature, plastic is not inherently bad.
Legit question. How did the author of the emulator even got identified? How does Nintendo keeps suing these people? Do they just sign their own name on their git or something like that?
Nintendo is not suing individual developers, they are suing the company that was set up. But besides that, I doubt they took any efforts to hide themselves.
They were apparently very plainly bragging about how they were directly distributing ROMs, something that is quite blatantly illegal.
Nah they run a pretty tight ship, ie didnt even allow discussing totk when it was leaked