Update 29/05: According to Pierre Bourdon on Mastodon, who was Dolphin's treasurer for the foundation backing the project (Bourdon is stepping down), Valve actually initiated the conversation to check in with Nintendo on this. So this is not a DMCA takedown request but Nintendo said it would violate the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions, so Valve took it down. So there's technically nothing for Dolphin to counter here.
Kotaku also got a statement from Nintendo on this:
“Nintendo is committed to protecting the hard work and creativity of video game engineers and developers,” a spokesperson for Nintendo told Kotaku in an email. “This emulator illegally circumvents Nintendo’s protection measures and runs illegal copies of games. Using illegal emulators or illegal copies of games harms development and ultimately stifles innovation. Nintendo respects the intellectual property rights of other companies, and in turn expects others to do the same.”
The article title was updated to better reflect the situation.
Original article below for context:
Back in March the plan was announced for the Wii and GameCube emulator Dolphin to release on Steam, along with some useful Steam features but now that seems unlikely to happen.
The Dolphin team has now announced that their Steam page was taken down, as Nintendo sent a cease and desist notice to Valve about it. Here's the statement they released:
It is with much disappointment that we have to announce that the Dolphin on Steam release has been indefinitely postponed. We were notified by Valve that Nintendo has issued a cease and desist citing the DMCA against Dolphin's Steam page, and have removed Dolphin from Steam until the matter is settled. We are currently investigating our options and will have a more in-depth response in the near future.
We appreciate your patience in the meantime.
Such a shame.
Why now though? Dolphin has been around since 2003 for GameCube, adding basic Wii support in 2007, so Dolphin was there during the time the Wii was still being fully supported. Nintendo also only went after the Steam page, not the project as a whole as it can still be found on GitHub and official site. According to a comment from the Citra developer on Reddit, it's due to Dolphin including decryption keys with the project.
Really, it's not going to do Nintendo much good, it's put Dolphin all over the news and even more people will now know about it and end up using it.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: Mountain ManQuoting: DesumJoystick drift is actually common across the industry. I know a number of Sony's more expensive controllers have suffered from it, but for whatever reason, they don't get hammered for it like Nintendo. And to be fair, Nintendo continues to offer a free Joy Con repair service, at least here in the US, so while they may not have offered the groveling apology that some people seem to want, they have implemented what I think is a reasonable remedy.Quoting: Mountain ManNintendo is just protecting themselves. I've never had a problem with that. They're still a great company.No they are not. They are a soulless corporation who'd rather see games disappear forever than preserved, ultimately. They advocate for the worst kinds of DRM AND knowingly sell defective hardware to people (joycon analog drift ring a bell?) without fixing it for half a decade and counting.
As far as game availability, they are really no better or worse than the majority of other publishers and developers in the industry. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
"B-but these other companies are bad too"
So, if everyone else is being unethical and scummy, that makes it OK? I don't care about Sony either. Nintendo is an unethical company selling low-quality hardware and subsists mostly off of nostalgia addiction.
omg i should have read the article prior to comenting...
Quoting: Mountain ManJoystick drift is actually common across the industry. I know a number of Sony's more expensive controllers have suffered from it, but for whatever reason, they don't get hammered for it like Nintendo. And to be fair, Nintendo continues to offer a free Joy Con repair service, at least here in the US, so while they may not have offered the groveling apology that some people seem to want, they have implemented what I think is a reasonable remedy.
I had a joycon die on me. The switch was pretty new, maybe only a few months. They are very small and feel delicate. But, I went online, sent the affected joycon in for service and had a brand new one back in a few days. No waiting on the phone for support, no complex shipping (I did have to provide my own box), no super complex hoops to jump through to prove it wasn't working and it wasn't magically my fault. They just did it.
Quite frankly, that better customer service than what I experienced from Valve, Logitech, Asus, or Microsoft.
Ironically, #2 would firmly be Microsoft and only because I had to do it over the phone to resolve my issue, so I was on hold a lot.
It is a shame they DCMA'd the emulator though. Alot of their games are really good, I'd love to be able to play them on PC!
CyborgZeta May 27, 2023
That said, I never bought a Switch, and never will. I'm very disappointed in Nintendo right now, and I have no regret over leaving them behind.
Additionally, there's one other thing I discovered as an adult, particularly after getting into emulation. I didn't get to really appreciate them back in their heyday, but now I see...that SEGA was better.
Mountain Man May 27, 2023
Quoting: Desum"B-but these other companies are bad too"I'm not convinced that Nintendo is doing anything unethical.
So, if everyone else is being unethical and scummy, that makes it OK? I don't care about Sony either. Nintendo is an unethical company selling low-quality hardware and subsists mostly off of nostalgia addiction.
Last edited by Mountain Man on 27 May 2023 at 8:16 pm UTC
Mountain Man May 27, 2023
Quoting: robvvApparently, Valve initiated the conversation...That certainly puts a different spin on the story.
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