Nintendo blocked Dolphin emulator release on Steam

> Why now though?

Perhaps they want to prevent Dolphin from being discovered and easily available for the SteamDeck crowd?

maybe they want to re-relase some of those games on switch , that will attract atention to many games that people forgoten about and they dont want those same people to know about any easy way to play then for free...

"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.

I'm not convinced that Nintendo is doing anything unethical.

Attacking game preservation is unethical. Selling hardware you know is defective is unethical. And those are just two very obvious examples.

On top of that it is doing the gaming equivalent of telling people where they are allowed to hang their paintings.

A gross overreach of restricting people's freedoms for no better reason than to protect the dubious business model of catching customers into a console ecosystem.


Last edited by emphy on 28 May 2023 at 8:39 am UTC

> Why now though?

Perhaps they want to prevent Dolphin from being discovered and easily available for the SteamDeck crowd?

maybe they want to re-relase some of those games on switch , that will attract atention to many games that people forgoten about and they dont want those same people to know about any easy way to play then for free...

The thing is, it's not "for free". If you bought the old game, you've already paid for it. Essentially Nintendo is fighting tooth and nail to prevent their customers from playing games they've bought, and that's not a good look.

You can try to make this about piracy again but that's a whole different discussion, and not really an excuse when the paying customers get equally shafted in the process.

I've read so much about troubles with quality of the Joy-Cons, but to be fair poor build quality seems to be everywhere. Logitech has had trouble with the quality of the micro switches for the buttons for a long time and they've stopped using optical mouse wheels and have switched to cheap encoders (OT: encoders are always a huge pain – the biggest German electronics compendium has a very long article for workarounds).

It's true that poor build-quality is everywhere nowadays, but the Joy-Cons are of unusually poor-quality - going on my own experience, you'll get anything between 6 to 18 months of gentle use out of a brand new one*, and in the UK while I was a Switch owner you had to pay the cost of a new controller to get them repaired. I believe this has changed now, however.

*I'm a woman, though, so I don't know how well these things last in rougher hands. I've seen reviews suggesting that it may be as little as three months in such cases.

I learned to repair them myself (to their credit, they're designed to be very easy to repair), but there came a point where, on top of everything else that I mentioned, I ended up asking myself why an end-user should have to repair carefully-used almost-new products constantly.

maybe nintendo used quantum controllers, they break by just looking at then

Hahaha, yes, let's go with that explanation!

Yup, this is me. I went from having a collection of original games for every Nintendo console to date (all bought legally and, when possible, new) to not buying anything Nintendo related at all.
It's been years since I've last bought something from them and with how they are behaving lately, it seems some more years will pass for me to buy something from them again (if ever at all).
They are one of the worst (if not the worst) videogame companies ever.

I used to play some of their games competitively, for a number of years, so I was VERY invested in their ecosystem! But I wasn't blinded by that - when things didn't suit my tastes anymore, I didn't see any reason to keep buying. Companies aren't our friends, after all, even though we naturally develop attachments to products that we like.

I honestly don't see myself going back, at this point. The style of games that I enjoy are now very well catered for outside of that realm, and much more affordably, to boot.

promoting adult-rated games in non-adult-rated games,

example?

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate contains promotions for the following;

Anarchy Reigns
Assassin's Creed
Bayonetta
Devil May Cry
Doom Eternal
Fallout
Fatal Frame
No More Heroes
Persona 5
Resident Evil

I've read so much about troubles with quality of the Joy-Cons, but to be fair poor build quality seems to be everywhere. Logitech has had trouble with the quality of the micro switches for the buttons for a long time and they've stopped using optical mouse wheels and have switched to cheap encoders (OT: encoders are always a huge pain – the biggest German electronics compendium has a very long article for workarounds).

It's true that poor build-quality is everywhere nowadays, but the Joy-Cons are of unusually poor-quality - going on my own experience, you'll get anything between 6 to 18 months of gentle use out of a brand new one*, and in the UK while I was a Switch owner you had to pay the cost of a new controller to get them repaired. I believe this has changed now, however.

*I'm a woman, though, so I don't know how well these things last in rougher hands. I've seen reviews suggesting that it may be as little as three months in such cases.

I learned to repair them myself (to their credit, they're designed to be very easy to repair), but there came a point where, on top of everything else that I mentioned, I ended up asking myself why an end-user should have to repair carefully-used almost-new products constantly.

Honestly, stuff like that makes me sad to hear, regardless of my feelings towards Nintendo today. My experience growing up with Nintendo handhelds was they they were extremely durable and reliable; even the original "phat" DS could withstand a drop on a concrete driveway without it breaking a sweat. And as far as console were concerned, the GameCube had long been my gold standard for reliability; I never had a single problem with it. The only other console I have that can match it in the regard is my PS3 Slim. My JP Dreamcast is pretty old as well and runs good...but I only acquired it last year, and don't know its entire history prior to my obtaining it. Had fun playing Sakura Wars 2-4 on it though!

Apologies for the rambling.


Last edited by CyborgZeta on 28 May 2023 at 11:02 am UTC

> Why now though?

Perhaps they want to prevent Dolphin from being discovered and easily available for the SteamDeck crowd?

maybe they want to re-relase some of those games on switch , that will attract atention to many games that people forgoten about and they dont want those same people to know about any easy way to play then for free...

The thing is, it's not "for free". If you bought the old game, you've already paid for it. Essentially Nintendo is fighting tooth and nail to prevent their customers from playing games they've bought, and that's not a good look.

You can try to make this about piracy again but that's a whole different discussion, and not really an excuse when the paying customers get equally shafted in the process.

im not talking about people who own the game and cant play anymore.
if the consoles break with the time, that is a different discussion and in that case i agree they should have the right to play anyway.

I've read so much about troubles with quality of the Joy-Cons, but to be fair poor build quality seems to be everywhere. Logitech has had trouble with the quality of the micro switches for the buttons for a long time and they've stopped using optical mouse wheels and have switched to cheap encoders (OT: encoders are always a huge pain – the biggest German electronics compendium has a very long article for workarounds).

It's true that poor build-quality is everywhere nowadays, but the Joy-Cons are of unusually poor-quality - going on my own experience, you'll get anything between 6 to 18 months of gentle use out of a brand new one*, and in the UK while I was a Switch owner you had to pay the cost of a new controller to get them repaired. I believe this has changed now, however.

*I'm a woman, though, so I don't know how well these things last in rougher hands. I've seen reviews suggesting that it may be as little as three months in such cases.

I learned to repair them myself (to their credit, they're designed to be very easy to repair), but there came a point where, on top of everything else that I mentioned, I ended up asking myself why an end-user should have to repair carefully-used almost-new products constantly.

Honestly, stuff like that makes me sad to hear, regardless of my feelings towards Nintendo today. My experience growing up with Nintendo handhelds was they they were extremely durable and reliable; even the original "phat" DS could withstand a drop on a concrete driveway without it breaking a sweat. And as far as console were concerned, the GameCube had long been my gold standard for reliability; I never had a single problem with it. The only other console I have that can match it in the regard is my PS3 Slim. My JP Dreamcast is pretty old as well and runs good...but I only acquired it last year, and don't know its entire history prior to my obtaining it. Had fun playing Sakura Wars 2-4 on it though!

Apologies for the rambling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FA_uS4nMvtA

More on subject: maybe they are planning on releasing a Wii Classic running Dolphin? Would be quite fun ^^'

More seriously, hating on Nintendo for this would also mean hating on Sony for terminating both Bleem and Connetix Virtual Game Station...

Console market is ultra protective by design.

"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.

I'm not convinced that Nintendo is doing anything unethical.

Attacking game preservation is unethical. Selling hardware you know is defective is unethical. And those are just two very obvious examples.

Right, "game preservation", by which most people mean "free games".

"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.

I'm not convinced that Nintendo is doing anything unethical.

Oh, come on, Mountain Man, they're a big corporation! That's like saying you're not convinced a politician is lying!

Sure, it's possible, in theory, that they have acted unethically at some point in the company's history, but in this instance, no. Valve asked them if they wanted the emulator removed from Steam and Nintendo said yes. There's nothing unethical happening here.

Attacking game preservation is unethical. Selling hardware you know is defective is unethical. And those are just two very obvious examples.

Right, "game preservation", by which most people mean "free games".

Nonsense. Game preservation essentially means keeping games playable on modern hardware. It's not a hard concept to grasp. Emulation is an important part of it, for obvious reasons.

Your "most people" hypothesis is irrelevant in any case as long as this hurts paying customers as well.

In fairness, packaging the decryption keys, or anything that can be easily copyright claimed, with the emulator was not a smart move. Hopefully they can remove what ever needs to be and leave it to the user's discretion to obtain that content themselves (which a lot of people are already used to with with other emulators that require bios files, etc).

Either way, the emulator is already out there and used by millions on Android and PC, etc, why Nintendo chose this moment to go after it is quite hilarious and petty.

If they think the Steam Deck is a problem, they haven't seen nothing yet: all the upcoming powerful handheld PC's coming to market will be able to emulate the Switch 1 (and likely even the Switch 2) with ease. And for a lot of people - especially those who find Nintendo to be a scummy, litigious company - they're just going to buy a powerful handheld PC and emulate all of Nintendo's games - and frankly, good on them.

Either way, the emulator is already out there and used by millions on Android and PC, etc, why Nintendo chose this moment to go after it is quite hilarious and petty.

Is it really that hard to understand significance of a release on the biggest PC gaming platform? It has nothing to do with the Deck.

Nonsense. Game preservation essentially means keeping games playable on modern hardware. It's not a hard concept to grasp. Emulation is an important part of it, for obvious reasons.

Right, for a current gen hardware, still in production, it's all about "preservation":

And for a lot of people - especially those who find Nintendo to be a scummy, litigious company - they're just going to buy a powerful handheld PC and emulate all of Nintendo's games - and frankly, good on them

Edit: I will uphold my personal opinion as long as honest game preservationists are accused of piracy. It really is a simple concept.

If you need more examples of this, look at the older Switch emulator thread. "Preservation" of this kind is especially difficult since you require a Switch to get to the games…

Nonsense. Game preservation essentially means keeping games playable on modern hardware. It's not a hard concept to grasp. Emulation is an important part of it, for obvious reasons.

Right, for a current gen hardware, still in production, it's all about "preservation":

The GameCube and Wii are current gen and still in production?

EDIT: My reply was specifically to the claim that game preservation means piracy.


Last edited by tuubi on 28 May 2023 at 6:22 pm UTC

“People who emulate games are all committing piracy.”
“People who mod their games are all cheaters.”

“The newest DENUVO anti-tamper breaks all your mods and now you are criticizing anti-tamper measures? But anti-tamper prevents pesky cheaters from cheating! Certainly you don’t want people to cheat in the game you like? Maybe you are a cheater YOURSELF?!”

Game preservation = piracy
Game modification = cheating

My hobbies are being a apologist for anti-consumer behavior and licking the boots of big, multi-national corporations.

!Thank you, sir. May I have another?

“The newest DENUVO anti-tamper breaks all your mods and now you are criticizing anti-tamper measures? But anti-tamper prevents pesky cheaters from cheating! Certainly you don’t want people to cheat in the game you like? Maybe you are a cheater YOURSELF?!”

The absolute horror – people cheating in single player games

“People who emulate games are all committing piracy.”

I can't remember somebody saying this. Could you cite it please?

Is it really that hard to understand significance of a release on the biggest PC gaming platform? It has nothing to do with the Deck.

Sure, Steam is huge, but so is Google Play:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.dolphinemu.dolphinemu

And as you can see, it has 5 million+ downloads there.

I will continue to believe the Deck played a part, because Nintendo genuinely fears it: they know there's a lot more harware similarity and software overlap with the Deck, than there is with smartphones and other devices.

Sure, Steam is huge, but so is Google Play:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.dolphinemu.dolphinemu

And as you can see, it has 5 million+ downloads there.

I will continue to believe the Deck played a part, because Nintendo genuinely fears it: they know there's a lot more harware similarity and software overlap with the Deck, than there is with smartphones and other devices.

You don't know if & what Nintendo did to take the app down. Given the negative ratings it seems to have some problems, too. But yes, you're right: Nintendo fears Steam more than Google Play. Case in point: Nintendo did release mobile games, on foreign platforms.

Believe what you want, but there is no indication it's related to the Deck. I doubt Nintendo sees it currently as any threat since it's not a mass market device.

“People who emulate games are all committing piracy.”

I can't remember somebody saying this. Could you cite it please?

That’s the nice thing: you don’t need to! You just have to murky the waters and blur the line between emulation, game preservation and piracy. You only need to place one group near to the other and subsequently insinuate that there is no difference between both groups at all. Sooner than not game preservationists are deemed criminal and Nintendo’s upper management opens a bottle of champagne to celebrate the successes of the hard-working minions in forums and comment sections.


Last edited by benstor214 on 28 May 2023 at 10:21 pm UTC

"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.

I'm not convinced that Nintendo is doing anything unethical.

Attacking game preservation is unethical. Selling hardware you know is defective is unethical. And those are just two very obvious examples.

Right, "game preservation", by which most people mean "free games".

Nintendo THEMSELVES sell you ROMs originally from pirate sites, you know that, right? You are literally re-buying a copy of a a pirated game from Nintendo because they couldn't be bothered with archival until the Wii.