EmuDeck removes Yuzu And Citra emulator support

The interesting thing will be what they do next. The code to both has been preserved and deleting all mirrors is something even Nintendo money can accomplish. So it's only a matter of time until builds will pop up somewhere (possibly under a different name). Will Emudeck pull those in?

I think the EmuDeck developers would be pretty stupid if they did pull in some fork, they would be opening themselves up to lawsuits for facilitating what has already been basically declared illegal.

Didn't they settle out of court? All that generally means is that Yuzu admitted guilt to something and decided just to pay instead of go to court.

So it hasn't exactly been declared illegal, just 'don't go up against the big, bad Nintendo unless you've got the cash to put up a fight.' Emulation itself is not inherently illegal anyhow, it mostly falls under the 'reverse engineering' laws. But I think Yuzu and Citra were basically describing how to get keys and crack encryption, no? That's the illegal bits.

Note: I don't have any skin in this fight. I bought a switch, thinking it was a neat device, but it collects dust. I didn't even bother buying the new Zelda game. The first one, I thought was 'meh'.


Last edited by slaapliedje on 6 March 2024 at 12:59 am UTC

I think we will see what I call "The Napster Effect".

An effect where [[[ Second Order Of Consequences ]]] are dismissed.

In the early 2000's the Music Industry resisted Inevitable Change. They lost control of dictating entertainment content to the masses. They attacked the middle man.

There is a inherit [[ secondary order of effect ]] where [[ piracy actually makes a thing more popular than it would have been otherwise thereby having the secondary effect of creating more sales ]]

Napster, Limewire and others sent some artists to Platinum Status. Eminem is pretty good example of "riding the wave" to success.

Counter-examples might be Metallica and Nickleback.

So the lesson here is the same one Social Media and Social News Blogs live by -- All Press is Good Press, or Controversy is Good For Business.

In Nintendo's case, what's worse than people pirating Nintendo games? Nobody pirating Nintendo games.

Why? Because nobody will remember their name or care.

By god I wish I could end all piracy of ALL Adobe products, think about the massive influx of money it would mean for open source free alternatives and other tools like Affinity and others.

This is how second order of consequences works -- and unfortunately the majority of the worlds population can't comprehend it -- which is why we keep shooting our balls off as a species.

A -> B -> C

Most people only understand A -> B

Eg: If I steal this from the store, I get it for free ( -> Possibly jail, market instability, being attacked by citizens who legitimately pay for products and patron the store)

Eg 2: I go to the store to get the food --> the store gets the food from the distribution --> the distribution gets the food from the farmer. If the farmer can't make the food -- I can't eat the food because there isn't enough food to distribute at low prices.

Common sense isn't so common anymore.

--

I get the sense Nintendo is in financial trouble again due to them lashing out. There's only so many games left before Shigeru Miyamoto (71) drops dead.

That guy literally is Nintendo's only asset -- like if Linus Tech Tips dropped dead LTT wouldn't be the same thing.

Switch was Nintendo's only thing, like how iPhone became Apple's only thing generating the majority of their revenue. And now Switch no longer has cornered the market and like 5 others have come in, Valve, ASUS, Lenovo, AyaNeo, GDP WIN and we will probably see others too.

And then the global recession is hitting now. Nintendo is probably screwed. They still think they are a hardware company too -- and just like Disney their only income is milking old IP.

They're circling the drain and won't be missed by me. Make way for more worthy gaming companies who don't assault their fans and deny them future preservation of their fan's beloved stories.

Just like the 1990s music industry lashed out, they are in for a serious reckoning. They should have made allies, not enemies.

I get the sense Nintendo is in financial trouble again due to them lashing out.

I totally agree with all of your other points, but on this one, I think that it's something else. Reason being, the Switch is the world's third-best-selling console of all time (and is the all-time number one in France and Japan ) and is still selling gangbusters - their financials are rosy.

However, if current reports are to be believed, its successor isn't likely to do something new. We all know how the follow-ups to the best-selling consoles of all time pretty much never do as well. I think that it's more likely they're lashing out in advance of this, personally!


Last edited by Pengling on 6 March 2024 at 1:43 am UTC

I get the sense Nintendo is in financial trouble again due to them lashing out.

I totally agree with all of your other points, but on this one, I think that it's something else. Reason being, the Switch is the world's third-best-selling console of all time (and is the all-time number one in France and Japan ) and is still selling gangbusters - their financials are rosy.

However, if current reports are to be believed, its successor isn't likely to do something new. We all know how the follow-ups to the best-selling consoles of all time pretty much never do as well. I think that it's more likely they're lashing out in advance of this, personally!

On that opinion and note, yes you are correct I am speculating using the big picture and available information.

The reason I have that opinion is because [1] The Sony Layoffs [2] Microsoft Layoffs [3] Other game studio merger layoffs -- Activision (and I forgot a few others)

And not only that -- if you follow the Japanese Yen and economy and global ecconomy of the west it's not doing particularly well, so I'm being a little preemptive (which I believe is required in making predictions.)

Anyone who rolls big money around knows that the bigger they are the harder they fall.

Rich people and poor people are exactly the same, they each carry debt except instead of maybe a few thousand dollars, a rich person has a "credit card payment" of several hundred thousand or million dollars.

So while these companies appear to be making it in the short term -- it doesn't take more than 6 or 12 months of mismanagement for a house of cards to come down hard.

Honestly, it's pretty sad -- I drive around and see lots of little guy businesses gone out of business. No bailouts for poor or families trying to make it.

GDP appears to have contracted in the US by 30% if I'm reading the quarterly reports correctly. I would love to root for Nintendo but they need to make some changes for me to vote with my dollar. Anti-consumerism shouldn't be rewarded in my opinion.

In any case, I take your opinion, we'll have to wait and see. I think the list of IP's that bit the dust 20 years ago are a good argument in favor of Game Preservation -- Rareware, 3D0, 7th Level to name a few.

If we let content be controlled and deleted the last 20 years won't be known as The Great Enlightenment, but "The Lost Age".

One reason as a consumer I could never get behind Google Stadia, and now -- I'm glad, I didn't get invested in any of their franchises, some of which I thought I heard are gone and done.

Thinking upon other franchies that are DOA that showed real promise, Storm United comes to mind -- if they only had a LAN feature then it wouldn't be avandonware, and the copies I bought useless.

Anyways, again I take your point -- time will tell, we shall see, this will be a interesting year for sure.

Edit: Also this may seem odd, but thank you for having contrary opinion, it's only through discussion and scrutiny that we can add contrast to what we believe is true and learn anything at all.


Last edited by ElectricPrism on 6 March 2024 at 2:48 am UTC

I would love to root for Nintendo but they need to make some changes for me to vote with my dollar. Anti-consumerism shouldn't be rewarded in my opinion.

Nintendo lost me completely for various reasons*, and these latest shenanigans feel like a final "final straw" to me, on top of already having ditched them. I can't imagine any change they could possibly make that would cause me to consider their products again.

*For example, they took all of my favourites off in directions I don't enjoy or stopped making them entirely, and they also started leaning way too much on overpriced subscriptions and often-pre-planned DLC, sometimes whilst also releasing unfinished and buggy games. And then the Switch hardware was incredibly poorly-built and I got sick of having to repair carefully-handled in-warranty gear (in the UK, they didn't cover the design faults under warranty until much more recently, and the repair-costs were identical to buying new replacements). It was a love/hate thing for years, and I already found there to be an ever-decreasing number of games I wanted to buy even before all of that, so it was inevitable that I'd end up taking my entertainment-money elsewhere eventually.

Edit: Also this may seem odd, but thank you for having contrary opinion, it's only through discussion and scrutiny that we can add contrast to what we believe is true and learn anything at all.

Glad to share it! I do totally agree with everything you said, though - it's just that there's zero evidence that Nintendo is in any financial difficulty, hence why I pointed it out.

The interesting thing will be what they do next. The code to both has been preserved and deleting all mirrors is something even Nintendo money can accomplish. So it's only a matter of time until builds will pop up somewhere (possibly under a different name). Will Emudeck pull those in?

I think the EmuDeck developers would be pretty stupid if they did pull in some fork, they would be opening themselves up to lawsuits for facilitating what has already been basically declared illegal.

The case was settled. Nothing was declared illegal.

They didn't have to declare anything illegal. Under the DMCA, it was already illegal.

That was nintendo's claim, but they didn't even issue a dmca take-down notice to github, giving a strong indication that even their legal team had doubts as to some of their claims about the legality of the emulation itself.

From what I understand, yuzu's main legal problems were that their devs didn't strictly adhere to a "we can't tell you how/where to get the games"-policy.

Regardless, emudeck does not have the deep pockets required for an effective legal defence against a billion-dollar company in full extortion mode, so I suspect they'll pass up on the opportunity to paint a bullseye on their backs by supporting emulation of a device whose ecosystem is still being commercially exploited.

[...]And then the Switch hardware was incredibly poorly-built and I got sick of having to repair carefully-handled in-warranty gear [...]. It was a love/hate thing for years, and I already found there to be an ever-decreasing number of games I wanted to buy even before all of that, so it was inevitable that I'd end up taking my entertainment-money elsewhere eventually.

On the switch hardware note, the first time I held a Switch I noticed how tiny all the buttons and joysticks are. I'm sure it's okay for kids, women, asians, and people with smaller hands -- but it seemed like the joysticks had poor resistance, the material seemed like it would degrade easy, and I could see medium or big hands cramping up on that.

For me the Steam Deck felt lightyears ahead in terms of comfort.

And then when the Steam Deck OLED came along it felt like the reduction in weight made it even more comfortable.

All in all -- I think the perfect Steam Deck could shink 10-15% and stay the same weight and reduce the border, but that would be a optimization, I can't think of any above minor criticism I have against SD.

--

I hope you didn't have to buy that warranty only to be screwed by it later, this was part of my experience many years ago. I'm so thankful for PC and the ability to play my 1998 StarCraft and other games nearly 30 years later.

That was nintendo's claim, but they didn't even issue a dmca take-down notice to github, giving a strong indication that even their legal team had doubts as to some of their claims about the legality of the emulation itself.

From what I understand, yuzu's main legal problems were that their devs didn't strictly adhere to a "we can't tell you how/where to get the games"-policy.

Regardless, emudeck does not have the deep pockets required for an effective legal defence against a billion-dollar company in full extortion mode, so I suspect they'll pass up on the opportunity to paint a bullseye on their backs by supporting emulation of a device whose ecosystem is still being commercially exploited.

From what I understand, DMCA takedown notices are for digital content. If they had a claim that their code was used, they could issue a takedown notice. Their actual argument against Yuzu is from a different part of the DMCA (Section 1201), which prevents the circumvention of TPMs (technological protection measures). This is the same argument they used against Dolphin Emulator when they convinced Valve to block it from the Steam store.


Last edited by melkemind on 6 March 2024 at 3:16 pm UTC

On the switch hardware note, the first time I held a Switch I noticed how tiny all the buttons and joysticks are. I'm sure it's okay for kids, women, asians, and people with smaller hands --

Woman-gamer here, and I can honestly say it's not ok for me either - the Switch is too damn thin, and it hurt my hands and wrists quite a lot.

The button/stick sizes were fine, though. But keep in mind that one of the handhelds in my fleet is this tiny little thing;

!Anbernic RG Nano

but it seemed like the joysticks had poor resistance, the material seemed like it would degrade easy, and I could see medium or big hands cramping up on that.

They're incredibly badly-designed - using them causes the insides of the sticks to scrape away at some metal plating underneath, and this then builds up and causes the sticks to drift (i.e., make unwanted inputs). Spraying contact-cleaner into them helps briefly, but before too long you're forced to outright replace the sticks, thus creating unnecessary waste.

Nintendo claims that this poorly-made solution was unavoidable because they had to create analogue sticks for a portable device. This annoys me to the extreme because the Nintendo 3DS had a very elegant solution for this with its "Circle Pad", which was precise and extremely durable, and could stand up to thousands of hours of intense use.

For me the Steam Deck felt lightyears ahead in terms of comfort.

It definitely is. The ergonomics are so well-thought-out. It's my ideal handheld, honestly.

And then when the Steam Deck OLED came along it felt like the reduction in weight made it even more comfortable.

I can't look at OLEDs because my eyes are very sensitive to the flickering they use which causes terrible migraines and eye-pain (I was the same with CRTs, ouch), but I'm glad it was an improvement in other areas.

All in all -- I think the perfect Steam Deck could shink 10-15% and stay the same weight and reduce the border, but that would be a optimization, I can't think of any above minor criticism I have against SD.

Yep, I see it the same way.

My taste in games makes me hope to see a "Steam Deck Pocket" at some point, but even if it doesn't happen I think I've already got the ideal machine as it comes.

I hope you didn't have to buy that warranty only to be screwed by it later, this was part of my experience many years ago. I'm so thankful for PC and the ability to play my 1998 StarCraft and other games nearly 30 years later.

Oh absolutely not! I took one look at the repair prices and learned how to do it myself (I used to collect watches as a kid, and often took them apart and put them back together again, so it wasn't a big deal for me - but normal users shouldn't be expected to do that!). Much cheaper, but also totally shoddy and shocking that this has been allowed to happen in the first place; The precedent set by people's acceptance of Microsoft's behaviour with the Xbox 360 directly led to this.

A class-action lawsuit in the US let Nintendo off because they assumed that all users were children (not even close to true) whose parents accepted the EULA on their behalf, and that the EULA covered the hardware defect they knowingly launched with and to this day have never fixed through various revisions.

Their actual argument against Yuzu is from a different part of the DMCA (Section 1201), which prevents the circumvention of TPMs (technological protection measures). This is the same argument they used against Dolphin Emulator when they convinced Valve to block it from the Steam store.

My understanding is that Yuzu doesn't ship with anything that does that (they need to be user-provided), whereas Dolphin does.

Also, it was Valve who alerted Nintendo to the Dolphin thing - Nintendo didn't convince them of anything.

That was nintendo's claim, but they didn't even issue a dmca take-down notice to github, giving a strong indication that even their legal team had doubts as to some of their claims about the legality of the emulation itself.

From what I understand, yuzu's main legal problems were that their devs didn't strictly adhere to a "we can't tell you how/where to get the games"-policy.

Regardless, emudeck does not have the deep pockets required for an effective legal defence against a billion-dollar company in full extortion mode, so I suspect they'll pass up on the opportunity to paint a bullseye on their backs by supporting emulation of a device whose ecosystem is still being commercially exploited.

From what I understand, DMCA takedown notices are for digital content. If they had a claim that their code was used, they could issue a takedown notice. Their actual argument against Yuzu is from a different part of the DMCA (Section 1201), which prevents the circumvention of TPMs (technological protection measures). This is the same argument they used against Dolphin Emulator when they convinced Valve to block it from the Steam store.

As I understand it, the emulator as such doesn't violate the DMCA, the problem was that Yuzu had guides on their web site on how to extract the keys from a Switch and input them into the emulator and that step violates the circumventing clause of the DMCA.

And the emulator would be completely useless without that guide and that key extraction tool, and any site hosting the tool and/or such a guide would violate the DMCA.

And the emulator would be completely useless without that guide and that key extraction tool, and any site hosting the tool and/or such a guide would violate the DMCA.

That is Nintendo's argument, but the emulator could still be used for Homebrew Switch games. For example, some indie game developers make games for the Gameboy, distributing the emulator and all (e.g. npckc distributing Marron's Day via Sameboy sometime in the next few months).

Yuzu would not be entirely useless without the keys, but Nintendo's argument is that this is not a significant use case and should be discounted. So you're completely correct in your analysis.

And the emulator would be completely useless without that guide and that key extraction tool, and any site hosting the tool and/or such a guide would violate the DMCA.

That is Nintendo's argument, but the emulator could still be used for Homebrew Switch games. For example, some indie game developers make games for the Gameboy, distributing the emulator and all (e.g. npckc distributing Marron's Day via Sameboy sometime in the next few months).

Yuzu would not be entirely useless without the keys, but Nintendo's argument is that this is not a significant use case and should be discounted. So you're completely correct in your analysis.

you are correct, I completely forgot about the indie scene!

And the emulator would be completely useless without that guide and that key extraction tool, and any site hosting the tool and/or such a guide would violate the DMCA.

That is Nintendo's argument, but the emulator could still be used for Homebrew Switch games. For example, some indie game developers make games for the Gameboy, distributing the emulator and all (e.g. npckc distributing Marron's Day via Sameboy sometime in the next few months).

Yuzu would not be entirely useless without the keys, but Nintendo's argument is that this is not a significant use case and should be discounted. So you're completely correct in your analysis.

If that's indeed the case that it doesn't actually have the ability to circumvent Nintendo's protection on its own, then maybe a low-profile fork without any key extraction instructions would be OK or at least fly under Nintendo's radar.

My general stance these days... if a company does things that are anti-consumer, then the consumers should be anti-company against them. I bought a macbook and an ipad for some specific reasons, but oh boy is Apple anti-consumer, and I'll not be purchasing anything else from them. To be fair to that, I mostly bought the macbook to run Linux, and the iPad to hack emulators onto...