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News Nintendo is suing the creators of popular Switch emulator Yuzu. They claim TOTK was pirated over 1 million times before release

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Danny said:
In the future 100 %, the more people that have a PC that are capable of emulating consoles such as the Switch the more people will pirate and emulate such products. The demand is there, people of course want to play Nintendo games for free, so if the demand is there already the only thing stopping it from dominating already is knowledge and capability. When those two things grow which they will do as more people all over the world get into the digital age then piracy of video games will just explode, rendering companies such as Nintendo entirely obsolete.
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This assumes piracy is exponential and completely baseless fearmongering. No, the billion dollar corporation will not be rendered obsolete by piracy.
 
Mango said:
I just feel there's a middle ground here that's being overlooked. I'm no saint, I've pirated many of things in my life. I've watched cam copies of movies days after they premier in theaters. I only ever played Captain Toad Treasure Tracker because I hacked my Wii U and pirated it, and when I was like 14 I pirated 3DSMax a $3000 3D modeling program just to make a Smash Brawl mod, yet I'm not oblivious to the fact that I'm contributing to the problem. Nintendo probably shouldn't win this case because of the precedent it will create, but it's only a matter of time before a line in the sand has to be drawn.
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So what exactly is your point here then? You want Nintendo to stick it to the pirates you say you're a part of, while also acknowledging that the precedent is bad? Is this just some simplistic "emulation is piracy and piracy is theft and theft is bad" take? Genuinely not understanding your angle here
 
VintoWin said:
So the current ruling is that court is only concerned if copyright/IP is infringed upon is what I'm gathering.

Tampering with the tech/software within tech is fair ground, is what I am gathering.
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Yes. The area where things get tricky from the more modern perspective is that newer consoles tend to have lockout protocols to prevent unauthorized use of software. You usually need to find a way to spoof these lockout keys. This was a potential mark against the dolphin, which may have wholesale included a copy of the Wii's original key code, and it is speculated this is why Dolphin backed down. I don't know enough about Yuzu to comment on the Switch's protection measures and how they are spoofed. Importantly though, this is largely legally untested, since this was not a factor in the original Sony v Connectix ruling.
 
Danny said:
Valve seems to be in an alliance with Yuzu:

kotaku.com

Oops: Valve Shows Switch Emulator In Steam Deck Vid, Then Deletes It

A new Steam Deck video shows a Portal 2 thumbnail where the Yuzu Switch emulator previously was
kotaku.com kotaku.com

Makes sense, Valve is in competition with Nintendo, Nintendo has an large library of exclusive games that Valve wants to have emulated into the steam deck to make the Steam deck a credible alternative to the Switch.

So Valve is promoting emulation of Nintendo games, which shows that Valve is a threat to Nintendo.
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Are you drunk
 
I'm pretty sure this is happening for two reasons.

1) TotK being pirated like it was before its official release is some damning evidence and Nintendo must be confident in having a case.

2) Nintendo doesn't want this exact scenario repeating with Switch 2 so they are going to try to use this case to discourage it from happening again (even the legal fees would be enough to scare some away). If Nintendo wins, this will set precedent and they'd get future emulators killed off very easily.


When it comes to the morality of all of this, I stand on the side that is okay with emulating old hardware where games and systems are not actively and officially available anymore, like 3DS and older. I personally am not okay with emulation of games and systems that are still active and the purchases readily available to be made where the original creators/publishers can still profit.

Bonus opinion; I'd imagine Switch hacking and emulation is a concern for third parties going into Switch 2, so Nintendo is going hard on them.
 
Nintendo will be fine they've been fine with piracy before (financially I mean). Sheesh. There are way worse things than piracy that will bring them down.

Since I never got an answer: How's the state of PS5 and Series X emulation?

I don't hang much in either's sphere so idk how those scenes look.
 
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Danny said:
Valve seems to be in an alliance with Yuzu:

kotaku.com

Oops: Valve Shows Switch Emulator In Steam Deck Vid, Then Deletes It

A new Steam Deck video shows a Portal 2 thumbnail where the Yuzu Switch emulator previously was
kotaku.com kotaku.com

Makes sense, Valve is in competition with Nintendo, Nintendo has an large library of exclusive games that Valve wants to have emulated into the steam deck to make the Steam deck a credible alternative to the Switch.

So Valve is promoting emulation of Nintendo games, which shows that Valve is a threat to Nintendo.
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Valve literally asked Nintendo if they were cool with the Dolphin being on Steam before doing anything else. Valve is absolutely going to side with Nintendo or any protectionist litigation if push comes to shove.
 
hologram said:
So what exactly is your point here then? You want Nintendo to stick it to the pirates you say you're a part of, while also acknowledging that the precedent is bad? Is this just some simplistic "emulation is piracy and piracy is theft and theft is bad" take? Genuinely not understanding your angle here
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Well for one I'd like to not be called a loser simply for sharing my own opinion. I was under the assumption Famiboards didn't allow direct insults like that.

For two, all I'm saying is piracy hurts companies and media.
 
I don't know why people are defending piracy here. TotK could've had 21 million sales instead of 20 million, that money could save Furukawa from living in a box. Nintendo is completely justified going after people who are only tangentially involved and making everything worse for everyone, owning the pirates is what matters.
 
Scrawnton said:
When it comes to the morality of all of this, I stand on the side that is okay with emulating old hardware where games and systems are actively and officially available anymore, like 3DS and older. I personally am not okay with emulation of games and systems that are still active and the purchases readily available to be made where the original creators/publishers can still profit.
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This doesn't make sense because it's almost like it's giving some validity to the argument that Emulation is illegal or should be made illegal but in reality, nobody owes Nintendo or any company for that matter to not start making Emulators until the system is out of stock and no longer available. What does the age of the system have to do with anything?

Emulation is legal full stop. You can make an emulator for a system that's 24 hours old or 24 years old. Same thing.
 
Mekanos said:
You admit the corporations actively harm workers, so I dunno why you'd take their side on this one.
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For the people ITT who are implying piracy is impacting nintendo in any meaningful way, I want you to do this simple exercise:

Go on any illegal switch rom website and look at download numbers, run through multiple if you're so inclined, then look at top viewed switch emulation videos on youtube (iirc most are BsoD's emulation channel videos and maybe someOrdinaryGamers) and if you want, speculate a number I don't know, half? a quarter? a third? of those views are say, from people who actually watched and set up these emulators only to play illegally obtained roms.

Now, go on nintendo financial report websites, compare these numbers with their switch game sales numbers. It doesn't even make a dent.

The average nintendo enjoyer doesn't give a damn or barely even knows emulators.

If something were to happen to nintendo due to emulation being widely available, it would've happened already, years ago. The reason it doesn't is simple:

Nintendo makes unique software+hardware experiences that can't be emulated PROPERLY on PC.

  • the wii remote: even IF you connect one to a pc, many people don't have one, only a mouse and keyboard and even IF they bought one, it's definitely not as intuitive or appealing as turning on a wii, being greeted by that sleek interface (which I know emulators can run, but stay with me here), putting a disk and hitting play and having everything work percectly without setting anything up
  • the dual screen ds/3ds and 3d display: this one doesn't need an explanation. yes, I know you can use split screen or another monitor and no, it's not intuitive, it's not the same, the other monitor needs to be touch-enabled otherwise you have to use a mouse
  • the whole joycons concept: emulators do many of the things these controllers do in the most hacky way possible: your controller has no nfc support? oh, you have to use the mouse, pick from a list of amiibo and THEN grab your controller once again. your controller has no gyro support? too bad. you won't be able to finish a couple dungeons in zelda, what? you want a controller in can split in half and share with a friend? well, too bad, should have bought joycons then. what? they don't come with a joycon grip? well, at this point you might as well buy a switch.

And these are only a couple of the examples, I could go on with this for hours.
 
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VDenter said:
This doesn't make sense because it's almost like it's giving some validity to the argument that Emulation is illegal or should be made illegal but in reality, nobody owes Nintendo or any company for that matter to not start making Emulators until the system is out of stock and no longer available. What does the age of the system have to do with anything?

Emulation is legal full stop. You can make an emulator for a system that's 24 hours old or 24 years old. Same thing.
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it's not written in law that it's legal, it's due to a prior court ruling. Those can and have been overturned in the past. So it's techically true but it's far more precarious than some make it out to be
 
I am not a lawyer so take this with a huge grain of salt.

I briefly skimmed the file and very little is about the act of emulation at all. The big points it goes into detail on is:
  1. Yuzu's bypassing copy protection/decrypting of ROMs, and telling users how to supply the info to Yuzu needed to do so.
  2. The huge connection between Yuzu and the Switch piracy scene, and how Yuzu profits off of it via their Patreon.
  3. Allegations that Yuzu devs themselves pirate leaked games to get support for them working in Yuzu at (or before) official release.
All the counts are related to the DMCA and related parts in the USC about anti-circumvention and unlawful copies of copyrighted works. A lot of the stuff in the preliminary statement and factual background sections about emulation in general don't really show up in them. This seems like Nintendo's argument is anti-circumvention and more traditional copyright issues.

My speculation: The first point is something all emulators do. The reason Yuzu is the first emulator to be sued is pretty much entirely because of the second two points: Running an extremely popular Patreon for the emulator (aka. a commercial business) and the allegations that devs themselves pirate games before release.
 
VDenter said:
This doesn't make sense because it's almost like it's giving some validity to the argument that Emulation is illegal or should be made illegal but in reality, nobody owes Nintendo or any company for that matter to not start making Emulators until the system is out of stock and no longer available. What does the age of the system have to do with anything?

Emulation is legal full stop. You can make an emulator for a system that's 24 hours old or 24 years old. Same thing.
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As has been established by Moon Channel, it's greyer than this. And we should be happy for that current grey area.

And if you think poking and proding these big corporations and their current machines is the way to go, we have a court system that is increasingly favoring big corpo at an alarming rate. Old cases can be overturned.
 
I honestly hope Nintendo wins this. People are always "eMuLaTiNg iSnT piRaTiNG" but you all know damn well that 99% of them are not obtaining their games legally. 1M downloads before launch is nothing to sneeze at and I hope this sets a precedent moving forward.
 
As a (former) Nintendo shareholder, I do not approve of them wasting time going after emulation makers. While I am sympathetic of lost revenue due to pirating software, They are barking up the wrong tree and ultimately have no one to blame but themselves for the security flaws.

(puts on Joker mask)

Maybe if Nintendo wasn't so damn greedy about riding an old platform out for 3 more years than needed they wouldn't release TOTK on a cracked like an egg machine.

Oh my how the greed turns.....

ahhahahahhah

Just a REMINDER KIDS....

Nintendo (And any other corporation) are not your friends and do not deserve your defense. Period...
 
Danny said:
The hackers will do everything they can to hack into Switch 2, they seem obsessed about destroying Nintendo, as evidence by their Subreddits and youtube videos, they are aiming to kill Nintendo as a company true their efforts, and they will succeed in the future if nothing changes.
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No doubt that people will try to emulate and hack the next Switch. But I find it hard to believe that most people do that to destroy Nintendo. Most people do it for preservation and game mods. Seems counterintuitive to want to destroy the company you want to emulate and mod the games of. There will be nothing to emulate and mod if that would actually happen.
 
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Danny said:
The hackers will do everything they can to hack into Switch 2, they seem obsessed about destroying Nintendo, as evidence by their Subreddits and youtube videos, they are aiming to kill Nintendo as a company true their efforts, and they will succeed in the future if nothing changes.
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Corny ass post, stop cooking and go outside and get some fresh air.
 
Dekuman said:
Nintendo doesn't sue for fun. Their argument will not be about emulation but piracy and they will cite specific damages with Totk. I think it's a different case from saying emulation is illegal, just that the specific emulator specifically caused damages due to widespread piracy of a game before release. That's something a court can decide

Interesting they are citing patreon numbers as well. Will be interesting what other things are brought up
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Ding ding ding
 
Allegations that Yuzu devs themselves pirate leaked games to get support for them working in Yuzu at (or before) official release.
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If Nintendo finds that in Discovery I feel like that WOULD be pretty daming. I do wonder if they have proof of this though, it's a serious allegation
 
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Mango said:
For two, all I'm saying is piracy hurts companies and media.
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I think you're right, in broad strokes. Yes piracy hurts companies and media. Look at the unfortunate state of the music industry. Musicians have to tour relentlessly and sell far more merch than they used to because the music has been devalued after piracy went rampant.

I think where the point of contention lies is when this line of thinking is applied to Nintendo in particular. Nintendo is not a small group of musicians. They are a multi-billion dollar corporation in an industry that despite recent struggles of ballooning development costs, layoffs, and slipping profit margins, is still blossoming and bringing in money industry-wide. They'll weather the storm just fine. That doesn't mean they aren't wrong re: Yuzu profiting and Zelda piracy, but the point still stands. The money they've lost is a small drop in the Pacific considering how much money Nintendo has and is bringing in.
 
Lugia667 said:
it's not written in law that it's legal, it's due to a prior court ruling. Those can and have been overturned in the past. So it's techically true but it's far more precarious than some make it out to be
Click to expand...

Mer.Saloon said:
As has been established by Moon Channel, it's greyer than this. And we should be happy for that current grey area.
Click to expand...


They can be overturned but good luck to Nintendo doing that. I genuinely do not think they will win. In the meantime, nothing about Emulation is illegal. The age of the system is irrelevant. Devs can start making the emulator whenever they want. All I will say about Moon., Not a fan.
 
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LonkFromPA said:
I honestly hope Nintendo wins this. People are always "eMuLaTiNg iSnT piRaTiNG" but you all know damn well that 99% of them are not obtaining their games legally. 1M downloads before launch is nothing to sneeze at and I hope this sets a precedent moving forward.
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What precedent are you hoping for, exactly?
 
Beansy said:
Emulators don't have to release updates for every game that releases. IIRC, the game ran near perfectly when it leaked, so that argument is moot. There were some issues with the depths, and they released updates for that, which they might be able to argue against. But that then becomes an issue of software support and a developer's obligation for support for a product that others have purchased. If people buy a product and find that product to be faulty or defective and then refund it, the devs often have to eat the loss. So a developer then has to worry about supporting themself by stopping these refunds.
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If you launch a defense like this you are automatically guilty to any judge, you are basically admitting that your "consumers" pay for your product to practice piracy with it.
 
lattjeful said:
I think you're right, in broad strokes. Yes piracy hurts companies and media. Look at the unfortunate state of the music industry. Musicians have to tour relentlessly and sell far more merch than they used to because the music has been devalued after piracy went rampant.

I think where the point of contention lies is when this line of thinking is applied to Nintendo in particular. Nintendo is not a small group of musicians. They are a multi-billion dollar corporation in an industry that despite recent struggles of ballooning development costs, layoffs, and slipping profit margins, is still blossoming and bringing in money industry-wide. They'll weather the storm just fine. That doesn't mean they aren't wrong re: Yuzu profiting and Zelda piracy, but the point still stands. The money they've lost is a small drop in the Pacific considering how much money Nintendo has and is bringing in.
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Music distributors are far more to blame for cutting into musicians’ revenue than pirates. Spotify makes billions.
 
kasparov77 said:
For the people ITT who are implying piracy is impacting nintendo in any meaningful way, I want you to do this simple exercise:

Go on any illegal switch rom website and look at download numbers, run through multiple if you're so inclined, then look at top viewed switch emulation videos on youtube (iirc most are BsoD's emulation channel videos and maybe someOrdinaryGamers) and if you want, speculate a number I don't know, half? a quarter? a third? of those views are say, from people who actually watched and set up these emulators only to play illegally obtained roms.

Now, go on nintendo financial report websites, compare these numbers with their switch game sales numbers. It doesn't even make a dent.

The average nintendo enjoyer doesn't give a damn or barely even knows emulators.

If something were to happen to nintendo due to emulation being widely available, it would've happened already, years ago. The reason it doesn't is simple:

Nintendo makes unique software+hardware experiences that can't be emulated PROPERLY on PC.

  • the wii remote: even IF you connect one to a pc, many people don't have one, only a mouse and keyboard and even IF they bought one, it's definitely not as intuitive or appealing as turning on a wii, being greeted by that sleek interface (which I know emulators can run, but stay with me here), putting a disk and hitting play
  • the dual screen ds/3ds and 3d display: this one doesn't need an explanation. yes, I know you can use split screen or another monitor and no, it's not intuitive, it's not the same, the other monitor needs to be touch-enabled otherwise you have to use a mouse
  • the whole joycons concept: emulators do many of the things these controllers do in the most hacky way possible: your controller has no nfc support? oh, you have to use the mouse, pick from a list of amiibo and THEN grab your controller once again. your controller has no gyro support? too bad. you won't be able to finish a couple dungeons in zelda, what? you want a controller in can split in half and share with a friend? well, too bad, should have bought joycons then. what? they don't come with a joycon grip? well, at this point you might as well buy a switch.

And these are some only a couple of the examples, I could go on with this for hours.
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Okay, but mass piracy - we're talking in the scale of millions here - weeks before a game's official release date has literally never happened before, or has only just recently become the norm. It's not a sustainable long term practise for any company, or for the video game industry as a whole regardless of how profitable they are currently. Your assessment that "it would've already happened" is just plain wrong when you look at how much the numbers are growing compared to how many people were pirating games on release date previously, and the trend towards hardware uniformity which only makes this a more accessible practise going forward.

The numbers mentioned in regards to pre launch piracy of TotK are just unprecedented, and we're also in uncharted waters with regards to the growth of piracy in the industry, so it's just nowhere near as black and white as you're claiming.
 
Mekanos said:
Music distributors are far more to blame for cutting into musicians’ revenue than pirates. Spotify makes billions.
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I half agree. I think piracy started the downward spiral, and the distributors/streaming services ensured that the industry won't recover.
 
Wonder if this goes to trial or if they're intending to settle. Personally, if I were Yuzu, I'd probably not bet on taking this to trial, although the outcome if they somehow win the case would be quite interesting.
 
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Raysu Delight said:
Okay, but mass piracy - we're talking in the scale of millions here - weeks before a game's official release date has literally never happened before, or has only just recently become the norm. It's not a sustainable long term practise for any company, or for the video game industry as a whole regardless of how profitable they are currently. Your assessment that "it would've already happened" is just plain wrong when you look at how much the numbers are growing compared to how many people were pirating games on release date previously, and the trend towards hardware uniformity which only makes this a more accessible practise going forward.

The numbers mentioned in regards to pre launch piracy of TotK are just unprecedented, and we're also in uncharted waters with regards to the growth of piracy in the industry, so it's just nowhere near as black and white as you're claiming.
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Exactly, imagine a future where we have release day piracy numbers of like 5 million of a new game. Tears of the Kingdom piracy figures are enormous, and its only going to continue to grow and grow.

Piracy isn't stagnant as many people seem to believe, its a growing industry as evidenced by TOTK figures alone.
 
Danny said:
Emulators will in the end be the death of Nintendo as a hardware maker, in the future millions upon millions will have PCs capable of emulating Switch 2, this thing will only get bigger and bigger with time. Console gaming is dying already today, if emulation takes more market share from these companies then that market is dead.
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That's why the Switch and Nintendo's software is selling records every time?

You are plain wrong.
 
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LonkFromPA said:
I honestly hope Nintendo wins this. People are always "eMuLaTiNg iSnT piRaTiNG" but you all know damn well that 99% of them are not obtaining their games legally.
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Sincere question. Are you against used games? I mean, those are taking sales from Nintendo. Think of the profits those companies are losing from people not wanting to pay full price and instead going to Gamestop! Remember Nintendo going after Blockbuster?
People will always want to get around paying full price. If they're not willing to pay full price, they likely would not buy the game otherwise. And a lot of people did, despite an increased price! +20 million copies is absolutely nothing to sneeze at, and is more than any of the PS4's best selling games.
 
"I really hope that the parasitic class who do nothing but extract rent that rightfully belongs to laborers successfully destroys the ability to preserve art so they can receive maximum profits" - some people in this thread
 
Mekanos said:
Music distributors are far more to blame for cutting into musicians’ revenue than pirates. Spotify makes billions.
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Yes, because music as an individual item lost so much of its value that it has to be sold as an aggregate in a subscription to turn some profit, giving excessive power to those corporations who own the streaming rights.
 
Paxie said:
If Nintendo is so desperate to stop piracy, then perhaps instead of being an asshole and destroying one of the viable avenues of game preservation, they should enforce performance standards (at least locked 30fps) on Switch games. Lots of games, including ones published by Nintendo themselves, are in states that range from aggravating to completely unacceptable. I'm not going to be one of those people that grouse about outdated hardware, but there are other avenues to disincentivize emulation they can travel without doing this BS.
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Man, what are you saying? Lol
 
I will say this, yes Nintendo will be fine and probably won't go bankrupt from piracy. However if you think they would just sit back and ignore potentially (emphasis on that)1 million lost sales, well I dunno what to say
 
JazzyFuture said:
Sincere question. Are you against used games? I mean, those are taking sales from Nintendo. Think of the profits those companies are losing from people not wanting to pay full price and instead going to Gamestop! Remember Nintendo going after Blockbuster?
People will always want to get around paying full price. If they're not willing to pay full price, they likely would not buy the game otherwise.
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Ehhhhhhhhhhhh I'm very much pro-emulation but I feel like that's not a sound argument. A used copy was once a new copy. Once Nintendo gets their money from the initial sale, it doesn't really matter to them where the game goes or what it does. Comparatively, piracy is kinda like... creating a new copy out of thin air, I guess?
 
Lugia667 said:
I will say this, yes Nintendo will be fine and probably won't go bankrupt from piracy. However if you think they would just sit back and ignore 1 million lost sales, well I dunno what to say
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It's the classic argument of if those sales were actually lost in any significant way.

Historical evidence suggests that no, those 'lost sales' would not have translated into real sales for Nintendo. The people who wanted to pirate will not have purchased the game if they couldn't emulate. The film and music industries try to argue this point for many years and haven't gotten anywhere with it either.
 
Shareholder Chad said:
As a (former) Nintendo shareholder, I do not approve of them wasting time going after emulation makers. While I am sympathetic of lost revenue due to pirating software, They are barking up the wrong tree and ultimately have no one to blame but themselves for the security flaws.

(puts on Joker mask)

Maybe if Nintendo wasn't so damn greedy about riding an old platform out for 3 more years than needed they wouldn't release TOTK on a cracked like an egg machine.

Oh my how the greed turns.....

ahhahahahhah

Just a REMINDER KIDS....

Nintendo (And any other corporation) are not your friends and do not deserve your defense. Period...
Click to expand...
We can choose to not support greedy anti-consumer practices in many legal ways.

We have bigger issues coming our way I think with the all digital only future and stuff. Will Nintendo continue to offer vouchers? I really hope so. Nintendo's been pretty consumer friendly thus far comparatively.
 
Lugia667 said:
I will say this, yes Nintendo will be fine and probably won't go bankrupt from piracy. However if you think they would just sit back and ignore potentially (emphasis on that)1 million lost sales, well I dunno what to say
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Pokemon Platinum was illegally downloaded 2 million times, with less than 8 million copies sold, and last I checked all the DS emulators never caught Nintendo's ire.
lattjeful said:
Ehhhhhhhhhhhh I'm very much pro-emulation but I feel like that's not a sound argument. A used copy was once a new copy. Once Nintendo gets their money from the initial sale, it doesn't really matter to them where the game goes or what it does. Comparatively, piracy is kinda like... creating a new copy out of thin air, I guess?
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Piracy happens because of someone doing what they want with the copy they purchased. It's a copy of a game that was bought. If people are downloading that, I doubt they would have bought it new anyways. Or in the case of leaked games, sometimes people do buy the game when it actually comes out, sometimes people just want to play something early.
 
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