Discussion Do you think Nintendo will take extensive measures to block emulation and piracy on the Switch successor?

[Kreese]

Without knowing much about the technical side of all of this I'm going to say that Nintendo will finally take some serious measures to block the shit out of it.

Can anyone break this down layman's terms? What are they going to need to do?

 

[Hajeman]

Mario movie & TOTK already been piracy so many but Nintendo still can make a huge money. When a Switch 2 with more power coming, they will be more difficult to pirate. PS4 still not have piracy emulation yet

 

[neil]

They could invest a lot in anti-piracy but not really see any difference in sales. It seems like a waste of time that will also make them look miserly. Then pirates will just find a way anyway. Keep making good games instead, it's working.

 

[Kreese]

Mario movie & TOTK already been piracy so many but Nintendo still can make a huge money. When a Switch 2 with more power coming, they will be more difficult to pirate. PS4 still not have piracy emulation yet

No doubt the impact is not that large overall, but Nintendo seems VERY protective over their IP. I can't see it sitting well with them.

 

[Fuffelpups]

Nintendo already hide/removed a lot of Homebrew entry points that were used on hardware before the Switch.

• No easy to use web browser
• No save files on the sd card to temper with

Nintendos security game get's better every generation. This generation Nvidia made a big mistake with the Tegra chip.

No security is perfect, humans make erros.

Nintendo could go streaming service only and end the problem.

 

[ZephyrPhoenix]

I don't think there's going to be a difference. Nintendo's a fighting a losing battle in trying to go after piracy. The least they can do is try to make the switch successor almost impossible to crack, making it notoriously difficult to emulate.

 

[BassForever]

I assume part of the reason Nintendo is taking longer then some expected with the Switch successor is making sure the same security issue that plagued the Switch at launch isn't repeated.

 

[Ghostsonplanets]

Switch is already a very secure system. Take as an example the fact the latest models can't be homebrewed without a physical modchip. With the Next-Hardware, the security aspect will be much stronger, as Nintendo and Nvidia will have learned from their errors with Switch. Regarding emulation, given that the Next Generation Hardware will feature things like RT Cores and Tensor Cores and will be much stronger than Switch, I very much doubt we'll see an emulator for it unless either Nvidia or Nintendo do a fuck-up that opens the machine wide open. As an example, Nouveau, which a open-source reverse engineered Linux driver for Nvidia GPUs, still hasn't been able to interface with modern Nvidia GPUs (Pascal/GTX 1000 and above) due to much stronger security and firmware limitations. The PC and emulation community will scream, but we won't see things like ToTK being playable on emulators 12 days earlier with the next machine IMO.

 

[Beanstar40]

In my personal opinion that is subjective and in no way an objective fact or statement, i hope they take some time to figure out why people are emulating their games. Its clear that some people (like me lol) are getting tired of the low resolutions and frame rates of the switch. Maybe by catering to people who want something more powerful, they can cut down on peoples desire to turn to emulation. The microsoft approach might work, release two platforms. One with less power and a stronger one for enthusiasts. Continue to build your games around the less powerful hardware, but the people who want a resolution or frame-rate boost can get that on that on the high end version. Im not saying nintendo needs to make higher quality assets or anything, botw looks beautiful on an emulator with its original assets

 

[Pokemaniac]

They don't really have to do anything. Much of the piracy issues on Switch are still riding on the boot ROM bugs in the launch Switches. Just having games that only work on hardware with unbroken security will drastically raise the bar to piracy.

 

[Mbolibombo]

I think it's something that Nintendo and Nvidia has had a lot of discussion about and surely there's going to be effort to stop it.

 

[VolcanicDynamo]

Beyond making sure that the Nvidia chip they use doesn't have a massive security vulnerability, I don't think that Nintendo will go much further than they already do with their current games and hardware. I don't think they'll suddenly switch to streaming or anything like that. On the flipside, I don't think emulation development will stop for Nintendo's platforms. There's too much historic interest in it.

 

[Dcubed]

The Switch’s security was never actually really beaten. The current entry method relies on a hardware back door that NVidia accidentally left open on the original model Tegra X1 chip that allowed them to bypass all of the Switch’s built-in protection (which was fixed when they released the revised Switch model).

No reason to believe that the Switch 2 will have any similar security vulnerability.

 

[Regulus Tera]

As if they don't already do with the Switch.

It's an arms race. Nintendo can try, but people will find a way to crack security methods, regardless of how strong those are.

 

[Johna X]

Whatever they do with switch already sure


But please no DRM, and just generally that stuff like Nintendo feels like the company that is holding back all online games and all digital games above all else, when they buckle it's over and I don't want them to do it early just cause of this. Because I know they have less motive to do that because of younger audiences so like

 

[boodream]

Maybe what I’m saying is irrelevant, but I’m wondering to what extent nvidia’s recent security issues may have impacted the development of Nintendo’s next hardware or raised concerns about future vulnerabilities.

 

[PandaAndino]

Emulation its inevitable, because all emulation comunity knows that there is no reason to waste resources on a console that its not nintendo branded. Now piracy will take atleast 3 years this time. better than 2 from switch era.

 

[snesiscool]

Anti-piracy yes. The Switch is already Nintendo's most locked-down console, and I don't see Nintendo changing this for the next console.
Anti-emulation no. Nintendo had every opportunity to use anti-emulation tech for their games and they still haven't. Denuvo for Switch exists and no one uses it, not just Nintendo. At most, anything anti-emulation they do will be a side effect of their anti-piracy tech, not specifically anti-emulation.

 

[Deleted member 1108]

I will never not be amused with this community’s obsession with a non existent problem.

 

[Lugia667]

yeah wasn't the problem mostly an nvidia issue?

 

[Tangerine_Cookie]

Without knowing much about the technical side of all of this I'm going to say that Nintendo will finally take some serious measures to block the shit out of it.

Can anyone break this down layman's terms? What are they going to need to do?

If the implication is that they weren't doing that before, then you're wrong in your assumptions, because the Switch was pretty secure from the get go, and it mostly only failed due to an nVidia vulnerability that was serious enough, it affected a lot more devices than the Switch, and definitely wasn't on their side at all.
And even with that, Switch piracy isn't even close to as widespread as 3DS piracy was, which was not close as widespread as DS piracy was.

So, no, I don't think they're going to focus any harder than they already do, nor do anything special about it. Ultimately, piracy will happen at some point. As long as it doesn't harm sales, it's a relatively minor issue. And considering TotK's sales despite it having... an early release, I think it's absolutely not a priority.

 

[Puikko]

I doubt on-console piracy is an issue on any level as the units vulnerable to the software exploit make up only a small, small fraction of the Switches out there. The larger issue it creates is the plausible deniability of emulation piracy it enables. Hearing "I dumped my own keys/games " coming from people who never had any intention to spend a single dime on Nintendo is hardly uncommon. Not that even this is that much of an issue, but no doubt the most serious form of it.

This does make me wonder what will happen if Nintendo decides to employ proprietary Nvidia tech on their next console. Sure, most GPUs out there are Nvidia ones, but would the inclusion of DLSS exclude any GPU from another vendor(AMD, Intel) from ever being able to emulate the console, or would it lead to some form of more global DLSS emulation that could be used on native PC games to enable DLSS compatibility on for example AMD GPUs? I don't know much about the inner workings of such tech, other than that they allegedly need the Tensor cores to function, so I might just be rambling insanities.

All that said, I have no doubt Nintendo will continue to do their best to secure their consoles, but nothing sort of online verification will ever be fully secure and I doubt Nintendo will go there. At least not as long as their consoles continue to be portable. I personally would have very little issue with it if they did.

 

[Look over there]

In my personal opinion that is subjective and in no way an objective fact or statement, i hope they take some time to figure out why people are emulating their games. Its clear that some people (like me lol) are getting tired of the low resolutions and frame rates of the switch. Maybe by catering to people who want something more powerful, they can cut down on peoples desire to turn to emulation. The microsoft approach might work, release two platforms. One with less power and a stronger one for enthusiasts. Continue to build your games around the less powerful hardware, but the people who want a resolution or frame-rate boost can get that on that on the high end version. Im not saying nintendo needs to make higher quality assets or anything, botw looks beautiful on an emulator with its original assets

Easy answer that was true in the 90's and in every decade since: they make games that people want to play. That's the core of it all. Everything else is window dressing.

 

[Brock Reiher]

I think they will but I don't think it will be successful. What was the last Nintendo console to not be jailbroken within a few months?

 

[kasparov77]

Had the first revision of the Tegra chip in the 2017 switch been patched before release, it still wouldn't matter because modchips eventually became a thing.
The moment someone manages to load a payload and/or boot CFW on a Nintendo console - be it through a software exploit or using a modchip is when emulation for said platform kicks in full force. This isn't exclusive to Nintendo btw.
They first start by trying to find a way to dump the system's firmware from NAND and then reverse-engineering it and the hardware itself.

But "what if" Nintendo had the 2017 switch patched before release? how would that have affected the switch emulation scene?
Well, imho since I actually saw modchips floating around as early as ~2019, I think maybe we would see emulation progress delayed by about 2 years or so at best. Certainly it would make a difference (for those who even bother to emulate the platform that is).

I know a lot of people think those who emulate Nintendo on PC or mobile account for a large sum of players who could've adopted the original hardware but didn't due to the emulation software being conveniently available for free.
But the reality is, many emulator users are people who are invested in doing so because they want to play their legally dumped digital/physical titles at higher resolution/framerates and/or use mods without getting smashed by big N's ban hammer.

Of course, I'm not going to act like a whole bunch aren't pirates as well. But sometimes people forget that there's a considerable amount of people who aren't pirating because they don't even have interest in Nintendo games.

And I'll highlight that because I believe it's a considerably more serious issue for Nintendo than piracy as a whole. Pirates will always find a way, but convincing people on the fence to buy a switch and bringing interest to those who aren't into their games is what Nintendo should really focus over piracy imo.

They already have a solid telemetry system on switch online that outs hackers quickly enough followed by a permaban to the point that most people never even see hackers in their switch online lobbies - a HUGE upgrade from WiiU's and 3DS' online security. That same telemetry system is what Nintendo's using to keep people from having a hacked switch unpunished (well, at least the ones not savvy enough to avoid using NSO with a hacked system).

And like I said, software is KEY. I'm a nearly 30 year old male with multiple of my friends (PC-only gamers) having unfortunately ZERO interest in playing Nintendo's top 15 switch best sellers. They don't even want to pirate those games.

But how exactly does this happen when most of these people I know played (and enjoyed) titles on PC that are heavily inspired by previous Nintendo titles - blue fire, a hat in time, genshin impact, brawlhalla etc... I personally don't attribute it entirely to a difference in pricing and platform availability. I think there's also a huge factor most people don't consider: the lack of modern features on Nintendo platforms that makes it harder to attract more players (game streaming, proper video recording and discord support). And of course, proper third party support.

If Nintendo wants more people to own original hardware instead of emulating their platforms, they need to convince more people of becoming adopters in the first place. Nintendo lovers will buy any console N makes as long as there are games to justify it. But PC and Sony/MS users want a better justification.

Going back on topic: can Nintendo successfully release a secure, "pirate-proof" system with Switch 2?
Like I said, even assuming they manage to release Switch 2 without any exploits, modchips will eventually come around and once a couple knowledgeable people (those who worked on yuzu/ryujinx/etc...) get their hands on modded hardware, you can be sure it will take only a couple months until a Switch 2 emulation scene starts coming up with results.

Realistically speaking, what I think Nintendo can do to better handle this is release the new console with beefed up enough specs so people on current gen, low to mid tier hardware (i.e the majority on PC and mobile) have a harder time managing enough performance whilst running an emulator to even consider playing it on PC or Android. But not only that, they should use as much as possible NVIDIA's proprietary technologies that rely on their hardware so that emulators on PC will have a hard time working on competitor's GPUs (AMD and Intel).

If you're someone who has followed the Switch emulation scene you might know exactly what I'm talking about - for years switch emulation relied heavily on the user having an NVIDIA gpu due to the sheer amount of bugs and performance issues both emulators (yuzu and ryujinx) had when running under AMD and Intel GPUs.

 

[Gingerbread Man]

TotK sales show that piracy (which is only possible on a very limited number of launch consoles) and emulation (which requires a beefy PC) aren't really impacting Nintendo.

With that said, yes, they'll try to mitigate them as much as possible (as they already did with the Switch, were it not for Nvidia).

 

[Pokemaniac]

I doubt on-console piracy is an issue on any level as the units vulnerable to the software exploit make up only a small, small fraction of the Switches out there. The larger issue it creates is the plausible deniability of emulation piracy it enables. Hearing "I dumped my own keys/games " coming from people who never had any intention to spend a single dime on Nintendo is hardly uncommon. Not that even this is that much of an issue, but no doubt the most serious form of it.

This does make me wonder what will happen if Nintendo decides to employ proprietary Nvidia tech on their next console. Sure, most GPUs out there are Nvidia ones, but would the inclusion of DLSS exclude any GPU from another vendor(AMD, Intel) from ever being able to emulate the console, or would it lead to some form of more global DLSS emulation that could be used on native PC games to enable DLSS compatibility on for example AMD GPUs? I don't know much about the inner workings of such tech, other than that they allegedly need the Tensor cores to function, so I might just be rambling insanities.

All that said, I have no doubt Nintendo will continue to do their best to secure their consoles, but nothing sort of online verification will ever be fully secure and I doubt Nintendo will go there. At least not as long as their consoles continue to be portable. I personally would have very little issue with it if they did.

DLSS isn't really going to be an issue. Mods to replace it with competing reconstruction algorithms will likely pop up quite quickly, as the inputs and outputs are very similar. You already see those for PC games.

It's unlikely that there will be any hard compatibility blockers, just some results that won't be console accurate in places, and places where emulators will have to do things in software where the console can do it in hardware. Even an Nvidia GPU likely won't fully save you from the latter, as leaks suggest some custom accelerators not found in standard GPUs, like what appears to be a file decompression engine.

 

[fourfourfun]

Can anyone break this down layman's terms? What are they going to need to do?

I think the problem with the Switch was that it came out on a very well established, known and exploitable chipset. The next one (assuming here) I would imagine they would be working very closely with Nvidia in order to plug gaps.

 

[Bonejack]

Nintendo (and every other console maker) will of course do everything they can possibly do to prevent piracy, console hacking and so on.
Has been so, is so, and will continue to be so.

The question is more: Will nVidia royally fuck up again with what's coming next? ^^

 

[Phosphorescent Skeleton]

Yes, and it will fail because pirates will always find a work around. Always

 

[Tailzo]

They will do what they can.

But it will not be enough.

 

[jzero]

Every Nintendo console I can remember had serious piracy accessibility. Even though I can see Nintendo setting something different for their next HW, I'm not sure it'll be so different.

 

[Pokemaniac]

I think the problem with the Switch was that it came out on a very well established, known and exploitable chipset. The next one (assuming here) I would imagine they would be working very closely with Nvidia in order to plug gaps.

The problem with the Switch is that Nvidia's bootloader was broken, and no one noticed until getting used in a Nintendo console put them under a microscope.