Denuvo's 'Switch Emulator Protection' Is Now Available Via Nintendo's Official Dev Portal

I'll just won't buy games from developers who use it.

@glaemay really? so if Super Mario Wonder has it you won't buy that? Why?

🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮
Yes… that’s all I will say

I’m so thrilled that this leech on the anus of gaming is expanding their reach.

Joy.

Although it seems like an effective and positive move against piracy, it is actually very bad news. Denuvo protection is known to affect the frame rate and related gameplay in some games. The capacity of the switch device is not enough to handle this.

@cmdrmarc Denuvo screws the performance of games because of their excessive “anti piracy” crap. So, imagine how Switch games will run now…

@cmdrmarc Because (on PC anyway) it has a real and demonstratable impact on performance. The Switch can hardly afford that hit.

Denuvo continues to be one of the most hated gaming software companies around, and this action only compounds that viewpoint. Really hope major titles choose not to use this program.

any game that has this steaming pile of turd boycot. buy any game with it and haver a worse xperiance (if it runs) than some cheeky black beard

Grim news. One of the worst companies in the industry.

I understand the hate for the performance hit, I guess I'm just optimistic that give you can't upgrade a Switch like you can a PC, I'd be really surprised if any major game publisher let that happen to their titles.

@JokerCK fact sometimes you need dl a pirate version of the game to actually play said game due this turd shovelware

About the Dolphin story there, Nintendo never contacted anyone, it was Valve that does all the running around and contacting. Nintendo only says no, it was Valve who decided if they accepted the emulator or not for Steam and it was Dolphin who choose to deliver or take it down from Steam. As for Denuvo, hopefully this only applies to the PC and phones emulation scenes not the actual console aspect of it. If games on Switch started playing like crap due to this then Nintendo needs to throw these Denuvo crap out the window. We already had to deal with cloud garbage on Switch, we don't need Denuvo to give us more lags and performance downgrade.

This will only encourage further piracy as any title that includes Denuvo already does.

@cmdrmarc I'm not buying it even without it lmao. Seems like a pretty bog standard 2D Mario title.

Here comes the pain for legit owners of the software purchased with their hard earned money! Crappy FPS will be all over the place😭

you know, as i woke up this morning i thought to myself, "You know what the Switch needs? Anti-piracy bloatware. THAT will enhance my gaming experience"

“””””no impact on the gaming experience“”””””

Did I use enough quotation marks? Should I put more?

Oh joy, just what we consumers need, more obnoxious bloatware in our TV games. I'll be interested to see which devs implement this "feature," so I can steer clear. Yuk.

Great a drm known for causing cpu issues on PC now on a system with a very limited CPU power.

I mean I did feel like my Switch was running way too cool. Hopefully this will burn my hands while playing Boxboy and Boxgirl.

And that's one more reason as to why I've homebrewed my Switch. Nintendo and its absurdly agressive intelectual property protection don't deserve my money.

Anything that has this DRM hot garbage I refuse to buy no matter what it is. Company should have long gone out of business the way it utterly cripples games that have it infestating the coding.

Please keep us updated on what games and developers use it 😉

TORCHES GET YOUR TORCHES HERE!

That's okay, I need to stop wasting my money anyway. I've got more than enough backlog to keep me busy...

I'm all for game devs protecting their games from piracy. But Denuvo sucks. Killing performance for protection isn't the way to go...

ok, I didn't know that the games will have performance issues. We are strugggling with 30 fps all the time and now this!?!? I will not buy too, any games that are bundled with this nonsense!!

For a moment, I thought I saw "We are now registered as authorised Nintendo Switch™ malware". But, It was just Denuvo all along. Phew!

@masterLEON This drm works before loading the game, so no it wont affect gameplay.

Good to see the industry is protecting the people who make games.

Don't Denuvo games require a constant online connection even for single player games? If that's the case it defeats the entire purpose of the Switch being a console you can play anywhere.

and at the cost of game preformance thanks emulator thrives

Imagine spending money on Denuvo, only to get fewer sales.

I heard somewhere that this middleware is different from the standard PC Denuvo, in that it doesn’t require online check-ins, so it might function radically different from the much maligned DRM, but I need more research to prove so.

@JokerCK all whilst easily being cracked for piracy purposes anyway. This only ever harms legitimate consumers

@RobTheIII I'll take 2 please, also do you have any snacks whilst we're at it?

All the complaining about Denuvo, but it has demonstrably slowed PC game piracy to a crawl (in terms of several big releases) now that there's only one cracker working on it.

As long as this is intelligently implemented and doesn't hinder the proper operation of the hardware, I'm all for it. Switch games are literally hitting PC piracy sites before paying customers can access them. It's out of control.

tbh though, given how late in the generation we are, I imagine the focus will be more on Nintendo's next console. They'll have hopefully learned some lessons from the Switch in terms of preventing piracy, or at least making it more difficult to pull off right away.

Why do they even have permission to do this? I would have thought with how protective Nintendo is that they would have only allowed themselves to do this, not some random company that already seems sketchy based on the use of ai-generated art and history of worsening game experiences on Steam 🤨

Why would you announce this at Gamescom of all places? It just makes me think of Nintendo's first E3, when they presented a slideshow on how to prevent piracy, lol.

@gabrigoes lmao people like you are the reason this is happening in the first place.

@carlos82 PITCH FORKS CAN'T BE A ANGRY MOB WITHOUT PITCHFORKS!

The only people this will affect in any meaningful way is the people who legitimately buy games already.

This stuff never stops piracy. If anything, it just gives them a challenge to beat, which they will. Remember when Sony launched Blu-ray with claims of it being unpiratable? It was like 3 days before it was broken. If it even took that long. Denuvo has been cracked and broken on at least half the games that had it on PC.
So all this will do is piss off legit buyers. But they're right about the launch window. This won't stop piracy, just delay it a bit. And the people who download pirated versions will just wait for that. So it's really accomplishing nothing.

This just might make me avoid the next Nintendo console altogether. Thanks for saving me money Nintendo!

Edit: before I get accused of encouraging piracy, I actually hack my own systems to rip my own games to play through emulators on my PC because it's a better experience than playing on the Switch's underpowered hardware. It's the reason I haven't played TOTK yet. If the Switch 2 can't play TOTK and future games at 60fps and at least at 1080p/1440p, or if Nintendo continues their (in my opinion) ridiculous business plan of never releasing their games on PC for those who don't want to play on their hardware, AND implement a system that prevents people from taking that endeavor into their own hands, then I have no reason to support Nintendo any further.

@dil_power yeah, of course, it's not the fault of the huge giant company and its absurd business practices, it's MY fault lmao you're completely misguided, man

Remember how totk sales were affected after totk was leaked 1 month earlier? Yeah, that didn’t actually happened.
Also, watch how larian are qoing bankrupt becuase they didn’t choose denuvo. No, they are top selling this month.

So, for who exactly is denuvo? For a bunch of suits to pat on the back that they did something just for the sake of it.

@gabrigoes Exactly, it is your fault. If people didn't hack their consoles and pirate games none of this would be necessary. These game companies aren't running a charity, sequels only get made when companies sell enough product to justify the development. Of course you're free to feel however you like about it, acting all innocent, shifting blame to the ones making the entertainment that you enjoy so much, but this is entirely the fault of pirates such as yourself. If there was no trending data indicating mass amounts of piracy on the platform, there would be no need for this software.

@gabrigoes You’re delusional. You’re trying to rationalize theft to justify yourself. It’s still theft no matter what you want to call it. And yes, if nobody was stealing their software, there is zero chance Nintendo would consider pouring a portion of their profits into a Denuvo. So yeah, as I originally said, people like you are the reason this is happening whether you wish to deny it or not.

Fun fact: piracy doesn’t lead to lost sales, they’re fear mongering devs to pay for their ***** and then give their games worse performance

There have been a LOT of games on Steam where the developer decided to pull this anti piracy protection due to the effect it has on the game!!! Don't support this crap or Take-Two/Rockstar!! A message MUST be sent to these companies!!!

I’m curious to see how will impact performance because the Switch is a device already struggling to run its own IP’s. I personally avoid Denuvo like the plague and avoid any modern game with Denuvo because it struggles on the Steam Deck.

Personally I don’t think anyone who affords video games is a pirate. People who don’t afford games, from countries when $70 is half the salary for a month or even the full salary, are the overwhelming force behind piracy. Piracy never did, and never will damage quality games’ sales. Take Baldur’s Gate 3 for example, which sells like crazy despite lacking Denuvo, or Stardew Valley and so many others.

Seeing "Denuvo" on a Steam game page is like a kiss of death because it means you're required to stay connected to the internet the entire time you play a game, even for singleplayer games.

I'm not sure how many Switch developers would actually advertise using Denuvo, but I won't touch any game that requires a constant internet connection.

@dribLS Piracy does lead to lost sales. We don't have permission to play and enjoy the game unless we buy it (sale for them). If we choose to play it illegally, obviously without their permission, then it will be lost sale for the devs.

I really don't know why they bother, ultimately these games get cracked in the end. Also, sometimes poorly maintained DRM solutions eventually prevent legitimate gamers from playing after a few years, so to some extent DRM actually pushes some gamers to piracy.

@Miu and your evidence for that is? I know it sounds logical but there’s been studies proving what I said. For example, the EU spent $430000 on how piracy affects media sales and for games it doesn’t hurt them and in some cases actually helps sales

People are going to make the choices they make, this is the wrong way to try to stop one choice.

Talk about chopping off your nose to spite your face. I feel it would be a less reviled move if the game devs/publishers just sent the pinkertons after the pirates and left the rest of us out of it.

Nintendo Switch shouldn't even have to be getting pirated to begin with (except for the case of delisted &/or discontinued games like Mistover, Pandemic, etc.) but lots of people want to be cheap and cheat so this is what they have forced developers into. Let's hope that the performance rate of games with Denuvo isn't too bad.
But to be honest though, I kinda am not a fan of where this is going at all... this might become a huge train wreck in the long run.

Why do you need evidence for that? It's just common sense. We can't ride and enjoy rollercoaster if we don't pay the entry fee. You might be able to find any loophole to ride rollercoaster for free, but you can't justify it doesn't lead to lost sales, same goes with gaming.

Games, or any form of entertainment are luxury, not necessity. You won't die if you can't afford to buy games.

Luxury- noun

"something adding to pleasure or comfort but not absolutely necessary"

Good, I don't have problem with emulating old games (like gba/snes/psone/etc), but emulating current games is just piracy.

Omg, I can't keep stealing all the games I want!? Downvote.

You've got to be a special kind of foolish to be mad at developers for trying to protect their games from thieves. Most of the complainers weren't going to buy the games anyway, so the devs don't really need to care.

I too am worried about performance, DRM, always online games, all digital future, etc., but the thieves and the reason so many companies make these decisions. 🤷🏽‍♂️

I feel like a few folks are missing the narrative of the discussion here - this isn't an argument whether piracy is good or bad, this is folks worried that a company infamous for negatively affecting performance of games is going to slow down an already infamously low-powered piece of hardware. Perfectly reasonable worry, I'd argue.

Also good that the DRM services are opt-in, meaning that not all games will include it. (Off-topic but the "DRM come true" tagline was genius; kudos to the author!)

Also while I'm here - remember to support DRM free, open source, donationware, etc. projects whenever and wherever you can

@Miu so, you pretty much acknowledge that piracy don’t hurt the sales. Like you said, people who don’t have money will not buy the games in the first place, which result in zero sales for devs.

@clianvXAi

you pretty much acknowledge that piracy don’t hurt the sales

? Can you quote any?

The key word here is “available” so developers won’t be forced to use it. I can’t say the same for Nintendo itself though…

It's popcorn time ladies and gents!

@gabrigoes did you just create an NL account to comment on this?

@dil_power Piracy is stopped if the game or software is good, accessible and affordable. Piracy comes when the coveted digital product is not easily accessible nor affordable. Anti-piracy practices, ironically, make the product more difficult to access and will indeed promote the very thing.

I’ll give you an real life analogy. I went to a pharmacy to buy deodorant, a simple basic needs product. I found out that they are locked under key and I had to scour the store to find someone to open the lock for me and get one. After that, I just stopped going to that store forever.

Really, the pharmacy is so preoccupied of a few people stealing a freaking deodorant that they are making it harder for the majority of people who don’t steal to legitimately get it. They would rather lose all of those sales because of fear, and then wonder why is there no one buying 🤣🤣🤣🤣

So, it’s not people who pirate games that are the problem, it’s the greedy companies who gatekeep their own products.

@gabrigoes I never once implied Nintendo was threatened by your singular actions or even by the collective piracy. Furthermore, creating backups of physical games you own is copying, piracy has nothing to do with copying it is the theft of intellectual property which you try to rationalize as ok. Would love to see you try to make argument for that in court. It’s even funnier to read about you pretending that consumers like myself are harming an industry you proclaim not to support at all as per your original comment. At the end of the day you are not seeking the truth you are simply making various erroneous statements to fit your selfish narrative. Nothing I can say will change that because it conflicts with your misplaced self righteous attitude to continue to procure yourself entertainment in a dishonest manner. But no matter what you will spout back at me, truth will remain the truth.

A dream come true for who? Not consumers. As if the Switch needed a performance hit when playing games. If this isn't the Swan Song of the current Switch model, I don't know what is. If it's baked into a new Switch model and performance accounted for, that may be a different story, but I don't see the current version being able to "chew bubble gum and walk at the same time." Ridiculous notion of this being a dream come true, unless you mean a Nightmare on Switch Street.

I do hope Nintendo going forward have some way to make emulation harder because piracy has been a huge issue with Switch releases .
Every release seems to leak a week or more in advance now.
I just hope they find a better method than this though.

“Piracy doesn’t hurt sales”
Ask SEGA that, ease of piracy was a huge factor in the Dreamcast’s death.

@Miu “Piracy does lead to lost sales. We don't have permission to play and enjoy the game unless we buy it (sale for them). If we choose to play it illegally, obviously without their permission, then it will be lost sale for the devs.”

Piracy leads to loss of sales only if the pirate was initially willing to buy the product, but decided not to, kind of like savings. You wanted to buy a product at $10, but got it at $5, so, you saved $5. But if you were never going to buy the product, you saved $10. The sale was never made nor lost because the person was not going to buy the product anyways.

Piracy becomes a problem when the pirate proceeds to sell or redistribute the software to people who were willing to buy it legally, but now decided not to.

I think it's a shame that there are ***** who pirate games. Period... Folks work hard to make games why should you steal it from them?

Now as soon we'll get a bunch of replies saying but what if it's no longer available!?! Doesn't make it okay to steal it.

Wait, this addition is DRM?
Isn't DRM like, you don't own this game, in spite of you bought it?
Like, if the "service" shuts down, you lose access to ALL of your games?
I never actually knew much, but those were my impressions.

As for pirating games, once upon a time, I was on this site and saw a fangame for download. Really enjoyed it. Right next to it was what I thought was another fangame. Got that.
Next to those two were Super Mario RPG, and Super Metroid.
Thinking they were also fangames, I downloaded them as well, only to deeply regret it when I found out they were official games I was supposed to buy.

@Cotillion
in one of the prior articles i saw people compare DRM like this to those annoying unskippable anti-piracy ads that would play before DVDs in the end its just inconveniencing the people who did decide to buy it and if anything incentivises piracy.

People inclined to pirate games were never going to buy them in the first place. The only impact on sales, if any, will be negative, if the Switch Denuvo implementation has as bad of performance hit as it's PC reputation would have you believe.

@HeeHo “Ask SEGA that, ease of piracy was a huge factor in the Dreamcast’s death.”

Not at all. Sega not marketing their own consoles and many games not being better than their ps1 and ps2 ports were their downfall. The PS2, DS and Wii were extremely hackable and were a nest of pirated games… those 3 consoles achieved 100M+ unit sales and billions in software revenue

@Savage_Joe
yeah iirc at the time with dreamcast it felt like a lot of people were waiting/saving for ps2, it felt like there was relatively little hype around the dreamcast by comparison even in the UK where sonic and Sega were at their most popular.

not a knock against the dreamcast as a system but more the marketing and whatnot surrounding its launch.

This wouldn’t be an issue to begin with if Pirates just “legally emulated” old games like they claim for the “game preservation” meme instead of the mostly usual new branded Nintendo release games sometimes before the actual release date.

@gabrigoes since you were on home brew anyway they didn’t “deserve” your money regardless apparently lmao.

Cat, meet mouse

@Astral-Grain Wait, I thought you are always suppose to stay connected to the internet when using Steam?

@Miu I wouldn't classify video games as a "luxury." Luxury's are usually products or services that are much more expensive.

This is wonderful news for developers who are working on games for Nintendo's platforms (mainly Switch 2 given the timing). It's absolutely ridiculous that pirates get to play (and spoil) games long before paying customers have access to them, and there are no repercussions of any sort most of the time.

Denuvo does not affect performance if it's implemented correctly. Some developers have been lazy or clueless about its implementation in the past and have used it incorrectly, this is not the middleware's fault. Of course everyone wants to have an opinion despite not understanding anything about it.

Also, it goes without saying that so called "boycotts" will do absolutely nothing, and you won't boycott anything anyway, it's just an empty threat. Nobody will ever take gamer boycotts seriously. Software sales have absolutely skyrocketed since more companies adopted anti piracy measures. They are not dumb, it works.

@IceEarthGuard Steam has an offline mode, though it's definitely not perfect.

For Steam, I think most games require you to "check in" while connected to the internet now and again, but I avoid any with Denuvo because I have a Steam Deck and I'm not always connected to WiFi. A lot of Steam games these days only require Denuvo for a year or so after launch to stave off the launch sales being impacted by high piracy. I'm actually watching a few now in the hopes that they drop Denuvo soon so I can buy them and play them unrestricted.

Switch definitely has that advantage over PC and other consoles, among others of course.

I just wish Denuvo could come up with a solution that doesn't hinder the player experience.

@Switch_Pro I feed that is the reason Nintendo is okaying this. The issue I feel is less emulation itself and more the active piracy of current Switch software. Odds are Nintendo will invest heavily in Switch 2 anti-piracy which is kinda sad considering the girth of grade-A content on Switch that Nintendo even okayed this.

As for my thoughts on this... well... it was going to happen when Switch piracy is so publicized and widely known. We can't expect Nintendo and DRM developers to not do something to alive 3rd parties that their software is "safe." Sadly this will only hurt preservationists in the long run.

@Wexter Unfortunately, it is a necessary "evil" because piracy on Switch is out of control. Many companies opt to eventually get rid of it on software that has run its course, but many games on Nintendo platforms have serious legs, and I can see Nintendo themselves adopting it. Honestly, I'm fine with it as long as the developers know how to use it properly.

Obviously, I'm all for preservation, but not in the expense of projects making less than they should. Some people think that all the companies and projects make billions, this is not the case, some barely break even and then people complain that they are releasing another sequel or remake. One of the reasons many companies decided to switch to online and live service games is exactly that they are unpirateable.

TL;DR: People should stop complaining about things they don't understand and BUY good games. Zero sympathy for pirates. If you can't afford games, there are like a million free to play games and many of them are great.

I'm against piracy, but true pirates always find a way regardless of these measures. This is just going to further hurt paying customers like DRM always has.

I steer clear of games on Steam that use this and I'll do the same here. I don't care if they are first-party or third-party.

@theModestMouse Is a shitzo a type of dog?

piracy is NOT stealing. this is an immutable, objective fact

Am I a criminal if my Wii, Wii U and 3DS are modded?

@FoxyDude Exactly. I love Nintendo games, and love supporting Nintendo developers. This is the kind of thing that could get me to just start playing my favorite Nintendo games on my laptop. I hope Nintendo delists this garbage and publicly states their opposition to it ever appearing on any of their consoles.

@IceEarthGuard - That’s probably because a lot of people associate luxury with expensive, but really, anything you get that you don’t actually need, is a luxury. Buying from a fast food restaurant can be considered a luxury, even though it’s cheap, simply because it’s not a necessity.
————
Gotta love the usual ‘this wasn’t what I wanted, so I’ll pirate it’ mentality springing up again in response to this. Really tells you how mature some of us are in regards to how we handle problems.

As for the actual article topic, I don’t know this brand of software, but from what I’ve gathered from the comments, it has the potential for some performance hits if not handled correctly. But personally, as long as it’s not too bad (and it does what it’s supposed to ofc) I can probably ignore it. If not *shrugs * then oh well, I can just stick to what I’ve already got (or what titles don’t use it).

@FullMetalWesker I know that most fast food restaurants are not healthy. But regardless of that, it is still food and that is a necessity/need in life.

And nope, Luxury is meant for very expensive things. Just because something is not a need, does not make it a "Luxury." Just plain want.

Wants does not always = Luxury.

Sorry, but nobody can change my mind on this topic.

this will increase load times and frame rate issues for switch games..

@IceEarthGuard “Wants does not always = Luxury.
Sorry, but nobody can change my mind on this topic.”

Cool if that helps you sleep at night, but everyone else is right. Luxury =/= expensive. It’s a want, a dopamine fix, a privilege, a status symbol, etc… Playing video games is a privilege not everyone has. That’s the truth.

@Savage_Joe

I know Luxury is a want, but not all wants are a luxury. That is what I am getting at. And that is a fact/truth.

I am not saying luxury is not a want... Read my sentence better next time. I said "not always."

@IceEarthGuard - "I know that most fast food restaurants are not healthy. But regardless of that, it is still food and that is a necessity/need in life."

I think you're splitting hairs here, trying to squeeze your logic in where it doesn't quite fit.
But to clarify, fast food restaurants don't exist to provide sustenance, nor is that why people go there. They go there because it's fast, it spares them cooking/reheating, and it (usually) tastes good. Therefore, it fits under a luxury, rather than a necessity.

"Sorry, but nobody can change my mind on this topic."

Then you're being stubborn, and close-minded. Keep doing that if you want, but I should tell you that such thinking is unhealthy, and ultimately self-defeating.

"And that is a fact/truth."
Someone already posted it, but if you look up the literal dictionary definition, you'll find this:
"something adding to pleasure or comfort but not absolutely necessary"
or this one
"an indulgence in something that provides pleasure, satisfaction, or ease"
Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/luxury

You know, in case you're interested.

@FullMetalWesker I'm not stubborn. And I am very open minded, but Food regardless if it is from a damn fast food restaurant is and will always be in the Need section for crying out loud. (Edit: It only becomes a luxury if you are at a really expensive restaurant, where it's around $500 per person/meal for example. Just because you get food quickly at a fast food place, does not mean it's a luxury.)

If you look at more dictionaries they will have different answers to what luxury is.

When I went to college, they had Needs, Wants, Luxury, all separate. Their are Wants that have nothing to do with being a "luxury."

I did not want to argue about this topic. All I wanted to say was Video games are not necessarily a Luxury.

Edit: Basically what you are saying with your comment it is "Needs and Luxuries" only, not Needs and Wants. There is a reason why it is called Needs and Wants and not "Needs and Luxuries", and Luxury is used for the much more expensive wants. Because with your logic, I guess a piece of paper, a pen, a eraser, a plastic bag, a random piece of wood is a "Luxury."

@Wexter I’m wondering why it’s out so late in the generation. Unless these games will still be active when they release the Switch 2. Nintendo might be building out a platform for years to come, I don’t think they’re going to leave it behind. Especially the hybrid format. As long as they stay with an Arm-based SOC, they should be able to take these games into the future. Therefore preserving it themselves

@Not_Soos Gamescom is a trade show, there’s many developers there too. Trade shows were never meant to be a place for the public to consume information, but it morphed into it. I don’t think they trotted out on a stage and made this a main announcement. More like this was announced to developers exclusively if they want to use it.

Yeah, boy howdy this sucks. I think this is a way Nintendo could screw up the transition to their next console.
I'm also currently upset because I didn't realize I had auto-update on and TOTK updated without me wanting it to. I read today about how Nintendo didn't eliminate my favorite part in TOTK, but they made it despawn if you break the elevator railing off an autobuild. I don't want to waste zonite so I thought I'd just stay on version 1.1.1
OK, so I can't get version 1.1.1 back in any way. I happened to just purchase a physical copy of TOTK (I have been playing the digital download until now), so I popped that in, excited to try out version 1.0. NOPE, that's not possible! In airplane mode my Switch won't let me start a physical cartridge I bought! So it's Nintendo's way or the pirate highway, lol.
I hope DRM and online requirements are eliminated as soon as possible. Oh my God it's so messed up that one can't play a physical cartridge on a game system without an internet connection that forces a download. This turns Switch games and systems into future e-waste. Jesus christ

@120frames-please You have to do a factory reset in order to play a physical game in 1.0 (if it was previously patched and played on a higher one). There's no other way, welcome to Nintendo world. It's fun in here!

@Savage_Joe

The sale was never made nor lost because the person was not going to buy the product anyways.

The problem here is the pirate can actually enjoy that product without paying for it. It should be transactional and would benefit both parties, the devs will get the sale, the customer will get to play the game.

People always look at game/software as something different than physical product such as car, phone etc, hence they will think that piracy =/= stealing because it's like copying, the games will still be available unlike physical things. It's simple actually - a product is something transactional and something that would benefit both parties, it could be physical or non-physical. They can say that they are never going to buy that product, but the fact still remain that they can actually enjoy it without permission.

@DarrenWarrenV nice, so I'd just have to delete hundreds of my digital games I've downloaded just so I could start over in TOTK using the earlier version of the game so that I could eventually make it back to the right leg depot to get elevator railings again and be able to play the game the way I enjoyed the past month or so. Or maybe I could get TOTK running on my laptop and use whatever build of the game I want. So frustrating.

@120frames-please This is one of the examples where emulation comes in handy in your situation. No mather what you'll say tho, some people will bash you. I have a modded Switch and I dump my own games to be able to play on an Android projector wirelessly (with a module that has been developed). This was one of the main reasons why I have it, it's fantastic. I even installed Android on it and can play games like Half-Life 2. Still, soesn't matter if you want to emulate your legally bought games or if you have a modded Switch. Emulation or a modded Switch = piracy. Not everyone is pirating, some people want some normally unavailable functions so badly, that they simply mod it.

@Miu “I don’t need evidence because I already know I’m right!”

@120frames-please
I wish that would happen (nintendo delisting it and speaking out) but i really cant see it happening, many other devs still use it despite fan outcry and maybe the approval to use it is made by someone higher up in the companies maybe with less knowledge of the programming side.

The fact that criticism of performance issues and the like can often get dismissed as "whining" on this site and other similar places doesn't give much hope either.

Waiting for the following news:
1. Switch game X developed by Y is using Denuvo and run maximum 540P 25FPS on Switch docked
2. X is cracked and can do 4K 60FPS on PC
3. Y is wondering why X does not sell well

Take this cancer elsewhere.

@glaemay you probably never bought any games anyway.

@FullMetalWesker Last comment so I can get it off my chest, I agree with you depending on the country/where people live. But in Canada, you won't find anyone who would call a fast food place a "luxury" and many won't consider video games as a luxury (maybe the consoles themselves would count, but not the games.) If you call every Want in the world a luxury, then why is it not called "Needs and Luxuries?" So basically not every Want is a Luxury item or service. And if you are not saying every Want is a Luxury, then never mind I guess... (My mind is all over the place with this topic...)

(And just to stay on topic with this article... I see this Switch emulator protection stuff not doing well in the long run.)

Is the supposed "joy" expressed in this article, satire? Has to be satire with a sprinkle of sarcasm.

@glaemay Sounds to me like you don't buy your games anyway.

@Salnax Sorry if I don't understand your reply properly, but what I mean is something like we don't need evidence to know if stealing is right or wrong, am I right? It's just common sense for me.

If this breaks game performance those games need to be listed so people will buy only games that works. This is like DRM that never lasted on PC and lead to the world of Privacy to begin with. Do they not learn anything? Rather then go after ROM pirates or sites it just harm legit gamers.

@DarrenWarrenV Yeah, I just want to play with the elevator railings freely. I guess I can set a travel medallion next to the railings so I can always get two to freely build with. But it was nice being able to break them apart after autobuilding them. I've also been wanting higher frame rates. I don't know if my 3060 laptop could run BOTW or TOTK at 60. Don't know if the emulators have enough settings so that I could clear the way to smooth performance. Also don't know if I want to mess with getting it all set up. Oh well, I'll figure out how to play my favorite game one way or another.

@Mgalens This cancer has been stripped from games, so Nintendo can remove it too. Not one ounce of effort should be applied toward harming performance!

I've been through that time when a lot of legally bought CDs couldn't be played on some devices because of DRM. We're not doing this again.

@Miu Ah, yes, the typical phallacy of treating everything as a physical object.

It's quite the opposite, you can't treat every pirated game as a loss of sale since there's no guarantee that the person pirating it would've bought it if they couldn't pirate it, and they don't remove anything from circulation by pirating it, unlike with physical objects being stolen.

@Savage_Joe Don't forget that, unlike PS2, it didn't offer any backward compatibility, so Saturn owners, as few as there were, couldn't even take their games to the new console and it limited Dreamcast's library to only new titles, which weren't very numerous at the beginning.

@Miu And the fact remains that you're not depriving anyone of a good, which is an integral part of theft, thus piracy clearly does not equal theft.

@Miu Not really, since there are situations where it's justified, e.g. when lives are in danger, or when stealing from a tyrannical government, etc., regardless of the fact that piracy =/= theft.

@Manah Not to mention that the same CDs installed rootkits that were a pain to remove on any PC they were inserted into.

@Razzy Our intention to buy isn't relevant - only whether or not we got the product without paying for it, which in this case, the enjoyment and usefulness of the game/media/software. Game developers locked the enjoyment of the game behind a paywall, and if we get to enjoy it without paying, then it feels like stealing from them.

Why should some be forced to pay for a product and others not? If some people have to pay, then everyone should have to pay, else we are unfairly using people as a means to our own ends, which would be immoral.

Why should we get to enjoy the labor of someone else without compensating them for it? We don't need media to survive - it is a pleasure that is enjoyed. Why should someone else have to work to provide us pleasure for free?

That is selfish and unfair.

@120frames-please
oh yeah i definitely feel like people should be criticising this thing and there should be as much resistance as possible.

just that hopefully there wont be as many people dismissing criticism or worse, pushing back against it (claiming people are just "whining" or the like)

So, does that mean that there's a company speciallized in doing codes or schemes or whatever to prevent game to be pirated on lauch day.
And they now work for Nintendo as well?
I Mean, that's so cool.

@DarrenWarrenV

"You have to do a factory reset in order to play a physical game in 1.0 (if it was previously patched and played on a higher one). There's no other way, welcome to Nintendo world. It's fun in here!"

Didn't know that, thanks.

I previously thought it was tied to the save file. For example, I played an updated Azure striker Gunvolt, then couldn't load the earlier version from cartridge without update. Though I thought once i removed my save i was able to load the cart again. It may have been after I switched to OLED though. (So new system comparable to a factory reset)

Will it affect performance on the switch?

@Roz1281 Yeah, they're correct. I tried to play TOTK cartridge with another user that has no save file and the Switch just won't let me play the game without downloading the latest update. Huge bummer since I want to choose which version of the software I play. I'm thinking about factory resetting my Switch just so I can play version 1.0, but I'd really rather play any of the intermediate versions that have better performance while also allowing me to easily build fun stuff with many right leg depot elevator railings.