Thursday, August 25th 2022
Denuvo Introduces Industry First Nintendo Switch DRM Protection
Denuvo by Irdeto, is pleased to unveil a revolutionary technology to protect games launching on Nintendo Switch from piracy. The announcement comes as the video gaming industry is gathered for this year's Gamescom, currently taking place in Cologne, Germany. Nintendo consoles have long suffered from piracy issues and the Switch is no different. Even if a game is protected against piracy on its PC version, the released version on Switch can be emulated from day one and played on PC, therefore bypassing the strong protections offered on the PC version. This can happen with any of the numerous games available on Switch.
By preventing piracy on Switch while blocking unauthorized emulations on PC, studios are able to increase their revenue during the game launch window, which is the most important period in regard to monetization. The Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection will ensure that anyone wishing to play the game has to buy a legitimate copy.
As with all other Denuvo solutions, the technology integrates seamlessly into the build toolchain with no impact on the gaming experience. It then allows for the insertion of checks into the code, which blocks gameplay on emulators.
"We at Denuvo understand that piracy negatively affects the gaming industry and are working with the industry parties to ensure they have the latest protection technologies available for them. Our team is excited to provide a solution that helps the developers and publishers to help fight the issue of Nintendo Switch piracy," said Reinhard Blaukovitsch, Managing Director at Denuvo by Irdeto.
Even though it is hard to pinpoint the exact number of players who emulate Switch games on PC, it is easy to find online forums dedicated to emulation and piracy. The most popular groups have more than one million followers each. Recent research conducted by Irdeto in collaboration with Omdia found that 84% of game developers are continuously concerned about tampering and piracy. The study also found that 93% of those using anti-cheat and anti-tamper solutions are satisfied with the protection and value brought by game protection technologies.
Source:
Denuvo
By preventing piracy on Switch while blocking unauthorized emulations on PC, studios are able to increase their revenue during the game launch window, which is the most important period in regard to monetization. The Nintendo Switch Emulator Protection will ensure that anyone wishing to play the game has to buy a legitimate copy.
"We at Denuvo understand that piracy negatively affects the gaming industry and are working with the industry parties to ensure they have the latest protection technologies available for them. Our team is excited to provide a solution that helps the developers and publishers to help fight the issue of Nintendo Switch piracy," said Reinhard Blaukovitsch, Managing Director at Denuvo by Irdeto.
Even though it is hard to pinpoint the exact number of players who emulate Switch games on PC, it is easy to find online forums dedicated to emulation and piracy. The most popular groups have more than one million followers each. Recent research conducted by Irdeto in collaboration with Omdia found that 84% of game developers are continuously concerned about tampering and piracy. The study also found that 93% of those using anti-cheat and anti-tamper solutions are satisfied with the protection and value brought by game protection technologies.
51 Comments on Denuvo Introduces Industry First Nintendo Switch DRM Protection
There have been plenty of cases where removing Denuvo improved performance significantly (Resident Evil Village being a notable one). I will no longer buy games if they have Denuvo.I'm curious how this will work in practice, as both major Switch emulators actually need real Switch firmware in order to run. Also, the Switch really needs all the help it can get to run well (with its ancient ARM CPU and GeForce 830M-equivalent GPU), so I wonder what the performance impact will be.
Will this somehow be applied retroactively to old games? Good luck with that.
As always, DRM does not stop piracy (I'd argue it encourages it by giving paying customers a worse experience). The best way to deal with piracy is to make a good product for a good price. Nintendo releasing their games on PC would likely go a long way in solving this so-called "problem".
If actual piracy could be actually measured, it would be funny if the drm cost more than it saved.
Brace for 'DRM' definition disputes. Been there, done that on several occasions.
And who thought a software solution to a problem that hardware failed at is a smart way to go? AND market it to developers who already budget every last kilobyte and clock cycle?
Thought that is what steam/ epic/... were for :kookoo:
arstechnica.com/gaming/2011/08/accuracy-takes-power-one-mans-3ghz-quest-to-build-a-perfect-snes-emulator/
As emulation grows more and more accurate, this DRM snake oil should cease to function as well. It's hardly the first time that Nintendo has done this, for example, Pokémon Black and White, as well as Black 2 and White 2 actually contained an anti-piracy mechanism that caused the game to freeze and disabled the XP yield from battles, making it impossible to progress when run in an outdated emulator such as earlier builds of DeSmuME and No$GBA. If a gamer was persistent enough, they could use an Action Replay code to re-enable the experience point yield and use save states sporadically to counter the freeze interrupt on map change, which made the games playable from start to finish if one was truly bothered enough.
Eventually, progress on figuring the hardware architecture and excellent advances on documentation (largely thanks to the efforts of the No$ developer) led to authors perfecting their emulators, and as such these games can now run unmodified on modern versions of the aforementioned emulators, as well as the amazing second-wave melonDS emulator.
Naturally, they'd never disclose how it works, but I guess that it would be quite apparent and an easy targeted "fix" for a programmer skilled enough to write a Nintendo Switch emulator to begin with.
Nah, this is one of the first things I look for when interested in a game and if it shows in the product description, then I don't buy it. Antipiracy at its best. :laugh:
This was mostly expected, i saw this coming with the steam deck release, it made no sense for Nintendo not to do this tbh. It's unfortunately but expected and i even understand it.
If I find a game that had Denuvo at one point and has had it removed, then I'll be willing to buy that game. Monster Hunter World and DMC5 are my most recent formerly-infected purchases.I do wish there was more competition in that part of the scene, though.
I also don't like how she obfuscates her patches so we don't really know what they do or how they work. Guess I'll give her the benefit of the doubt until something bad comes up.
Though to be perfectly honest, I almost find it more morally correct to financially support people who make patches rather than lining the pockets of some shitty game publisher who swears that DRM stops piracy (it doesn't).