Nintendo Takes Down Ryujinx Emulator, YouTube Videos Showing Emulation Get Strikes

[Nater]

If I already own the games I'm using the emulator for, doesn't that fall under "fair use".

Sorta the whole ripping/copying CD's and DVD's years ago?

Suppose they have something in their EULA that puts the nix on that argument.

 

[Vayra86]

I told to idiots to stop posting videos about emulation 10 years ago and I said this would happen but they never listened, anyway, emulation should have never gone mainstream, only few places used to talk about it and should have kept like that.

That's the reality I'm afraid. The mainstream stampede destroys everything. In and outside of tech.

Less is more, but when it comes to people... difficult story to tell

Now leave me alone, I'm going to download all available Nintendo emulators real quick

 

[Dr. Dro]

If I already own the games I'm using the emulator for, doesn't that fall under "fair use".

Sorta the whole ripping/copying CD's and DVD's years ago?

Suppose they have something in their EULA that puts the nix on that argument.

Truth be told it's a complete legal fustercluck and you're going to have wildly varying takes on this based on country and region, generally, emulation by itself is legal and at least in the United States, protected and backed by relevant jurisprudence such as

Sony Computer Entertainment, Inc. v. Connectix Corp
Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc. v. Bleem, LLC
Sega Enterprises, Inc. v. Accolade
Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc.
Recording Industry Association of America v. Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc.

And a few other cases I can think of which resulted in losses for the respective companies... or simply watch a quality video on the subject, like this:

That's the reality I'm afraid. The mainstream stampede destroys everything. In and outside of tech.

Less is more, but when it comes to people... difficult story to tell

This has never been so true

 

[windwhirl]

If I already own the games I'm using the emulator for, doesn't that fall under "fair use".

If you also own the corresponding console, you're allowed to make backups and some other stuff as long as it is for your own use and yours alone.

The whole argument here is that Yuzu, Ryujinx, etc., are programs whose only purpose is to bypass protections to let you play games and on top of that enable piracy on a massive scale. Those protections are backed up by copyright laws and other IP-related laws.

So, Nintendo's argument seems rather solid however you see it and the only way to bring it down is to go all the way to the Supreme Court against Nintendo. The problem is, Nintendo's argument is quite well backed up, so... you have very low chances of actually winning your case, and if you lose, the precedent could chill emulation in general for any console emulator in the present and in the future.

Also, none of these guys working on emulators have the kind of "fuck you money" to go against Nintendo all the way.

 

[Craptacular]

Basically in order for these modern-day console emulators to work they are cracking software encryption that is used as a form of DRM, which is illegal, at least in the US.

Older system emulators didn't have encryption of the game software that required cracking in order to make it work, hence why they are legal.

 

[Dr. Dro]

Basically in order for these modern-day emulators to work they are cracking software encryption that is used as a form of DRM, which is illegal, at least in the US.

Older system emulators didn't have encryption of the game software that required cracking in order to make it work, hence why they are legal.

Dolphin's case was such - it did contain a key, although we get into the whole illegal numbers controversy - these are extremely difficult to actually enforce, as the AACS and HDCP incidents have showed in the past. Knowing what this number is, it could effectively be replaced by anything that results in an equal value without actually sharing the text in itself.

Nintendo Switch emulators require that you extract the signing key from your own console, and will not operate without one as they do not have the necessary encryption files. Thus, nothing is really broken here - there are no circumvention measures involved.

 

[windwhirl]

Dolphin's case was such - it did contain a key, although we get into the whole illegal numbers controversy - these are extremely difficult to actually enforce, as the AACS and HDCP incidents have showed in the past. Knowing what this number is, it could effectively be replaced by anything that results in an equal value without actually sharing the text in itself.

Dolphin is both a Wii and GameCube emulator....

And the GC part doesn't require decryption, so no protections were bypassed there. I'm thinking that's why Nintendo decided to not go after them, because their case wouldn't be as solid as they'd like, plus, GC and Wii games are old. Nintendo probably decided it wasn't worth the lawyer expenses or some other factors

 

[kapone32]

I am so glad that I bought one of those Gray Market drives from Amazon, Allows me to play whatever console Game I want. Nintendo is so afraid of losing sales, like people still have NES and SNES consoles. This is why Freespace 2 was so much loved when we got all those great mods when the source code was released to the community. I am just a Gamer and not looking to steal anyone's source code. Nintendo does not care that for some emulators it is about preserving the art that was 80s Gaming.

 

[HairyLobsters]

Simply put I am not buying any Nintendo products since the Yuzu incident.

I'll stick with my old SNES from which Nintendo will receive no revenue with which to prosecute their excessive application of intellectual property.

If you were using Yuzu, you probably weren't buying anything to begin with.

 

[windwhirl]

If you were using Yuzu, you probably weren't buying anything to begin with.

... For games where the corresponding console and media are still selling, I'd not be surprised if 99% of emulator usage is not legitimate (as in, they own the console AND the games they're emulating).

 

[skizzo]

I told to idiots to stop posting videos about emulation 10 years ago and I said this would happen but they never listened, anyway, emulation should have never gone mainstream, only few places used to talk about it and should have kept like that.

as much as I don't want to be a "gatekeeper" I do think there needs to be some, reasonable, threshold of "either you get it or you don't" attitude towards emulation. If you don't pass the test, well, come back later and hopefully it goes better for you kinda thing.

I've gotten rather involved with frontends in recent years, majority of time spent with LaunchBox/Big Box now-a-days. The devs are trying to make it into a super n00b friendly program that is frankly patronizing to any real emulation fan. They want everything to be automatically downloaded and configured for users, automatic updates, they want to stifle complains from clueless n00bs like why cannot my 13 different third party brand controllers work out of the box for all emulators, etc.

These are the types of boobs, I mean n00bs, I mean, likely same amount of insult either way, who post around asking for ROMs and firmware, BIOS, etc no-no's, (or even literally trying to share them on forums! yikes!) eventually streaming themselves playing some game before it even releases.

These are the morons who give emulation a bad name. At least the rest of us are smart enough to try and stay under the radar. The "unspoken rules" of emulation are being trampled on by poser geeks. A respectable geek would understand the nuances of figuring out certain things by themselves, or discussing them in a way that doesn't bring unwanted attention.

Also, none of these guys working on emulators have the kind of "fuck you money" to go against Nintendo all the way.

Tropic Haze, the LLC that was setup by Yuzu team, had what, $2.4 million dollars! How is that not "fuck you money"? lol
Even they were too intimidated to take it to court. Though the circumstances they found themselves in due to their members and/or users behavior, they likely were advised "yea, you're gonna lose"

 

[windwhirl]

Tropic Haze, the LLC that was setup by Yuzu team, had what, $2.4 million dollars! How is that not "fuck you money"? lol

That's the settlement. No idea how they paid it. The Patreon brought in some 30k dollars a month at its peak, according to ArsTechnica's article. That's 80 months to reach 2.4 million dollars, if they didn't use a single penny.

For all we know, the devs are indebted for life to Nintendo until they pay every last single dollar, with interest.

 

[lexluthermiester]

And somehow I feel that it wont be the last we hear of Ryujinx or Yuzu.

Considering the source is already out there...

 

[skizzo]

That's the settlement. No idea how they paid it. The Patreon brought in some 30k dollars a month at its peak, according to ArsTechnica's article. That's 80 months to reach 2.4 million dollars, if they didn't use a single penny.

For all we know, the devs are indebted for life to Nintendo until they pay every last single dollar, with interest.

for all we know? common sense suggests that is the money the LLC possessed.

 

[windwhirl]

for all we know? common sense suggests that is the money the LLC possessed.

Ask Gary Bowser if he had 15 million dollars to pay Nintendo:

Switch modder Bowser released from prison, likely owes Nintendo for rest of life

Team Xecuter member, out early on good behavior, has paid $175 so far.

arstechnica.com

The Patreon certainly didn't bring in that much money, and it seems to be the only source of income they had. I don't know how many people Yuzu had working "full time", but I imagine 30k dollars a month could pay a handful of experienced devs at least, so it's not like they didn't spend money either. The Patreon page in the Internet Archive said this as well:

So I doubt they had that much freely available money sitting in some bank account or safety box.

As for any other money... maybe selling or surrendering to Nintendo all assets such as game cartridges, tools they may have had, etc. But I doubt it would amount to that much either.

Considering the source is already out there...

Yeah. No doubt someone is picking it up and secretly working on it. And, for what it's worth, the emulator was fairly capable at its latest version so if someone decides to get a team of devs to retake work on it, they'd not have to start all over again... plus some people saved the entire commit history of the code so they can always trace back and see why the Ryujinx former devs decided to do this or that in the code.

 

[GoldenX]

If you get someone with actual skills working with the source of both emulators, we could get something amazing in a few years.

 

[chrcoluk]

Nintendo being Nintendo, they make so much money, just let it be.

 

[JohH]

If you were using Yuzu, you probably weren't buying anything to begin with.

I haven't used Yuzu. I do have a Switch and a few games. It's a matter of principle. Emulation is likely to be the best way to play these games. And the cheapest way to play games I bought after Switches start failing.

 

[AusWolf]

Nintendo being Nintendo, they make so much money, just let it be.

When someone makes so much money, it's never enough for them. Meanwhile, if you're on minimum wage, you should just cut your expenses to fit into your budget. It's always the same sickening narrative.

 

[mechtech]

If nintendo was smart they would make their own emulator and roms and sell them on the cheap on their website.

 

[chrcoluk]

I haven't used Yuzu. I do have a Switch and a few games. It's a matter of principle. Emulation is likely to be the best way to play these games. And the cheapest way to play games I bought after Switches start failing.

I have a switch and the snes games drop frames in it, they also didnt even bother implementing save game support, so you have to remember to save your state.

I agree with mechtech with a little adjustment, let the community build a good emulator, and maybe even provide assistance, and then sell the official roms for a reasonable price.

 

[Totally]

They also finally went after pocketpair this past week.

That's the reality I'm afraid. The mainstream stampede destroys everything. In and outside of tech.

Less is more, but when it comes to people... difficult story to tell

Now leave me alone, I'm going to download all available Nintendo emulators real quick

It's not really the mainstream stampede but uncreative YTrs that can't think of a concept or original idea so they find whatever topic that no one is making videos about.

 

[Chrispy_]

Nintendo: "We sell our consoles at a loss, but we make the money back on games"

Also Nintendo: "We won't sell many of our games on other platforms, forcing you to buy our hardware which we sell at a loss"

Nintendo are dumb.

 

[DaemonForce]

That's the reality I'm afraid. The mainstream stampede destroys everything. In and outside of tech.

Normies = tourists. It has taken some of us over 20 years to figure this out but the normies/tourists ruin everything.
Whether you believe it or not, Nintendo is also a tourist in hacker spaces. Gatekeep them. They deserve nothing.

 

[Lew Zealand]

Nintendo: "We sell our consoles at a loss, but we make the money back on games"

Also Nintendo: "We won't sell many of our games on other platforms, forcing you to buy our hardware which we sell at a loss"

Nintendo are dumb.

At launch the Switch was being sold at a profit and 7 years later it could be more than half profit on each one sold as the price and internal components are the same. The licensing for games is as welcome as the direct income from Switch sales.