Denuvo Introduces Industry First Nintendo Switch DRM Protection

[Uskompuf]

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.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site | Source

 

[BorisDG]

Wow that cancer on Nintendo also... imagine not able to use your physical games at some point.

 

[Dristun]

As many have pointed out immediately, I wonder how on earth they gonna run it on puny Switch, if it consistently causes problems on much more powerful PCs. Also, that definitely won't make me buy the Switch. Nintendo can put 720p@30 experience up theirs, where it belongs. I'm happy to pay them if they make a new 4k model though, which has been rumored for ages and never arrived.

 

[neatfeatguy]

Nintendo is so worried about someone stealing their IP and then them having to sue over it, they've gone the distance to corrupt their switch with this crap. They must be desperate to keep that bank roll going.

 

[sam_86314]

As usual, Irdeto and Nintendo can go fuck themselves. I've had no desire to buy any Nintendo products since they've been doing all this anti-consumer nonsense, and I strongly encourage those around me to buy their games used instead of new.

As with all other Denuvo solutions, the technology integrates seamlessly into the build toolchain with no impact on the gaming experience.

That's a flat-out lie. I remember being unable to play FFXV (a game I "own" on Steam) simply because Denuvo couldn't phone home.

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.

It then allows for the insertion of checks into the code, which blocks gameplay on emulators.

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".

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

I will no longer buy games if they have Denuvo.

GOG only carries games without DRM.

That's a flat-out lie. I remember being unable to play FFXV (a game I "own" on Steam) simply because Denuvo couldn't phone home.

Denuvo has a huge list of games it screwed over that could not even be patched to fix.

There have been plenty of casesEvery game where removing Denuvo improved performance significantly (Resident Evil Village being a notable one). I will no longer buy games if they have Denuvo.

FTFY.

I will no longer buy games if they have Denuvo.

Welcome to the #FkDenuvo club.

 

[Deleted member 185088]

That's a good reason to pirate games, they basically ruin the games and as @BorisDG correctly puts it's a cancer.

 

[outpt]

Die Denuvo

 

[Chomiq]

By preventing piracy on Switch while blocking unauthorized emulations on PC,

That explains it. F#ck denuvo and Nintendo.

 

[mechtech]

I wonder what the actual drm cost is vs guestimated piracy losses???

If actual piracy could be actually measured, it would be funny if the drm cost more than it saved.

 

[zlobby]

Challenge accepted!

 

[Flanker]

Challenge accepted!

Looks like someone's going to take 5 mins to crack this LOL

 

[TheDeeGee]

I wonder what the actual drm cost is vs guestimated piracy losses???

If actual piracy could be actually measured, it would be funny if the drm cost more than it saved.

It probably does cost more, and on top of that it slaps paying customers in the face with a performance hit.

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

Wow that cancer on Nintendo also... imagine not able to use your physical games at some point.

That's not what it's about really though. It's largely about stopping emulation on the PC. They don't want fake carts on the switch and they really don't want emulation on the PC.

As usual, Irdeto and Nintendo can go fuck themselves. I've had no desire to buy any Nintendo products since they've been doing all this anti-consumer nonsense, and I strongly encourage those around me to buy their games used instead of new.


That's a flat-out lie. I remember being unable to play FFXV (a game I "own" on Steam) simply because Denuvo couldn't phone home.

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".

Nintendo releasing on the PC would be the end of Nintendo and they know that. It's a "let's all commit suicide by jumping into boiling oil" level of stupid for them... actually it's even dumber than that. It will not happen because it will destroy the company.

 

[Tulatin]

'Will this somehow be applied retroactively to old games? Good luck with that."

They can't. The rips of carts / eShop titles are already out there. You can still emulate them. They can add Denuvo to existing games via patches, and then update the switch firmware to require those patches. That's really only going to hurt people running modified consoles. But that's the thing. The modified consoles are running CFW. It's only a matter of time before somebody bypasses that check.

 

[zlobby]

GOG only carries games without DRM.

Denuvo has a huge list of games it screwed over that could not even be patched to fix.


FTFY.


Welcome to the #FkDenuvo club.

Only GOG for the no-DRM and occasionally some indie title on Steam that doesn't have DRM to begin with.

Brace for 'DRM' definition disputes. Been there, done that on several occasions.

 

[Shihab]

I think people are unfairly bashing Nintendo here (them being ip trolls is fair game tho). This sounds more like an third party thing than a platform-provided solution. The press release avoids mentioning Nintendo as a party to this, and I would be surprised if any console maker let a third party into what could probably be their most guarded secrets and let them market it independently.

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?

 

[ThrashZone]

Hi,
Thought that is what steam/ epic/... were for

 

[Dr. Dro]

What I would be greatly interested in knowing is how exactly would the Denuvo developers be able to ascertain without the shadow of a doubt that a game is running on real hardware over an emulator. I can think of targeting a few things that emulators do to achieve higher rates of speed (such as skipping wait loops and the sort to save on clock cycles), but a reasonably accurate emulator would be able to simulate hardware exceedingly well, with some cases such as the bsnes emulator with actual cycle accuracy, at which point it should be indistinguishable in behavior compared to the real hardware, at least as far as timing goes. Naturally, it's not feasible to run anything at such speeds quite just yet, as you'd see, even the SNES was quite a difficult machine to get to cycle accurate level:

Accuracy takes power: one man’s 3GHz quest to build a perfect SNES emulator

How can it take 3GHz to emulate a Super Nintendo? The man behind a major SNES …

arstechnica.com

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.

 

[AM4isGOD]

I play switch games on an EMU, not sure how it will work on that.

 

[SOAREVERSOR]

I think people are unfairly bashing Nintendo here (them being ip trolls is fair game tho). This sounds more like an third party thing than a platform-provided solution. The press release avoids mentioning Nintendo as a party to this, and I would be surprised if any console maker let a third party into what could probably be their most guarded secrets and let them market it independently.

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?

Yeah they specifically mention the issue is getting around PC DRM buy emulating the switch release which is a third party thing.

 

[qubit]

Hmmm... tasty and nutritious Denuvo DRM, how can I resist any product infected with it?

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.

 

[PapaTaipei]

Nintendo xD another one to put in the garbage bin where it belongs with EA, Ubisoft and Activision.

 

[AsRock]

Nintendo is so worried about someone stealing their IP and then them having to sue over it, they've gone the distance to corrupt their switch with this crap. They must be desperate to keep that bank roll going.

got to love patents huh, why you think other company'(s) want you to buy seedless fruit

 

[Bomby569]

Challenge accepted!

not really! You have to praise to Empress, the only one cracking Denuvo, and she cracks a game every couple of full moons.

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.