Nintendo has been actively taking down YouTube videos that feature its games being emulated or modded, which has sparked significant discussion and concern within the gaming community.

  • Obinice@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    So you’re saying I should never buy anything from Nintendo?

    Cool cool cool, cool, cool.

  • Hudomi@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    With all these news recently, you could think Nintendo wants to be hated. It’s truly shameful how the company has fallen since Iwata is gone.

    • samus12345@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      On the plus side, it makes me feel extra good when I load their games onto my hacked Switch! Echoes of Wisdom was fun, but felt really short. I would have felt cheated if I’d spent $60 on it.

      • hakase@lemm.ee
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        7 days ago

        I mean, its predecessor was a basic-ass remake of a ten hour, thirty year old Game Boy game that also cost $60.

        • SSJMarx@lemm.ee
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          7 days ago

          I love that game, but I fucking hate the remake’s artstyle. Its completely put me off from trying Echoes even though the premise and gameplay of that one seem right up my alley.

          • samus12345@lemmy.world
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            6 days ago

            I don’t mind the art style, other than the ugly-ass blur filter applied to the bottom of the screen. Fortunately, you can remove it if you’re playing it emulated or on a hacked Switch.

    • Microw@lemm.ee
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      7 days ago

      Nintendo has gone after youtubers and content creators for 15+ years. They are infamous for it.

    • sus@programming.dev
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      7 days ago

      to be honest, 80% of their customers probably don’t even know what an emulator is and don’t follow news about nintendo

    • Flax@feddit.uk
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      6 days ago

      They still did this stuff under Iwata. It’s actually more of a Japanese thing than a Nintendo thing. Although the quality of stuff was better under Iwata

    • demizerone@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      All they have is their IP, they must protect it at all costs. Nintendo doesn’t even let Shingeru Myamoto wipe is own ass out of fear he will get hurt.

  • Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    I wouldn’t be surprised if this backfires a bit. The reason most publishers/IP holders don’t go after videos on youtube and twitch is because it’s basically free advertisement for your game.

    If this behavior leads to people holding back on making nintendo based content, it could fuck them over in the long run. If you were a streamer or youtuber, would you feel particularly comfortable making videos and streaming nintendo games?

    I know I wouldn’t. There is no guarantee that nintendo actually puts effort into determining whether you are using an emulator or not. And even for the people who do use emulators, they may not be looking to continue making nintendo content.

    • tacosplease@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      Nintendo is going after a lot of their biggest fans. It’s so obviously stupid, but they just keep doing it.

    • SSJMarx@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      They’ve been doing this for a long time, and it definitely has a depressive effect. Even a big gaming youtubers like Videogamedunkey has commented on how every single time he does a video about a Nintendo game it gets demonetized, and while he can afford to take the financial hit every now and then there are plenty of mid-tier creators who can’t.

    • Xanis@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Sounds like someone got promoted to a high position. If I’m right it’s the typical “New Manager Must Make Waves To Prove They Belong” level of stupid unique to corporate.

  • yamanii@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    They just killed Ryujinx too, proving it wasn’t the fact that Yuzu was making money.

  • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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    7 days ago

    Recent laws in Japan have criminalized console and game modding, as well as save file editing

    What the flying fuck, Japan?

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          Nobody should give a flying fuck what “Tendy doesn’t like” because they are not entitled to dictate what people are allowed to do with their own property.

          The owner of a copy of a Pokemon game has every right to edit his save file, in exactly the same way that the owner of a paper copy of a novel has every right to cross stuff out and write his own fanfic in the margins. These are fundamental property rights that have been well-established for hundreds of years, that Nintendo and other megalomaniacal copyright tyrants are now trying to destroy.

        • Final Remix@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          Like all the abandoned event Pokemon that are in the files and never fuckin’ released.

          I used to hand out event cards for the arceus and gigatons flutes during Diamond and Pearl. Kids loved my store.

    • AndrewZabar@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Hah. Fucking nothing better to do? We in the USA need to deal with our highest courts taking away women’s bodily autonomy, but over there they are clearly focused on the real issues.

  • SkyNTP@lemmy.ml
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    7 days ago

    I grew up with a Nintendo controller in hand.

    There’s a very good reason I now game almost exclusively on PC. None of this is going to convince me to come back. Quite the opposite in fact.

    • Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca
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      7 days ago

      Nintendo has been on my list of most hated companies for awhile now. Just can’t stand how they operate and design their games.

    • schema@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      Grew up the same way. Some of my all time favorite games are still some of the classics. That being said, I wouldnt shed a tear if they go bankrupt.

  • Arkatakor@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    I like their panoply of games, but I cannot in good conscience support this company. The time, effort and money they spent on their legal department could have been used elsewhere… Like pokemon maybe? I’m glad Palword saw daylight.

      • krashmo@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        Is that surprising to anyone? The specific grounds they’ve chosen for that lawsuit is odd but if any of their legal battles have merit its that one. Palworld is intentionally toeing the line between derivative and blatant ripoff.

        • kboy101222@sh.itjust.works
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          7 days ago

          I mean, gaming patents are horse shit from stage one. There’s 0 reason you should be able to patent a method or mechanic in a creative medium other than creepy corporate BS

          • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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            7 days ago

            That was the selling point behind this game “The Medium”. The copy was the most tone-deaf thing, gloating about its one-of-a-kind patented mechanic.

            My first reaction, especially as an aspiring indie dev: “Well, I’m not touching that just on principle.”

            Jerks.

            • Final Remix@lemmy.world
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              7 days ago

              That was the one where the chick could switch to white hair and swap between “worlds” just like Silent Hill but slightly different?

              • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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                6 days ago

                Yeah, except I think you could play two characters in parallel (universes?) at the same time.

                Seemed neat. Shame they had to encumber it like that.

                It also basically screams “If not for this super amazing novel mechanic…this is nothing special!”

          • jeeva@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            Honestly, though - “method or mechanic”, do you think palworld is a pretty blatant copy of Pokémon or not? Like, most of it. Not just a single bit.

          • krashmo@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            That logic could easily apply to any kind of patent or copyright. That’s not to say you’re wrong but it’s part of a larger discussion than it seemed like was happening here.

  • GeneralInterest@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    If someone has bought a Switch game legally, then it’s legal to dump that game to a PC and play it on a Switch emulator, right?

    Sure you could say that very few people dump their own games, but those that do are doing everything legally I think?

    • dan@upvote.au
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      6 days ago

      it’s legal to dump that game to a PC and play it on a Switch emulator, right?

      Depends on where you live. Copyright law varies significantly from country to country.

      In the USA, section 117 of the copyright act lets you create a copy for archival/backup purposes only. What I’m unsure about (and don’t know if there’s any relevant caselaw) is whether bypassing copy protection to create the copy violates the DMCA.

      The equivalent Australian copyright law explicitly states that you can use the backup copy instead of the original one. The US law doesn’t (all it says is that you can make an archival copy, not how you can use the archival copy), so it’s a grey area.

      Both laws are for “computer software”, but you could easily argue that a video game is computer software.

      • Cethin@lemmy.zip
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        6 days ago

        I don’t see any way you could argue a video game isn’t computer software. It literally just is.

        • dan@upvote.au
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          6 days ago

          Nintendo could try make up something like “it’s not computer software since the Switch is a console, not a computer” or something like that. Not a great argument, but they have good lawyers and could probably convince a court that it’s true.

          • phx@lemmy.ca
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            6 days ago

            But the game is running on a computer with the emulator which still strongly lends to it being software

            • helpmyusernamewontfi@lemmy.today
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              6 days ago

              I think I somewhat recall during the peak Wii U disaster era, during shareholder meetings Nintendo would call the games for the system “Software”. So, that’d definitely backfire on them I’m sure

    • LordGimp@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      Nah. From Nintendo’s position, you don’t “own” the game. They do. All you bought is a license to play the game on a Nintendo approved console. By ripping the game from the switch dump, you are violating the license you bought by copying their software without permission.

      From a practical perspective, fuckem. Your paid money to play the game and if you decide to play it on something else you own, go nuts.

    • SSJMarx@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      IIRC this is what is currently protected in American law, but the problem is that in the time between now and the Sony/Bleem lawsuit Congress passed the DMCA, which has a provision making it illegal to bypass copyright protection. When emulating any modern console, you are naturally required to bypass the copyright protection on the game, which Nintendo would argue makes it illegal to do.

      Maybe you could get around this with some kind of emulation scheme that requires the console to be plugged into your PC, like the emulator uses the console’s official hardware for the copyright check and then just takes over rendering the game.

  • mlg@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    They’re clearing out the scene before the switch 2 releases because they perceive the current emulators as a major threat somehow.

    Which I assume means that the new switch is similar enough in architecture that it would be relatively trivial to ship a fully functional emulator on hardware release.

    Pretty insane because at least in the USA, emulation is protected by law, except if someone can successfully argue that you are bypassing DRM which is illegal.

    In a working system, this wouldn’t be an issue but I imagine neither Yuzu nor Ryjunix would want to deal with Nintendo’s insane law team that could wreck them financially in a matter of days before even entering a court room.

    I hope someone either makes an anonymous dev team for a future project, or gets assistance from a consumer justice firm/group to properly argue in court to shut Nintendo down. They really should not be able to do this because it was already a thing 24 years ago:

    Sony Computer Entertainment v. Connectix Corporation, 203 F.3d 596 (2000), commonly referred to as simply Sony v. Connectix, is a decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals which ruled that the copying of a copyrighted BIOS software during the development of an emulator software does not constitute copyright infringement, but is covered by fair use. The court also ruled that Sony’s PlayStation trademark had not been tarnished by Connectix Corp.'s sale of its emulator software, the Virtual Game Station.

  • gmtom@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Nintendo is doing everything in it’s power to screw over gamers, yet people will still consistently be like “omg pokemon, hiiiiii 🥺” and buy their slop even when the games get worse every time.

    Like could you imagine if Microsoft did shit like this, the backlash would be huge.

  • AndrewZabar@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Wow! Way to tell the world to never buy your products because you’re petty sniveling greedy and absolutely hate your fans.