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Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

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Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#641

Post by GabrielTFS »

a_vanderbilt wrote: post #622
Springtime wrote: post #14

> The legal document claims that over a million copies of last year's The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom were downloaded prior to the game's official retail release. As a result, the company is now seeking damages and is demanding that the Yuzu emulator is shut down. Quite the leap from existing as an emulator to inexplicably being held liable for some independent leak.

It is also fully their fault the game was leaked early. They released the game carts to buyers too early, and their system5 crypto scheme was already broken by the time the game came out. Yuzu didn't break system5, nor do they ship the keys needed to decrypt the dumped game files. They did release patches which specifically fixed issues with Zelda, and that wasn't a good look legally - but it isn't illegal to fix ina…

I have not heard of anything indicating they themselves released patches fixing issues with ToTK - only that other people made patches for that which the Yuzu team refused to accept until ToTK release. I don't see how random people making patches for an open source project should make the project liable for the existence of the patches.

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#642

Post by hellotomyrars »

PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #610
hellotomyrars wrote: post #501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nintendo is famous for not selling their hardware at a loss unlike other console manufacturers. The only systems known to be sold at a loss were the 3DS (after price cuts) and the Wii U. This is part of why the hardware is underpowered compared to contemporaries.

> This is part of why the hardware is underpowered compared to contemporaries. The other part being that they decided years ago not to try and compete with MS/Sony and instead make great games. Switch is not an entertainment center it's a gaming console. And the strategy is absolutely working and has been since the Wii days.

To be clear, I am not saying Nintendo is wrong for making the hardware choices they have. By all accounts they intended to have a meaningful Switch hardware revision when the OLED hit but decided against it because of the then-exploded and uncertain supply chain.

That said, I don't think you can draw a nice and neat trendline specifically from the Wii. I think the strategy has worked out well for them since its inception but a trend line from the Wii to the Switch only looks really good if you don't include the Wii U.

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#643

Post by GabrielTFS »

coryfklein wrote: post #628

I love video games. I grew up with Super Mario Bros on the NES and since the 2000's I feel absolutely spoiled by the burgoening and diverse indie game industry. I can hardly believe that today I can mix and match genres, and the fact that the genre "deck building city builder roquelike" (looking at you Against the Storm) even exists is amazing. This whole industry exists because society has made guarantees that you c…

Yuzu certainly doesn't seem like a project that promotes piracy. They've made it very clear that they do not endorse piracy in any capacity, and in fact anyone found to be pirating games on e.g. their Discord server gets an insta-ban from what I've heard.

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#644

Post by GabrielTFS »

pipes wrote: post #487

Not sure how I feel about the developers making 30k a month in patreon donations for writing an emulator for a current gen console. Nintendo might have a point here. Edit: that said, I did pay 5 dollars (or something like that) for redream, which is a Dreamcast emulator. But in my mind at least, this doesn't deny the developers of the games I play on it the money they would get from a sale. Because it is a dead platf…

Legally it doesn't matter - in fact you could say the courts practically endorse making emulators to compete with existing platforms, given quotes like this from Sony v. Connectix (where Sony attempted to sue Connectix for making a commercial (sold on shelves) emulator for the PlayStation which was then being actively commercialized):

> The Virtual Game Station is a legitimate competitor in the market for platforms on which Sony and Sony-licensed games can be played. See Sega, 977 F.2d at 1522-23. For this reason, some economic loss by Sony as a result of this competition does not compel a finding of no fair use. Sony understandably seeks control over the market for devices that play games Sony produces or licenses. The copyright law, however, does not confer such a monopoly. See id. at 1523-24 ("[A]n attempt to monopolize the market by making it impossible for others to compete runs counter to the statutory purpose of promoting creative expression and cannot constitute a strong equitable basis for resisting the invocation of the fair use doctrine.").

- 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, ruling in Sony Computer Entertainment v. Connectix Corp.

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#645

Post by PH95VuimJjqBqy »

hellotomyrars wrote: post #642
PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is part of why the hardware is underpowered compared to contemporaries. The other part being that they decided years ago not to try and compete with MS/Sony and instead make great games. Switch is not an entertainment center it's a gaming console. And the strategy is absolutely working and has been since the Wii days.

To be clear, I am not saying Nintendo is wrong for making the hardware choices they have. By all accounts they intended to have a meaningful Switch hardware revision when the OLED hit but decided against it because of the then-exploded and uncertain supply chain. That said, I don't think you can draw a nice and neat trendline specifically from the Wii. I think the strategy has worked out well for them since its incep…

their strategy included the Wii U, to deny that is to deny reality.

I also wouldn't call the Wii U a failure. Not being as successful as previous consoles from Nintendo is not the same thing as being a failure. Nintendo profited from every sale.

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#646

Post by kmeisthax »

belthesar wrote: post #615
kmeisthax wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An anti-SLAPP law usually works by giving you a special motion that lets you say "hey, I think this is a SLAPP lawsuit", which basically gives you access to fee shifting (making the loser pay the winner's legal fees). Copyright already has this built in. Which is great news... for Nintendo . The problem that Nintendo is citing in their lawsuit is the fact that Yuzu ships Switch common keys. For the purpose of DMCA 12…

That's the thing though, Yuzu doesn't ship with the common keys. Yuzu's quick start guide provides clear instructions for how to root a physical switch and dump the keys from the device, but it doesn't ship with the keys itself. What Nintendo is alleging is that providing the instructions to dump the keys is equivalent to providing them itself.

Yeah, sorry, I misread Nintendo's legal complaint.

That being said, I don't think two layers of indirection help Yuzu. It's one thing to say "this requires decryption keys and you have to rip your own games", and another to say "and here's where and how you get those things".

Put it this way: You know how emulator developers are very strict about not providing ROMs for obvious reasons? The decryption keys work the same way. If Yuzu had, say, linked to a ROM site and said "here's where you can get games for our emulator, wink wink nudge nudge", that'd be an open-and-shut case[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM_Studios,_Inc._v._Grokster,....

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#647

Post by hx8 »

kevincox wrote: post #557
hx8 wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is likely. There is a convincible future where Nintendo publishes more and more games outside of their hardware platforms, so Valve needs to keep good business relations with Nintendo.

This future seems very unlikely. Nintendo has published like 1 phone game? They are very much a fan of their garden. It course I would love to see this. I think Nintendo makes some very good games but have no interest in having specific physical hardware do end up not playing them.

> Nintendo has published like 1 phone game?

There current lineup of mobile games are Mario Kart Tour, Animal Crossing Pocket Camp, Fire Emblem Heroes, Super Mario Run, and Pikmin Bloom. These have brought in over $1B in revenue, mostly from Fire Emblem.

Additionally, Nintendo is heavily involved in The Pokémon Company, so they saw the closed doors numbers of Pokemon Go.

I don't think it's crazy to think Nintendo will have a major presence outside of its own hardware in the future. Nintendo as a company always feels about two bad console cycles away from ruin. This feels doubly true with them putting handheld and console gaming into the same basket with Switch.

I also don't think it's crazy for Nintendo to decide that they can sell more games if they sell them on other platforms. In many ways the whole concept of a console exclusive is legacy thinking when the consoles had major architectural differences and porting was a major process.

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#648

Post by yungporko »

theshackleford wrote: post #564
yungporko wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you own a pc that can run emulated switch games and you can use it well enough to actually do it, you aren't a normie.

Or maybe your understanding of what common users are capable of are wildly out of date. Switch games are available as one click installers now, compete with game and emulator.

it isn't. the average person doesn't even own a computer, ease of installation doesn't matter when you still have to own a computer powerful enough to run the emulator and also find roms.

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#649

Post by dmonitor »

pierat wrote: post #461
jzebedee wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not illegal to play games that you already purchased and own. Piracy is just a convenient scapegoat to hobble emulation.

Thats not the problem. Zelda BoTW being released 7 days BEFORE being on Switch, and 60FPS, and better gameplay on a real computer is what caught Nintendo's attention. And with Yuzu and joycons, you can have EVERY game, including their online only stuff. And if you pay for those online only, piracy is the only way to guarantee that you'll keep them. They've destroyed the: NDS, Gamecube, Wii, WiiU stores/online content…

Gamecube never had online

Re: Nintendo is suing the creators of Switch emulator Yuzu

#650

Post by MomoXenosaga »

GabrielTFS wrote: post #631
robbiet480 wrote: post #3

I knew that Patreon would bite them some day. Any time money comes into a "offensive" open source project, whoever feels they are getting hurt can make a claim a lot easier. Somewhat surprised they haven't yet sued Ryujinx (the other Switch emulator project) for also having a Patreon.

It doesn't change much legally to my knowledge, given that Sony v. Connectix was about a commercial, for-profit emulator (literally sold in stores) that directly competed with a console being commercialized at the same time (the PlayStation) and Sony lost in that case, with the 9th Circuit declaring it was fair competition and legal for Connectix to emulate PlayStation games.

Keep in mind that it's not about winning or losing in court. Most people don't have the money to fight. So they give up as soon as they get a letter from a lawyer.

Justice costs money.

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