Dolphin Emulator

[Buginhead55]

You know if Steam will add this in steam market they will get sue by nintendo. Nintendo is strict about illegal emulator.

[Realigo Actual]

While I do think Nintendo in some ways is big poopie, they do behave in consistent and somewhat constrained ways similar to how things have gone in other industries.

So this one surprised me too.

Maybe there will be official roms?

Maybe Nintendo will reconsider its policy of blanket exclusivity?

Bayonetta would be so good.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Escrito originalmente por Actual Sprinkle Taters:

While I do think Nintendo in some ways is big poopie, they do behave in consistent and somewhat constrained ways similar to how things have gone in other industries.

So this one surprised me too.

Maybe there will be official roms?

Maybe Nintendo will reconsider its policy of blanket exclusivity?

Bayonetta would be so good.

The Dolphin emulator is not related to Nintendo at all.

[Realigo Actual]

Escrito originalmente por SlowMango:

Escrito originalmente por Actual Sprinkle Taters:

While I do think Nintendo in some ways is big poopie, they do behave in consistent and somewhat constrained ways similar to how things have gone in other industries.

So this one surprised me too.

Maybe there will be official roms?

Maybe Nintendo will reconsider its policy of blanket exclusivity?

Bayonetta would be so good.

The Dolphin emulator is not related to Nintendo at all.

Indeed, I personally use it batch color-convert jpegs.

[Cypher Raige]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1118310/RetroArch/

[T9]

Just use a proper emulator

[Boblin the Goblin]

Escrito originalmente por t9:

Just use a proper emulator

Dolphin is considered the emulator for the GameCube/Wii.

[Satoru]

Escrito originalmente por brian9824:

Some emulators USED to require the bios of the console to run, most if not all have been changed to make the bios OPTIONAL now, and let people upload a copy of the bios if they own the system.

Note the more modern the system to be emulated the more the necessity to have copyrighted code to run the emulator. almost anything beyond a PS1 needs the BIOS to be 'useful'. Dolphin is probably the only notable exception of something semi-modern being fully emulated and doesn't require copyrighted code. But PS2 and beyond need the BIOS to again be 'useful'.

Also note that a program does not need to be 'technically illegal' to be removed from a service. Dolphin is for all intents and purposes 'technically' legal emulation. This doesn't mean Sony or MS are going accept it on their platform. Nintendo could easily drag any of them into court and sue them. Would said suit have merit? Probably not. But a savvy lawyer could probably come up with some economic damages of "we want to sell emulated versions of our games down the line but MS providing this for free encroaches upon our future revenue". That's at least a sort of semi-legit argument. And then its "welcome to judicial process hell" for the next 10 years of litigation.

But does anyone at MS or Sony want to risk that possibility? Is anyone going "wow yes lets spend potentially tens of millions of dollars on a decade long litigation on this free program we make literally no money on". The economic calculation there is pretty obviously "hell no"

Just like in Germany its not 'technically illegal' to have nazi symbology in games, and 'sort of technically' the goverment has 'pinky promised' that games aren't going to be censored for it. But as a AAA developer with hundreds of millions on the line, are you going to take the German governments 'pinky promise' to not do it? Or are you just going to rip out all nazi symbology because "yeah I am totally not going to be the producer that loses the entire German market because some insane coalition of censor freaks won the german elections this year". You're just going to take it out and play it 100% safe so no one in the German government can say anything.

[BloodShed]

Escrito originalmente por Satoru:

Escrito originalmente por brian9824:

Some emulators USED to require the bios of the console to run, most if not all have been changed to make the bios OPTIONAL now, and let people upload a copy of the bios if they own the system.

Note the more modern the system to be emulated the more the necessity to have copyrighted code to run the emulator. almost anything beyond a PS1 needs the BIOS to be 'useful'. Dolphin is probably the only notable exception of something semi-modern being fully emulated and doesn't require copyrighted code. But PS2 and beyond need the BIOS to again be 'useful'.

A few Wii games need files that you only can get from the Wii's NAND by dumping it yourself ( which you would be doing anyways since you need a modded Wii console to make image backups of your games).

Edit
And in some lesser extent a GBA bios for some GameCube game features

[Satoru]

Escrito originalmente por BloodShed:

A few Wii games need files that you only can get from the Wii's NAND by dumping it yourself

Aside from these exceptions the Dolphin Emulator is mostly useful without any copyrighted code which is a rarity amongst modern emulation.

( which you would be doing anyways since you need a modded Wii console to make image backups of your games).

Oh yeah I 'definitely' have physical copies of all my Wii games. yep this literal bookshelf stack of Japanese only Wii games I definitely make backups of my games. Yep. Totally did that. I mean I sold them at Gamestop thats why I don't have the physical disks anymore! Gamestop gave me like $30 for Densha de Go, and $20 for Momotaro Dentestu.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Escrito originalmente por Satoru:

Escrito originalmente por brian9824:

Some emulators USED to require the bios of the console to run, most if not all have been changed to make the bios OPTIONAL now, and let people upload a copy of the bios if they own the system.

Note the more modern the system to be emulated the more the necessity to have copyrighted code to run the emulator. almost anything beyond a PS1 needs the BIOS to be 'useful'. Dolphin is probably the only notable exception of something semi-modern being fully emulated and doesn't require copyrighted code. But PS2 and beyond need the BIOS to again be 'useful'.

Also note that a program does not need to be 'technically illegal' to be removed from a service. Dolphin is for all intents and purposes 'technically' legal emulation. This doesn't mean Sony or MS are going accept it on their platform. Nintendo could easily drag any of them into court and sue them. Would said suit have merit? Probably not. But a savvy lawyer could probably come up with some economic damages of "we want to sell emulated versions of our games down the line but MS providing this for free encroaches upon our future revenue". That's at least a sort of semi-legit argument. And then its "welcome to judicial process hell" for the next 10 years of litigation.

But does anyone at MS or Sony want to risk that possibility? Is anyone going "wow yes lets spend potentially tens of millions of dollars on a decade long litigation on this free program we make literally no money on". The economic calculation there is pretty obviously "hell no"

The issue is there is already a concrete precedent that they would have to beat.

They would have to overturn the argument that they have control over code that they don't own running a program that was legally purchased for personal use.

The emulator needing the BIOS doesn't make it illegal since they don't supply the BIOS. It was the same for the commercial PS1 emulator that Sony tried to sue and lost.

While companies don't like it, there's literally nothing they can do to stop it. If they sue with a known precedent saying it's legal, they risk a big counter-lawsuit.

[BloodShed]

Escrito originalmente por Satoru:

Escrito originalmente por BloodShed:

A few Wii games need files that you only can get from the Wii's NAND by dumping it yourself ( which you would be doing anyways since you need a modded Wii console to make image backups of your games).

Oh yeah I 'definitely' have physical copies of all my Wii games. yep this literal bookshelf stack of Japanese only Wii games I definitely make backups of my games. Yep. Totally did that. I mean I sold them at Gamestop thats why I don't have the physical disks anymore! Gamestop gave me like $30 for Densha de Go, and $20 for Momotaro Dentestu.

That's a you problem.

[Ducks on Fire]

Escrito originalmente por buginhead55:

Because Microsoft don't wanna get sue. Nintendo say it's illegal by the law.

That doesn't mean it is. A lot of companies claim things that may harm their interests are illegal. Sometimes courts back that up and sometimes they don't. Also just because someone decides to avoid getting into a legal dispute with someone else doesn't mean the other person was in the right. In the U.S. at least you generally have to pay your own legal fees if someone brings a lawsuit against you regardless of whether or not you win. That means that people or companies with a lot of money can use lawsuits or even the threat of them to get their way even if they might lose in court just because the other side is unwilling or unable to defend themselves.

Also you keep claiming that emulators are illegal and yet there is a Gameboy Advance emulator available on Google play and has been so for a while. Weird how that hasn't gotten removed considering how illegal it is. It's also weird how a lot of site that have links to roms and emulators have some of the rom links disabled but the emulators are freely available. It's almost like Nintendo has no actual right to prevent people from downloading and using emulators and actually only has claims over the roms of IPs they actually own the rights to.

[Satoru]

Escrito originalmente por SlowMango:

The issue is there is already a concrete precedent that they would have to beat.

They would have to overturn the argument that they have control over code that they don't own running a program that was legally purchased for personal use.

The emulator needing the BIOS doesn't make it illegal since they don't supply the BIOS. It was the same for the commercial PS1 emulator that Sony tried to sue and lost.

While companies don't like it, there's literally nothing they can do to stop it. If they sue with a known precedent saying it's legal, they risk a big counter-lawsuit.

Again yes 'technically' its not illegal

But you know I can make your life extremely uncomfortable and expensive if I want.

The point is I don't have to prove its illegal. Its far easier for me to just 'pretend' it is, sue you, and then bankrupt you in the process. A copyright/patent litigation trial could again literally be a decade long. You will have lawyer fees which will be like taking a BWM and setting it on fire, every month.

Or you can just go "to hell with this, I'm just going to take this off our store and not deal with it" and you spend a few thousand bucks on a paralegal answering a cease and desist letter, and well maybe you also con your way into a trip to Japan so you can hand deliver the notice.

Nintendo just has to basically send a single cease and desist letter and every company on the planet is going to fold. Period. it doesnt matter if Nintendo is 'wrong'. No company cares about that let alone MS or Sony. They're just going to remove it, and call it a day. Its simpler, easier and cheaper for them. Nintendo is still 'wrong' but again no one is going to spend the money to prove that, because there is no meeting at corporate where someone says "we are going to defend this and its going to cost us millions in fees. oh and the thing nintendo is talking about is free and we make no money off of it" and anyone in accounting signs off on this cost center.

[Brian9824]

Yeah but in this case nintendo doesen't go after emulators, unless the emulator site is also hosting roms. They go after roms. hence why retroarch which emulates multiple nintendo systems has never been sued by them.

[Boblin the Goblin]

Escrito originalmente por Satoru:

Escrito originalmente por SlowMango:

The issue is there is already a concrete precedent that they would have to beat.

They would have to overturn the argument that they have control over code that they don't own running a program that was legally purchased for personal use.

The emulator needing the BIOS doesn't make it illegal since they don't supply the BIOS. It was the same for the commercial PS1 emulator that Sony tried to sue and lost.

While companies don't like it, there's literally nothing they can do to stop it. If they sue with a known precedent saying it's legal, they risk a big counter-lawsuit.

Again yes 'technically' its not illegal

But you know I can make your life extremely uncomfortable and expensive if I want.

The point is I don't have to prove its illegal. Its far easier for me to just 'pretend' it is, sue you, and then bankrupt you in the process. A copyright/patent litigation trial could again literally be a decade long. You will have lawyer fees which will be like taking a BWM and setting it on fire, every month.

That's the thing, you couldn't even pretend because of the clear precedent case before it. Otherwise, Sony, Nintendo, and even Microsoft would've have done so long ago. These emulators aren't some secret and have been very publicly known for a long time. Hell, Nintendo isn't even going after the Yuzu or Ryujinx team. They don't even remove videos off YouTube showing their games running on them half the time.

Escrito originalmente por Satoru:

Or you can just go "to hell with this, I'm just going to take this off our store and not deal with it" and you spend a few thousand bucks on a paralegal answering a cease and desist letter, and well maybe you also con your way into a trip to Japan so you can hand deliver the notice.

Nintendo just has to basically send a single cease and desist letter and every company on the planet is going to fold. Period. it doesnt matter if Nintendo is 'wrong'. No company cares about that let alone MS or Sony. They're just going to remove it, and call it a day. Its simpler, easier and cheaper for them. Nintendo is still 'wrong' but again no one is going to spend the money to prove that, because there is no meeting at corporate where someone says "we are going to defend this and its going to cost us millions in fees. oh and the thing nintendo is talking about is free and we make no money off of it" and anyone in accounting signs off on this cost center.

Again, if it was that easy, Nintendo would've shut down these emulators long ago. They would've shut down Retroarch coming to Steam.