r/gaming 9d ago

Nintendo sends Valve DMCA notice to block Steam release of Wii emulator Dolphin

https://www.pcgamer.com/nintendo-sends-valve-dmca-notice-to-block-steam-release-of-wii-emulator-dolphin/
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2.6k comments sorted by

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u/qmechan 9d ago

I wonder how many people there are that would use Dolphin if it were on Steam, but not otherwise. Steam deck users who don’t want to take those extra steps I guess

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u/amirokia 9d ago

I did ask a similar question of the difference between downloading it from steam than the official site and the response is either for the Steam Deck and cloud saves.

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u/MaverickTV666 9d ago

Playing with friends via remote play is my reason.

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/MaverickTV666 8d ago

I actually did not know that was a thing you could do, thanks a bunch I'll try that!

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u/fafarex 8d ago

You can do it with any .exe

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u/MrWeirdoFace 8d ago

Steam Microsoft office, here we come!

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u/reddits_aight 8d ago

"That's control software for some kind of irrigation equipment.”

"… It's fun."

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u/miesto 8d ago

There's a program you can use to make it work with windows software that hides the exe too. Glosc. It's used for adding "games for windows live" titles.

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u/TwentySidedLuck D20 9d ago

Same. I have Retroarch on Steam and use remote play together to do SNES/N64/PS1 multiplayer games with my friends. It's just so easy, only requires one person to have Retroarch installed/have copies of the games, and works pretty damn perfectly(Mileage may vary depending on netspeed, I have 2 gig Fiber).

We were looking forward to Dolphin on Steam to do the same with GameCube games. Sure, we could play together with standalone and some fiddling, but it really is just the ease of use.

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u/Becke963 8d ago

You can use RemotePlayWhatever to play anything you want with remote play.

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u/TheDinosaurWalker 8d ago

I mean you can remote play non-steam games already 🏴‍☠️ I've done it

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u/Vault_Survivor_08 9d ago

Also convenience. If i can get an emulator setup with a button on Steam, instead of having to search for it on google, find the right link, install it correctly, set it up correctly and then be able to use it , is a much much lower barrier of entry.

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u/QuickQuirk 8d ago

Easy updates too.

Basically, I’m more than capable of doing it myself…. But that’s my day job, and this is gaming. Save me the hassle, please.

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u/HeyLittleMonkey 9d ago

PSA: EmuDeck, while a bit more effort to setup (not that much tho) can also backup your saves into a cloud of your choice

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u/Vault_Survivor_08 9d ago

Actually quite a lot.

People still dont understand that Piracy is not a financial issue, its a convenience issue.

If your game runs worse because of piracy protection like Denuvo, if your game is difficult to access or runs badly because its only listed on an inferior Store like the Epic Games Store, if your game is "online only" with no real online component, all of that poses a convenience issue.

So people will use emulators.

It can be seen with the movie and music industry even better, if you need 6 subscriptions to watch the 6 shows you want, people dont want to bother with it, so they just stream it on grey sites and just not pay at all.

In comparison when most of the streaming was consolidated on Netflix for a decent price everyone and their mother and grandparents had a Netflix account.

Now people get fed up with having to either shift their subscriptions around or just not subscribe at all.

Emulators fill a void for people that cant be bothered to deal with the bullshit of some companies, but so far they have a barrier of entry due to the initial setup that requires some expertise.

Once its on Steam it would be much more easily accessible and potentially even automatically installed and setup, so the barrier of entry lowers and emulations becomes more mainstream.

Nintendo is afraid of that because they have the most to lose. The Nintendo systems have the lowest tech requirements and the worst "walled garden" setup where their games are exclusive to their systems often with no backwards compatibility.

Xbox and Sony also have some to lose but not nearly as much as Nintendo.

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u/StingKing456 8d ago

I got a Nintendo switch last year and outside of the DS/3da I got in high school exclusively to keep up with the KH games (lol) it's my first Nintendo console since I was like 5 with the N64. I wanna play some of the older entries in their main series like Zelda, Fire Emblem, Metroid, Pokemon etc. A handful are available on their Nintendo plus membership or whatever it's called so cool, fine I'll shell out a few bucks to play them that way.

But most of them? I have no easy way to play. I'd happily pay Nintendo some money to play TP/WW or the Dawn sub-series of Fire Emblem, but they aren't offering them. If I wanna play those two fire emblem games I'd need to buy a Wii and then drop almost $800 for the two games alone. It's crazy.

Nintendo, we're willing to pay you. We really are. I was gonna emulate Metroid Prime on my deck then a week later Remastered gor announced so I bought it. Just make the games available and this won't be as big an issue lol

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u/Vault_Survivor_08 8d ago

This is it exactly.

Piracy is one of the only forces fighting (as a side effect) for media conservation and archiving.

Nintendo and most publishers dont care about backwards capability or allowing old media on newer systems, they want you to move on to the next thing and emulators, like you pointed out, do allow you to play the old stuff that isnt sold anymore.

How is it piracy if there is no legitimate way of purchasing media and you have to resort to grey sites and emulators to do that?

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u/Mysteryman64 8d ago

Nintendo and most publishers dont care about backwards capability or allowing old media on newer systems

Oh they absolutely do care. They fucking hate it, and they want it to go away so that they're the sole keepers of access.

Pretty much every media company is still incredibly salty about digital distribution and how it destroyed their ability to easily force people to accept both a licensing AND a physical media model at the same time.

"Oh, your media broke? Too bad, buy a new one. Oh, you want to rip a copy? Too bad, you only own the media."

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u/Andre6k6 8d ago

Lord Gaben said it best

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u/Vault_Survivor_08 8d ago

Haha yeah exactly and he was right, studies showed it over and over again that if the money is right even the less fortunate are willing to pay for something, but if its inconvenient or difficult to purchase, subscribe or quit, many people will just not bother with it and if piracy is easier and more convenient they just rather go that route instead.

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u/Trixles 8d ago edited 8d ago

Correct; he WAS right about that. That was one of the big gambles Valve was making with Steam (which we take for granted now, but it was pretty much universally hated at conception lol).

Source? I will definitely pay $60 or whatever to have a game easily and conveniently working/launchable with the rest of my entire library vs. having to jump through all the hoops of piracy. But if you make it difficult, I will bail so fast your fuckin' head'll spin xD

Not saying that's the most ethical stance (hint: it isn't), but companies that don't understand this are shooting themselves in the foot in the long run. Gamers are resourceful, and if you don't make it simple enough for them to pay you for your product, they will straight up just download that shit

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u/lunarpi 9d ago

Lol what extra steps. It's almost faster to use emudeck, and you get like all the emulators at the same time

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u/STDsInAJuiceBoX 9d ago edited 8d ago

Yup, there's no reason to download dolphin on steamdeck. Emudeck has all the emulators, and you can launch your games and make a custom portrait for each game on your home screen

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u/sausager 8d ago

Yeah but do I need to do anything to my steamdeck or just like go to some webpage and download emudeck?

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u/STDsInAJuiceBoX 8d ago

You just go to the emudeck website and install it, boom you have all the emulators.

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u/CompleteyClueless 9d ago

Hey u/moonsight this seems like the kind of thing you would have insightful commentary on. I hope you do a video on this!

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u/Moonsight 9d ago edited 8d ago Gold

Oh, wow, I never thought I'd be summoned to a thread to look at something like this. If anyone is curious, I'm a lawyer that makes YouTube videos on (occasionally) intellectual property and corporate law, in video games.

This is a dicey situation for Valve and Nintendo, where the consequences for mishandling the situation could very substantially change the IP landscape when it comes to distribution of emulators.

Nintendo evidently sees the distribution of the emulator on a platform as widespread as Steam to be worth the risk of issuing a DMCA takedown. It's almost a bluff charge though -- Nintendo would highly, highly prefer not to take this to court, and risk accidentally opening the floodgates (so to speak).

Valve isn't some hobbyist emulator website, which can be easily cowed by a DMCA takedown. And Valve also isn't publicly accountable to shareholders, which makes it a prime candidate to go off-script and counterclaim.

Valve is likely weighing whether good relations (and thus, potential future business opportunities) with Nintendo are worth preserving vs. opening the Pandora's box with a counterclaim, and hoping Nintendo blinks first and withdraws the takedown.

I suspect that cooler heads will prevail -- Valve is likely to comply with the takedown notice. But, you never know. If Gabe Newall wants to go on a crusade, and throw the steering wheel out the window while the two cars are charging at each other, Valve isn't (likely) beholden to anybody but him on paper.

Edit: I woke up to over twenty replies: what a fun surprise! I'd share a link to my channel, but I don't want to break Rule 7. You can look up @Moon-Channel, if you're interested though!

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u/cammoguy 9d ago edited 8d ago

You’ve probably not had much time to read into it, but at the very core the DMCA is not about emulation.

Any other emulator (citra, ryu, yuzu, retroarch, cemu etc..) all have a procedure along the lines of "dump your keys by following this guide". Dolphin, however, does not do this. That is where this claim comes in to play. The fact is that the dolphin emulator operates by ‘illegally’ distributing Nintendo’s Wii decryption key (as seen here https://github.com/dolphin-emu/dolphin/blob/34527cadcce49a9a78f05949973b0930ac4dd999/Source/Core/Core/IOS/IOSC.cpp#L575). This has been discussed in court proceedings before to be illegal (see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number for further background on the topic)

Long and short of it, the claim revolves around the Dolphin emulator allegedly “circumvent[s] a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under the Copyright Act”

Edit: So many comments in here that didn't read the article, or just don't have the needed context to understand it, not trying to play lawyer here. Just speaking as someone with some experience.

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u/liamnesss 8d ago

I wonder if this would apply even if they didn't distribute it, and users were just instructed to go get it somehow themselves. Similar to how many emulators require an original system BIOS which is not included.

Seems there are some exceptions to the DMCA for video games specifically but I don't know if they apply here. I suppose no-one does until it is taken to court, and for all parties the risk of a negative precedent being set is huge. Seems that Nintendo is happy for it to be distributed by e.g. Flathub but not by a platform as mainstream as Steam. So yeah hopefully cooler heads prevail as has been said. I don't think Valve or the Dolphin devs will see this as a hill worth dying on.

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u/FriendlyTime69 8d ago edited 8d ago

it wouldn't apply unless there was a key cracker. using a key as intended is not a circumvention; cracking the key (and distributing it) is the circumvention

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u/mikamitcha 8d ago

Has the illegal number been proven in court? I was only seeing settlements in your link, not an actual ruling supporting one side or the other.

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u/Prince_Edward_IV 8d ago

Valve isnt publically accountable to shareholders

THATS why i still like that company after all these years. i never knew they were privately owned. that explains so much about how theyve maintained such a high level of quality for so long

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u/spaceforcerecruit 8d ago

Right? I had no idea Valve wasn’t a publicly traded company but it explains why they don’t constantly fuck over their users to make a quick buck.

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u/Bamith20 8d ago

Valve also isn't publicly accountable to shareholders

Words that are kind of a turn on when strung together tbh.

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u/Cruxis87 9d ago

Valve is likely weighing whether good relations (and thus, potential future business opportunities) with Nintendo are worth preserving

Nintendo will never release a game on a PC. and if in 200 years time they decide to, they would never use another companies store front to do so. They would just add to the list of dog shit game launchers just to keep all the profits from themselves. Gabe would know this, because Nintendo has a vast history of being one of the greediest, scummiest companies on the planet.

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u/hi_im_bored13 8d ago

Remember that valve is a game publisher as well, or used to be anyways. Portal for the switch was a pretty popular release

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u/theartificialkid 8d ago

Nintendo likely won’t be around by the time Portal 3 releases because they do 100% of their business inside the radius our sun will expand to when it dies.

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u/DastardlyBoosh 8d ago

Main sequence problems

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u/MBCnerdcore 8d ago

Nintendo will build the motion control ships to take us far enough away and provide us with colony material, made entirely of cardboard.

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u/clownpornstar 8d ago

At this rate there will be actual portal guns available before portal 3 comes out.

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u/msg_me_about_ure_day 8d ago

Valve is likely weighing whether good relations (and thus, potential future business opportunities) with Nintendo are worth preserving

Would be pretty funny if Nintendos refusal to do anything cross platform etc bites them in the ass here. Like how could valve possibly suffer from a bad relationship with Nintendo when they refuse to release anything on anything but their own platforms anyway?

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u/[deleted] 8d ago

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u/Joseluki 9d ago

Well, Valve is not a group of modders that can be bankrupted just on legal fees.

Next time they will try to DMCA google to not put links to webs with nintendo emulators?

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u/chobes182 9d ago

Valve is at zero risk of being sued by Nintendo in this situation, but the open source developers of the emulator could put themselves at risk of being sued. In this context, Valve is an online service provider who hosts games / software developed by other parties. When an online service provider receives a DMCA notice, they are required to take down the content that is allegedly in violation and notify the creator of the content. Then, the creator of the content has the option to either dispute the claim or accept it. If they dispute the claim, then the party who made the claim has 2 weeks to sue the creator. If the creator does not get sued after 2 weeks, then the provider may repost the content, and if the creator does get sued, then they have to win in court in order for the content to go back up.

So, in this case, Valve is merely a facilitator. Currently, the developers of the emulator have to decide to either accept that their emulator can not be on Steam or dispute the claim, which could lead to them being sued by Nintendo.

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u/LePopeUrban 9d ago edited 8d ago

I'm not sure the DMCA applies in this case as its verbiage is specifically applied to publishers of user submitted media which violates an alleged copyright.

While it could be argued a video game is media, dolphin is both not "media" in a conventional sense, it also does not as a matter of preexisting case law threaten Nintendo's copyright.

DMCA takedowns are a mechanism designed to enable platforms which autonomously publish user submissions to avoid liability for the content of said submission, which is why on very large platforms this tends to be used very aggressively.

In this case however Valve excercises direct control over the curation of every new product that appears on steam before it is on the platform, and as a result knows full well that they are directly implicated.

Given the context of dolphin, a well known emulator, it is almost inconceivable that copyright issues were not evaluated before it went up, and as a result it seems unlikely Valve would choose to comply with a takedown to me.

Edit: Don't stop at my post! A lot of people way smarter than me in the comments below mine making some very good points and referencing a lot of good information I didn't have on me when I posted this from my phone.

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u/saintpetejackboy 9d ago

It is really a grey area and this is a great post. It isn't explicitly rules against, but I learned the hard way that you don't want to be one of the first prosecutions for something everybody else was doing.

I wager that Valve caves and it just draws more attention to Dolphin, as Nintendo loves the Streisand Effect.

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u/ShiftSandShot 9d ago

Well, no, it isn't a gray area at all.

Sony made damn sure of that, if by accident, in their (mostly successful) attempts to destroy Bleem. While they successfully bankrupted the company through legal fees, Emulators were deemed legal in the results of the lawsuit itself.

And Bleem was being sold for money and on Dreamcast. Which is much more egregious than Dolphin's free Steam distribution on PCs.

Emulators are 100% legal, so long as they don't use official code.

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u/SirSoliloquy 9d ago

I learned the hard way that you don't want to be one of the first prosecutions for something everybody else was doing

This… sounds like a possible story here.

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u/CMDR_Nineteen 9d ago

Especially if Nintendo is involved. They'll garnish your wages for the rest of your life.

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u/Danger_Dave_ 9d ago

Nintendo is very petty. They'd rather destroy people's lives just to prove a point. And will absolutely hold those people to it. Nintendo does some good things, but they are incredibly draconian and protective when it comes to their content, at all costs. And they have the money to throw around.

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u/Scarletfapper 9d ago

Let me tell you about a little app called Napster…

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u/doodleasa 9d ago

Emulation is not preventable by copyright, so long as they aren’t distributing ROMs or the system’s software.

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u/FireMaker125 9d ago

It’s not a grey area. The Bleem! case established that emulators are legal, as long as they use no code from the system itself. Bleem! was paid, by the way. Dolphin is fully legal, so this is nonsensical bullshit.

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u/FuckIPLaw 8d ago

I learned the hard way that you don't want to be one of the first prosecutions for something everybody else was doing.

They wouldn't be. This has been settled caselaw for decades. Look up Sony V. Bleem.

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u/XxTreeFiddyxX 9d ago

Im buying it now for sure. Im tired of overstep. I really dont really play emulator games myself but buying could pay for lawyers who will protect the average consumer like me in other ways. These mega corporations just love intimidating people, i think its time the pendulum swings the other way

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u/xboxiscrunchy 9d ago

It’s free.

There’s probably somewhere to donate though.

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u/Defoler 9d ago edited 9d ago

Well the developer already announced that they postponed the release.
So I guess Nintendo won this round.
Valve seems to not take any side here and let the developer fight it out with Nintendo. So this seems like a closed door hung for now. The developer isn’t going to spend their life saving on fighting Nintendo in court.

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u/chobes182 9d ago

It does seem likely to me that the section of the DMCA covering liability protections for online service providers shouldn't apply because of Valve's direct curation of their content. But regardless, Nintendo sent them a DMCA takedown request anyways and Valve seems to have complied seeing as they've indefinitely delayed the release of Dolphin on Steam, taken Dolphin's product page down on Steam, and formally notified the developers of Dolphin of the DMCA takedown.

I think it's probably in Valve's best interest as a business to keep going along with the DMCA process because Nintendo is currently treating them as if they are not liable for the software they distribute. If Valve were to argue the DMCA does not apply in this situation and start distributing Dolphin, then they would be risking a lawsuit from Nintendo over distributing software which primarily serves to circumvent a technical protection measure protecting copyrighted material, which if proven would constitute a violation of (a totally different provision of) the DMCA.

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u/LePopeUrban 9d ago

Thanks for the update. Haven't been following this closely. Be interesting to see how this shakes out for sure.

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u/phoenixmatrix 9d ago

One small mistake could change things though, so Valve would really need to be on the balls. Any picture with a Nintendo logo or Nintendo game, any reference to Nintendo's trademarks, anything that would help people get encryption keys in a bad way, etc.

There's a bunch of videos from actual lawyers going over the details in other similar cases. The line is really, really thin, and Nintendo knows very well where that line is.

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u/PM_ME_CUTE_FEMBOYS 9d ago

Nintendos Lawyers literally DMCA took down their own, official, nintendo twitter over Tears of the Kingdom.

I wouldnt trust Nintendo or their Lawyers to know shit but "We say this is the law, so its the law, obey us!"

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u/NoProblemsHere 9d ago

I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall during the conversations that happened at Nintendo after that!

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u/RedstoneRelic 9d ago

Wait what happened?

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u/Terramagi 9d ago

They sued themselves.

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u/Proof-Cardiologist16 9d ago

Nintendo has DMCA'd themselves multiple times in the past. I'm not sure I'd say they know or even care where the line actually is.

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u/Andre6k6 8d ago

Same with Toei DMCAing DBZA, Japanese companies have a hard time understanding that laws in America are different & parody & emulation are fair use

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u/LePopeUrban 9d ago

Yeah its probably an interesting day for Valve's legal team.

On one hand there's a strong case to keep it up, and a theoretical slight benefit for valve in the form of moat building similar to google giving away android for free or meta publishing its LLM stuff open source to legally supress competition by eroding an inaccessible market for free.

On the other hand, they're dealing with the famously litigious Nintendo here, a company known for pursuing even the most minor of legal issues to the bitter end and might decide its not worth the trouble given Nintendo's only tertiary effect on their business and the otherwise null income a free piece of software would generate.

Then again Gabe Newell has been known to make value judgements, like Steam's stance on NFTs based on a reading of industry trends and a general vision for how he wants steam to evolve its place in the industry and I know Valve hasn't been attracting as many publishers in the non-game software space so taking a hard stance on this one could be good optics that attract other paid small apps to steam.

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u/DamnAutocorrection 8d ago

What's the story about stream and nfts?

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u/Seralth 8d ago

the TLDR is gabe thought it was the dumbest shit hes seen in a hot second and basically said naw this shit is stupid and aint coming to steam. NFT bros laughed at him. He then proceed to laugh back when he was right.

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u/OldProfile2354 8d ago

Gigachad Gabe?

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u/Seralth 8d ago

All memes and jokes aside.

Man always has been a giga chad. Dude STILL reads basically every personal email someone sends him and responds if he can. On a personal level hes about as good of a ceo as you could hope for in the gaming industry.

99% of problems that happen that involve steam or valve rarely actually are due to him being an asshole unlike most other companies where the ceo or some other high level exc are power tripping. Most problems in retrospect basically always end up just being due to just normal business policies and shit.

And when gabe can fix shit he does as soon as he learns of it. Dude is rad. He never stopped being a normal gamer.

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u/RoundhouseRabbit 9d ago

From how I understand it they don't really have a choice but to comply with the DMCA notice and pass it along to the game publisher (in this case dolphin).

Otherwise they risk losing their safe harbor provisions and would end up being liable for any copyright infringement hosted on their platform, and while they are careful about what gets published I doubt they check every asset, texture, music, etc used in games is properly licensed

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u/QuadrupleTorrent 8d ago

This is not how any of this works. No party is “required” to take action after a DMCA notice. The only consequence for not complying is that you cannot claim protection of the “safe harbor” for service providers if you do not take action after receiving a notice. This means that if the content is actually infringing, you could be co-liable. Valve/steam is at liberty to just ignore this notice if they believe the content does not infringe. In practice, this leads to most parties simply removing content, as they don’t want to deal with the hassle of a potential lawsuit. But not complying doesn’t violate any laws in and of itself.

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u/comeallwithme 9d ago

Shhh, don't give them ideas.

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u/Arazthoru 9d ago

I would love to see a legal fight between Nintendo and Google

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u/[deleted] 9d ago edited 14h ago

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u/baogody 9d ago edited 8d ago

Vanced got greedy and tried to pull a cash-grab with some NFT nonsense.

Wow... I did not know that. I'd say Vanced deserved what came to them then, even though it really sucked for me when that happened. It definitely seem like Google has indeed been monitoring all these 3rd party tools but doesn't really take any action until a certain line has been crossed.

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u/SuperBackup9000 9d ago

That’s usually the case to begin with. Piracy in general is as big as it is because the legal stuff isn’t worth the hassle until some schmuck comes around and tries to profit off of it. It’s why you pretty much only ever hear about Nintendo making a scene about it because Japan in general takes copywriting laws very seriously and they’re also a very old generation company, and then with watchable media it’s basically only ever directors using it as a way to vent instead of actually trying to do something.

They fought the battles for it a decade ago, realized it wasn’t something winnable and not worth the effort, and just shrug it off. But then anytime someone puts a name and a face to whatever project it is by making money, it’s a very quick and easy winnable battles. That’s why so many hosting sites just accept donations instead of having a paywall or straight up charging, there’s no “profiting” from donations

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u/WaterArko 8d ago

Thankfully, you can still use ReVanced, which works flawlessly!

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u/achilleasa 8d ago

Yup, finally switched a while back and it's great. For anyone looking to get into it: don't download a pre-compiled APK from one of the million "official download" sites. Half of them are malware. The only legit source is the official GitHub. Building it yourself with ReVanced Manager is a pain but it's the proper way to do it. The subreddit is also helpful.

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u/Rook_to_Queen-1 9d ago

…you know this is literally a thing, right? Google flat out tells you it blocks certain results due to DMCA violations.

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u/Kanehammer 9d ago

As much as Nintendo loves to whine about them

Emulators are perfectly legal

Downloading roms online is the illegal part

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u/saintpetejackboy 9d ago

You are correct but I want to jump in here: Google is gangster. When the DEA and the federal government had me under indictment, for international drug charges, Google refused to turn over my Google Voice and GMail to the United States government - they sent their people to ask my lawyer to ask me for a password.

As much as people hate Google, they play by the rules to an extent but aren't the evil corporation that works with the government that a lot of people make them out to be, and I am living proof.

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u/xxgamergirl54xx 9d ago

Bros got a whole life story and we will never get to hear these whacky drug adventures.

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u/HardwareSoup 9d ago

That sounds odd.

Google routinely sends personal data to law enforcement without a warrant, and they will absolutely send everything connected to your Google account with a warrant.

Anything you do online that isn't e2e encrypted is freely accessible to the federal government with a simple probable cause warrant at the most.

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u/JaesopPop 9d ago

Valve doesn’t go to bat legally for software that gets DMCA’d

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u/HachikoNekoGamer 9d ago edited 9d ago

Nintendo can't do jack shite cause last time I checked emulators are Legal unless they're using original code from the console they're emulating which Dolphin doesn't.

Classic Nintendo abusing the DMCA again.

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u/low_priest 9d ago

In the past, it's been ruled that way, which is why Nintendo isn't taking that route. Their claim isn't that the emulator is using proprietary Nintendo code, it's that by extracting and running the ROMs it's circumventing anti-piracy measures. Which it kinda is, so they'd have a harder time fighting it. They can't just show up to court and say "nope we don't use your code."

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u/Arnoxthe1 PC 9d ago

Extracting the ROMs has nothing to do with the emulator though. The emulator (to my knowledge anyway) doesn't facilitate ROM extraction.

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u/Beliriel 9d ago

Yeah you don't sue people playing "illegal" MP3s. You sue people making and sharing them. Same with Roms.

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u/dvdkon 8d ago

You don't sue Winamp, though. Or a store for selling it.

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u/Latter_Lab_4556 8d ago

Decoding the ROMs is what he’s talking about. It’s a different case than previous attempts to bring emulation to court. If Dolphin fights back and loses it means emulation is now illegal in the US depending on how the verdict is worded.

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u/ggtsu_00 8d ago

Software or hardware that circumvents anti-piracy or copy protection measures only applies to other software or hardware that has those protections to begin with. It's the original Wii and GameCube hardware and firmware that contains those copy protections, not the games themselves. The emulator is entirely new original software and has no obligation to reimplement the same copy protections of the hardware it's emulating. It's one thing to crack copy protection of an existing device. It's an entirely different thing to create new software that emulates parts of the hardware but not the copy protection. That's why emulation is fair and legal under the DMCA.

Now if the emulator also bundled tools to exploit the original GameCube and Wii to dump isos and circumvent the copy protections of the original hardware that would be a different issue but that's not what emulators do.

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u/Zyrithian 9d ago

Is it illegal to circumvent anti-piracy measures? You might as well argue that selling lockpicks should be illegal because they circumvent anti-theft measures

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u/Byolock 9d ago

Can only tell how it is in Germany, and yes it's illegal. It is illegal to circumvent "effective DRM measures". So at least in one country it is like that.

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u/PhaxeNor 8d ago

This is very much the case. Most countries in Europe seem to have this.

It’s legal to make private copies, but it’s illegal to circumvent DRM. The only ones who get hurt by this is the consumers that follow the law. Well, DRM has always hurt consumers in some way anyway 😅

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u/FawksyBoxes 9d ago

Except Japan doesn't have a fair use clause. And it's NoJ doing this not NoA.

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u/CatProgrammer 9d ago

There's no "fair use" involved. Fair use is an affirmative defense but emulators don't violate any copyright.

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u/HachikoNekoGamer 9d ago

And it's NoJ doing this not NoA.

Except NoJ is trying to force their JPN Copyright laws onto the rest of the world.

At least Sony and Sega are the only ones that recognize that Laws are different outside of Japan.

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/AriMaeda 9d ago

Everyone thinks it's them abusing DMCA, but the reality is that under Japanese copyright laws, they have to aggressively persuade any acts of infringement they know about or risk losing their copyright claims.

Copyright in both the United States and Japan is an automatic protection that does not need to be defended, they are rights granted to the author upon creation of the work. You're mixing that up with a trademark, which requires active defense to protect the association with your brand.

This is IP law 101. How did this comment get so much traction?

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u/Steamships VR 9d ago

This is IP law 101. How did this comment get so much traction?

A redditor reads a fun fact, understands it about 80% of the way, then eagerly repeats the "fact" in another thread. Repeat that a few times.

I've definitely seen a post or two about Nintendo fearing for their trademark when everybody's parents called game consoles Nintendos. That's probably what the other commenter is getting mixed up.

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u/Belgand 9d ago

It was stated in an authoritative fashion, and they don't know themselves that it's wrong.

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u/That-Silver7894 8d ago

And it will be repeated as fact somewhere else on reddit.

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u/BrentSaotome 8d ago edited 8d ago

I'm a lawyer (but not your lawyer nor providing legal advice) and took IP law. u/Scotty0132 is partly correct for different reasons.

Yes, you are correct that plain copyright protections are automatic. However, the law is composed of many areas of laws and doctrines. There are two doctrines that come into play that may encourage people (like Nintendo) to be aggressive in pursuing litigation to protect their copyrights and more importantly to seek a remedy.

The first one is the doctrine of statute of limitations. Under U.S. copyright laws, you only have 3 years to seek a remedy for any copyright infringement. So once you have been made aware or should have been made aware of a copyright infringement, you have to file your complaint within the three year time period or you are barred from seeking a remedy or relief.

The other doctrine is laches. This doctrine basically states that you cannot sit on your rights and then later ask the court for relief. The court expects you to act on your rights if you want them to help you enforce it.

A good and very relevant case regarding laches (and SoL to a degree) and copyrights is Petrella v. MGM.

https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/572/663/

Both doctrines do not strip copyright holder's of their copyrights but prevents them from seeking relief or a remedy, which is what the copyright protection is for. A right is useless if it's not enforced or protected (a very important and relevant concept these days).

There may also be other doctrines that may apply that I may not be aware of. As the article of the OP states Nintendo may go after Dolphin under different legal grounds that may not have been tested or brought up before. That's what lawyers are hired and paid generously to do. They come up with creative ways to use every legal doctrine and angle to benefit their client's case.

Edit: added tag for Scotty since so many redditors are arguing incorrectly against him in different threads.

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u/evoactivity 8d ago

I've noticed over the years the vast majority of people have no idea what the differences are between copyright, trademarks, and patents.

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u/ItsAFarOutLife 9d ago

That exact quote was said on the LTT livestream tonight so I wouldn't be surprised if they're just regurgitating it.

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u/Axytolc 9d ago

Sometimes I ask myself the same thing about how clearly uninformed people get upvotes. But then I have to really reflect on why I had any expectations at all of informed conversation in /r/gaming.

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u/Magnesus 9d ago

Nintendo shillls upvoting.

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u/Solid_Snark Award Designer 9d ago

I really wish DBZA was able to finish the Buu Saga. :(

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u/gamefreak2065 9d ago

They have stated many times, they didn't want to half-ass the Buu saga. They were done after Cell.

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u/Sivick314 Console 9d ago

and honestly, that's where the series should have ended anyway

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u/jpterodactyl 9d ago

With Gohan in his rightful place as the strongest. I will die on this hill.

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u/AF_Fresh 9d ago

Gohan was strongest at the end of the Buu arc too, prior to the End of Z time skip. That's why Super Buu absorbed him. Only technically Vegito was stronger, but fused characters don't really count.

Gohan may be the strongest now, in Super, after the events of Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. (outside of deities) That is very arguable, though, with people claiming Frieza, Goku, Vegeta, Gohan, or Broly are truly the strongest. In terms of potential, Super has made it pretty clear that Gohan, Frieza, and Broly have the most overall potential that we know of.

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u/ventus976 9d ago

He may have been the strongest at the end of the buu saga, but also to quote dbza "GOHAN BECOMES THE STRONGEST IN THE UNIVERSE BUT STILL DOESN'T DO CRAAAAP"

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u/mysightisurs93 8d ago

I know his potential is kinda wasted, but I love to see how one of the strongest being in the DB:S just stumbling about trying to be a good husband and a good dad.

It can be like the opposite of Broly (always training/surviving) and Frieza (always conquering).

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u/shoeless_laces 8d ago

It would have been cool to see him trying to juggle both or have arcs that centered on other characters, but no, Goku go brrrr

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u/BigRedSpoon2 9d ago

Genuinely

I loved the reveal that was under our nose this whole time (from the original series):

Gohan had been keeping pace with adults more than twice his age, and wasn't even considered the weakest

Of course he'd outpace them all when given actual legit training

Gohan's potential is limitless

But volume sales and serialization demand a return to status quo

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u/Shadow_Edgehog27 9d ago

Wasn’t DBZ supposed to end after Cell? Or was Buu always meant to be around after the fact

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u/hugabugabee 9d ago

Gohan was supposed to become the new MC after cell. DBZ was still meant to continue after cell.

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u/iaosis 9d ago

If social media existed when Toriyama was writing Dragon Ball, then he’d be the subject of so many “Don’t Believe His Lies” memes

  • Toriyama said Dragon Ball would end shortly after Volume 12 in the author’s notes. This was early in the King Piccolo arc
  • Toriyama then had King Piccolo shoot an egg out of his mouth and we got the whole Piccolo Jr. Budokai Tenkaichi arc
  • All of the above was published in tankobon form in 1988. The Raditz Saga began publication in a similar format in 1989, showing no delays and no truth to Toriyama’s bullshit
  • Toriyama and an editor of his have stated that Goku vs. Frieza should have been the end as Goku fulfilled the ancient prophecy of the Super Saiyan
  • Cell Saga was never really supposed to be the end. Toriyama just wanted to shift focus to Gohan
  • In the Buu Saga, Toriyama makes it one mini-arc before shifting the focus away from Gohan lmao. Mystic Gohan shows up later, immediately shits the bed, and the rest of the arc is Goku and Vegeta kissing, sloppy style, pecs squishing together, etc.
  • Farewell, Dragon World!, the last manga chapter of Dragon Ball, comes out on May 23, 1995
  • Dragon Ball GT releases its first episode in February of 1996, just 9 months later

Retroactive analysis of Toriyama’s commentary on the series is pointless. He is a wonderful, talented, silly, lazy man who does what he wants when he wants to. Dude smashes up the tournament’s stage just so he doesn’t have to draw it

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u/bullshitblazing 9d ago

Toriyama doing shit because he didn't want to draw it will never not be funny

Goku turning blonde in super saiyan so he wouldn't have to ink his hair

The awkward uncomfortable way crossed arms are drawn

The way all footwear looks the same because it's easier to draw simple triangles

And the stage always getting blown up

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u/Gerikst00f 9d ago

Don't forget making SS3 obsolete almost immediately because animating/drawing the long hair was expensive/annoying

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u/MVRKHNTR 9d ago

I mean, I'd be the same if I had to draw a new issue of a comic every week.

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u/ColeSloth 9d ago

GT wasn't based on anything Toriyama wrote. Toei animation made it and Akira only did up a bit of artwork for it, so don't put GT on him.

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u/TheGeckomancer 9d ago

It would have been a virtually impossible act to follow.

The Cell Saga was Perfect.

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u/Owobowos-Mowbius 9d ago

Literally an improvement on the show itself. It was fantastic.

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u/Abe_Odd 9d ago

Careful. Your Vegeta is showing.

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u/TheKappaOverlord 9d ago

Piccolo's verbal beating of goku for being a deadbeat dumbass dad will always be satisfying.

TFS Piccolo didn't beat around the bush. he just told him it straight out

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u/Scotty0132 9d ago

Personally I'm happy they left it off where they did rather then continue with no want/love.

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u/Sesudesu 9d ago

This exactly, TFS has said that they had no interest chugging on without passion. They didn’t want to do the Buu saga.

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u/odd84 9d ago

You're mixing up different forms of intellectual property. It's trademarks that have to be defended or you lose them, not copyright. There is no requirement to enforce copyrights, and no rights are lost by choosing not to enforce.

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u/didyoumeanbim 9d ago

Everyone thinks it's them abusing DMCA, but the reality is that under Japanese copyright laws, they have to aggressively persuade any acts of infringement they know about or risk losing their copyright claims.

But this is a filing under U.S. copyright law...

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u/WaggishOhio383 9d ago

Last I checked, Sega is a Japanese company too, and I don't see them aggressively shutting down any and all fan-made content. If anything, they encourage it

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u/AlmondCoatedAlmonds 9d ago

That's cause Sega doesn't what Nintendo

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u/127294 9d ago

No, that's just Sonic. Ask the SMT fans how they've been treated. Or streets of rage.

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u/RukiMotomiya 9d ago

Sega does a LOT of copyright claims, just most of them don't get the attention because so many Sega franchises are older / more out of the spotlight.

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u/TheMine789 9d ago

Atlus, a subsidiary of sega, went after rpcs3 (a ps3 emulator) in 2017

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u/LordSephiran 9d ago

Didn't they also aggressively copyright strike most Persona 5 LPs/streams for quite some time?

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u/jurox51887 9d ago

Persuade => pursue

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u/WonderfulWafflesLast 9d ago edited 9d ago

Everyone thinks it's them abusing DMCA, but the reality is that under Japanese copyright laws, they have to aggressively persuade any acts of infringement they know about or risk losing their copyright claims.

Or. They endorse it.

That's the other option.

There are 2 common ways to claim ownership, but both involve permission:

  1. Deny permission to use
  2. Provide permission to use

If it is provided with a clause of "you can't make money, and we can take back this permission at any time then force you to take it down".

There are other examples of companies doing that - Japanese or not - but Nintendo refuses to.

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u/CapWasRight 9d ago

This is exactly the approach Sega takes with Sonic fangames, and look at how huge and vibrant and not taking profit away from them that community is!

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u/DeliciousCunnyHoney 9d ago

My boys love Sonic Speed Simulator or whatever it’s called on Roblox. I always wondered how it was able to stay up, it seems rather popular. This may be why right here.

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u/ThrowMeAway11117 9d ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Japan

Your statement is incorrect, Japanese copyright law works fairly similar to most other countries, in that copyright is automatic and lasts for 30 years beyond the authors death.

You might be confusing them for Trademarks? Which do have to be enforced at the risk of losing their registration.

But Copyright in Japanese law does not need to be so aggressively pursued, and this is more Nintendo just doing Nintendo things.

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u/Magnesus 9d ago

Please delete this comment, you are spreading misinformation. Read the responses.

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u/Danibear285 Xbox 9d ago

As Gabe Newell said himself (summary) “Piracy is not a pricing issue. It’s a service issue.”

I know that Valve has a history of having a stellar legal team. So idk how Nintendo (Japan/America) can handle corporate law.

I’m just a interested spectator on the side.

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u/chobes182 9d ago

Valve has no risk of being sued by Nintendo over this. They have handled this situation in accordance with the guidlines given in the DMCA. The only people who might end up getting sued by Nintendo are the developers of the emulator.

Valve's responsibility was to take the product page off of Steam and notify the developers of the DMCA claim. If the developers wish to dispute the DMCA claim, then Valve is responsible for notifying Nintendo of this. If the developers dispute, then Nintendo has 2 weeks to sue the developers. If Nintendo sues, then the emulator stays off of Steam unless the developers win the lawsuit. If Nintendo doesn't sue within 2 weeks, then Valve has done their part and is free to relist the emulator on Steam.

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u/Deathisnear24 9d ago

It's the same case with the Dark and Darker situation. Valve wants to do only what is required of them to do by law, i.e remove them from the store. And then do only the bare minimum of what is required by law from them. Taking a stance as Valve is an awful choice in either of these situations. They would much more likely take the stance of Nintendo or Nexon to not ruin relationships (even if the Nintendo one is basically non existent)

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u/Frankso 9d ago

Corporate law you say? I wonder if they have a lawyer for bird law, Gabe is a tricky man.

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u/Not_a_dickpic 9d ago

Yeah he’s tricky, but it should all be pretty standard hotplate documents. Unless Gabe has has some kinda miracle lawyer with huge hands of course

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u/ChadwickLXIX 9d ago

Afaik emulators themselves aren’t illegal. There aren’t any real concrete laws on the subject regarding roms. Also I doubt a company with as many resources and legal experience as valve will be scared of Nintendo.

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u/xixipinga 9d ago

nintendo cant even take down random single developers creating emulators and being funded all on public view and under the law, they are embarassing themselves with this, it will only backfire and make emulation stronger

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u/doubleaxle 9d ago

They have no reason to really push against Nintendo unless Gaben (or some other big wig) thinks it's important for them to protect emulation, and why would they want to really, emulation has almost nothing (I'd say nothing tbh) to do with their business.

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u/TriLink710 9d ago

I kind of doubt that steam itself goes to bat for this. Its more likely going to be on the Dolphin team itself.

And in all honesty. It just wont go anywhere and nintendo will win because these guys cant afford to fight them.

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u/icantshoot 9d ago

Valve or Gabe are not a party in this fight. Its between dolphin release team and Nintendo.

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u/WashingIrvine 9d ago

Then re-release your games so we don’t have to fucking emulate them. Only Nintendo would turn down free money and then cry about it…

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u/Micropolis 9d ago

It’s just like what Disney does. They will release them years later as remasters and they will basically be the same game and everyone will buy them up due to it normally being unable to be purchased.

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u/Darkdragon3110525 9d ago

The difference is you will never have trouble finding a Disney movie where as Nintendo actively impedes you from buying games

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u/illogicallyalex 9d ago

You used to, before streaming. They had the ‘vault’ that they re-released classic Disney movies from every so often so they’d be put into DVD circulation again. Unless you had a copy from the original release or found one somewhere, you couldn’t buy a new copy of a movie in the vault until it was rereleased

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u/SuddenSeasons 8d ago

When I was a kid there was always a parent or two who had multiple VCRs & would sell cheap degraded copies made via tape to tape copying.

Wild, we were thrilled with that and my kid may never see anything below 720p/1080i in his life.

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u/that_90s_guy 9d ago

That is false if you want to actually own some specific Disney content. Some content has been off the shelves for years. Heck, some really obscure content is even missing from Disney+. This was previously known as the "Disney Vault".

Both Nintendo and Disney are some of the worst in terms of anti consumer practices. They create artificial demand by limiting supply. It's scummy AF. But they get away with it because people are too in love with the content they produce.

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u/GrigoriTheDragon 9d ago

They never will. Nintendo is a pro at manufacturing rarity.

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u/adamkex 9d ago

People will want to run them on the deck or the PC. Nintendo, a company which makes and sells consoles, will never release their games on a different platform.

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u/a_little_toaster 9d ago

"You can't emulate Wii games, our profits!"

Are you gonna sell them to me then? I'd be happy to pay.

"Nope, and we shut down the shop channel. So your only option is to get second hand consoles and games, which we don't profit from either."

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u/Toolatelostcause 9d ago

“And the second hand games can be 2x-20x the original price.”

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u/yvngjiffy703 8d ago

Alright. Time to emulate.

Nintendo: Surprised Pikachu face

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u/zaphod_beeble_bro 8d ago

I went to a used game store to look for old gameboy games. Dude was selling Pokemon yellow for $100 ffs.

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u/iloveshw 8d ago

They are doing the most shittiest moves lately. Pushed a "stability and bug fixes" update to 3DS after closing their shop and the only thing that the update does is blocking the way to jailbreak the console.

You can't imagine more "we just hate our clients" situation where they lose nothing but still don't want anyone to have fun.

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u/No_Purple_6271 9d ago Gold

I love all these idiotic comments about Valve fighting Nintendo in court when Valve has literally zero reason to get involved at all. Why the hell would Valve waste money fighting Nintendo on behalf of some rando emulator developer?

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u/_Thrilhouse_ 9d ago

But... But... cool companies are my friends

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u/Qnnfnglnd 9d ago

"let us buy a way to play our old favorite games in the modern day Nintendo!"

Nintendo: "No, and you'll never be able to emulate them either"

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u/Desertbriar 8d ago

"Can I play Fire emblem NES/3d Mario All stars?"

Nintendo:"Fine bitch, but only 5 copies will be shadowdropped for an hour before we put it back in our Vault :)))"

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u/yukwot 9d ago

Too bad for nintendo. Already have it installed on my steam deck

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u/uniquecannon 9d ago

I have Yuzu also installed but I haven't even begun thinking about Switch emulation yet. PlayStation emulation on the Deck has been so much simpler that I've held off doing Nintendo emulation because I've been getting mileage out of the former

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u/Joseluki 9d ago

Any potato computer can emulate GC easily.

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u/superhypered PC 9d ago

Any (decent) smartphone can emulate GC easily too

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u/Stewart_Games 8d ago

The war between Japanese and Dolphins has been raging for nearly four thousand years.

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u/pokebud 9d ago

But they’re ok with retroarch?

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u/yukwot 9d ago

Retroarch on steam doeant use nintendo emulator cores. If you want them youd have to add them yourself. This way no one is to blame but the consumer and nintendo cant stop all of us

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u/IceYetiWins 9d ago

The cores are dlc

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u/pokebud 9d ago

Interesting, I thought it had nintnendo cores in the dlc section.

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u/anonymousredditorPC 9d ago

Why would people care about having Dolphin on Steam? You can already use it without any launcher lol

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u/somebody_was_taken PC 9d ago

Cloud saves and steam deck

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u/anonymousredditorPC 9d ago

Cloud save is definitely a good point, you can cloud save without steam but it's definitely more work.

As for steam deck compatibility, dolphin can still be installed but I guess it's not just a "click and go" so it's a bit faster.

I can see the interest now

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u/randomclipguy 8d ago

I wish Gaben would just tell them to suck his Wii.

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u/Cella91 9d ago

If Nintendo cares about emulation so much, they should actually port their games to PC like Sony has been doing. I hope Valve fights them.

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u/urru4 PlayStation 9d ago

Sony isn’t porting games to avoid emulation, PS4 emulation isn’t really a thing right now and likely won’t be for a few years, and let’s not even talk about PS5. Sony does it because they recognize the huge market potential of PC gaming with a relatively small, safe investment.

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u/notwiththeflames 9d ago

I had a feeling this would happen when I learned it was coming to Steam.

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u/RolesG PC 9d ago

Why do they care? Wii was EoL in 2017. Ig no other reason than "fuck you"

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u/fiddlenutz 9d ago

“Here at Nintendo, we plan on trickle releasing these old games for another 20 years. Please understand.”

2030: We hope you enjoy New Super Mario Bros for the Wii.

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u/GamingBunchTV 9d ago

You're absolutely right. Nintendo adopted the Disney Vault method of releasing things and it's terrible.

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u/lkxyz 8d ago

Friendly reminder that Nintendo dragged Blockbuster to USA supreme court to try to get game rental banned in USA. For decades game rental was banned in Japan. Nintendo got laughed out of the court...

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u/EvilRayquaza 9d ago

Classic Nintendo L

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u/DeninjaBeariver 9d ago

Nintendo try not to make the most archaic decisions possible challenge

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u/Kalliati 9d ago

How else are they gonna charge $60 for the same game the 4th time around??

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u/X_Parasite 8d ago

Honestly don't see what Dolphin was expecting by launching on Steam. Genuinely not sure what point there was to this move anyways.

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