Emulator future

With the recent Nintendo lawsuit against yuzu the switch/3DS emulator, what other mega companies will jump on board and attack all emulators, source ports or anyway to play games in the future without being under these mega companies thumbs? Are there going to be save havens to preserve and save games like doom/quake or any game for future use? Any ideas/thoughts about this issue?

From the reporting I've seen, the authors of Yuzu flew WAY too close to the sun.  If the lawsuit had proceeded, the discovery process would have allowed Nintendo to peek behind the curtain at all of their private conversations.  I suspect the Yuzu authors figured that such a process would have painted them in an incredibly poor light and would have broken any illusion about not supporting or financially benefiting from piracy, so they took the prudent way out.

That said, there is evidence that Nintendo wants to open the door to being able to put emulators out of business.  One critical and sometimes-overlooked part of the settlement is thus (source):
 

Quote

 

But now, Nintendo and Tropic Haze are asking a judge to specifically find that Yuzu circumvents its copyright protections by using those keys, even if it doesn’t come with them.  They are asking a federal judge to say yes to this, specifically:

 

Developing or distributing software, including Yuzu, that in its ordinary course functions only when cryptographic keys are integrated without authorization, violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s prohibition on trafficking in devices that circumvent effective technological measures, because the software is primarily designed for the purpose of circumventing technological measures.

 

Even if this wish isn't granted, I think it's pretty clear that Nintendo is specifically seeking out court precedent that any piece of software that relies on DRM circumvention by their users is inherently illegal.  This precedent would kill Switch emulation dead by opening any Switch emulator developer to liability - not only now, but in the foreseeable future, since there would be technically no legal way to dump the keys from your Switch to make an emulator work in the first place.

"Yeah, let's make an emulator for the current system of one of the most famously litigious gaming companies in history" -- No smart person, ever

Sorry but this is just stupid. Honestly, what did they think was going to happen? I see it's been in development since 2018. The only shock is it took this long. This is one of the few instances where I will agree with Nintendo. The Switch is still a going concern, and this clearly could be used to affect their sales, so of course they were going to do this. No company wouldn't do this and it's absolute idiocy to think otherwise. Nintendo did the same thing when they went after the ROM sites when they were starting to do do their classic game subscription thing whose name presently escapes me.

Emulators have always been in a somewhat legal grey area, especially if they involve somehow circumventing some kind of copy protection or encryption as is the case with Yuzu. The true legal responsibility might be on the people distributing the ROMs. But no matter the specifics of each case, no emulator developer's going to have pockets deep enough to fight someone like Nintendo, so of course they are going to nope the hell out of it. SEGA have done a few things with their classic catalog and to the best of my knowledge haven't sued anyone. Capcom have released a few classic games on Windows and I haven't heard anything from them either. They are smart enough to know the ship has well and truly sailed on emulation of their classic games, and that there's no point in spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers for little to no return on that investment. So it is unlikely in the extreme you are suddenly going to hear "SNK rises from obscurity to sue MAME developers!"

9 hours ago, Scottier681 said:

Are there going to be save havens to preserve and save games like doom/quake or any game for future use? Any ideas/thoughts about this issue?

Um... what has this got to do with Doom and Quake? Both games are easily available on multiple store fronts for different platforms. Both have received major updates to support modern systems in recent years so I am really perplexed as to why you think this would give cause for concern about them?

15 minutes ago, Murdoch said:

Um... what has this got to do with Doom and Quake? Both games are easily available on multiple store fronts for different platforms. Both have received major updates to support modern systems in recent years so I am really perplexed as to why you think this would give cause for concern about them?

I assume he means the many console ports of Doom and the two console Quakes, given this thread's context

13 minutes ago, Devalaous said:

 

I assume he means the many console ports of Doom and the two console Quakes, given this thread's context

Then much of what I said applies to that too. The N64 versions have been released in some form for modern systems. The other console ports are either demonstrably worse or functionally identical to the readily available modern versions, or may have some unique features but are for systems that is very unlikely to have anyone going after emulator developers for. The only Doom port I know of that fits the latter criteria is the PSX version. Not sure about Quake.

Emulators become a legal problem when it's on a space where it's not used by preservation but instead piracy like almost all players of yuzu was.

The well being of the games on the past console/systems always would be first the original company, for example iD software does not really needed Doom 64 being ported for PC, but because they know people care, and they now some devs care, they made a nice port. Capcom or others company also do this but instead with recopilations or just ports of their olders game and sell it again for 30$.

Emulation it's mostly regarded as just that, Emulation of some games that would be impossible to reproduce or buy,  like rigth now would be many games from PS2 or 3DS.

The Yuzu devs deserve to be punished on the basis of being absolute morons, and if this puts a dent in the emulation scene/laws in general, they're the ones that decided to abuse the situation to profit off of seeing how far they could push the envelope. If they actually cared at all about "preservation" (I love how everybody acts like suddenly more than 2% of people are actually using emulators for anything other than free games whenever discussions about emulation happen) they wouldn't have tried to profit from it, because they knew an outcome like this was inevitable, and they knew it could harm the emulation scene.

Nintendo is a cunt of a corporation, but that doesn't mean they're expected to look the other way or ride everyone's cock out of the goodness of their hearts and allow some idiots to profit off of their console and their work. Nor do they care about all the people saying "I won't buy Nintendo games anymore!!1!!" considering that those people likely weren't paying for their games in the first place, since that's the whole fucking point of an emulator to most people. They don't care about your money when they're still going to get everyone else's money. This is the corporation that owns Mario, Zelda, and Pokemon. They couldn't give a fuck less about a tiny minority of ultra-nerds boycotting their games. This was nothing more than a bunch of greedy imbeciles poking an extremely greedy bear. Anyone shocked by this outcome needs to come back to reality. If this is the staw that broke the camel's back in regards to your relationship with Nintendo, why were you ever supporting them to begin with? This is the way they've been for ages!

By the way, this isn't referring to anyone here, even if it fits a description of some people.

Damn now I only have half a century's worth of console and arcade gaming to emulate

I’m not worried because legality or not, Nintendo is chasing a headless chicken near the edge of a cliff and has been forever now. It’s fun to sit back and watch the shenanigans while people continue to emulate their software. 

11 hours ago, Devalaous said:

I assume he means the many console ports of Doom and the two console Quakes, given this thread's context

I am going to suggest that Idthesdasoft does not have any particular plans or interest in going after people reverse-engineering the old console ports or making PC-format TCs imitating them, given that a.) they have people who post here and know all about them, b.) they commissioned some of the people doing it to do the official Doom 64 port, and c.) they didn't go after anyone else's projects after they did that.

That doesn't necessarily mean they won't or can't do it, but there pretty visibly hasn't been a hunger for that specific fight over the last few years.

When I brought all of this up, I was concerned that the yuzu lawsuit could set a precedent against ANY emulation, ports or other methods of playing games other than the exact versions the companies put out (ex. Doom 64 remaster only through the ways sold, no source ports). Maybe I'm overreacting but it seems like these game companies not only do not care about their games(IP), but only the profit from selling it THEIR way through either digital or granted permission of physical releases. I do not agree with piracy, but to attempt to stop all emulation (if that's even possible) like Nintendo wants to do, who will jump on that wagon next? Maybe all will be fine. Just concerned about the future of our games, their preservation, and their value to society. 

1 hour ago, Scottier681 said:

Maybe I'm overreacting

You are.

Nothing is really going to happen.

There have already been cases before trying to eliminate emulation, however judges have said more than once that emulators are not illegal, since they are only a simulation of the original software that is used for preservation of it

Now if you profit from that we are talking about idiotic, precisely what Yuzu did, asking for donations for extra content, not roms as some say, they only explained how to Dump your own games, something that is allowed since you paid for it at the time

Personally, I consider that piracy is fine as long as the product you want to pirate is not in current circulation.

(But of course, this is only moral, something that not many have)

I even think I read a few days ago that Sony is collaborating with a PS2 Emulator to bring its games to PS5

2 hours ago, Scottier681 said:

Maybe I'm overreacting but it seems like these game companies not only do not care about their games(IP), but only the profit from selling it THEIR way through either digital or granted permission of physical releases.

The developers are the ones who care about their games, not whatever company they work for. That's just business. Do you think the CEO of Clorox cares about how effective their bleach actually is at removing shit stains? Probably not, as long as the bleach is selling. And since it's their product, it's going to be sold their way. Corporations exist to profit, that's it. If you don't like it, don't deal with large corporations. They're large for a reason, and it's not because they went door to door sharing free hugs. I guarantee you if a PS5 emulator existed and worked as well as Yuzu, Sony would be on that shit like a starving fly.

There should be a universal emulator. ROMs, Dos games, Playstation...everything...all included in Windows 12...

54 minutes ago, Naarok0fkor said:

There should be a universal emulator. ROMs, Dos games, Playstation...everything...all included in Windows 12...

There is, pretty much. It's called RetroArch.

<sarcarsm>

Also, Windows 12? Wow, didn't know it came out already.

</sarcarsm>

10 minutes ago, Panzermann11 said:

Sorta. It's called RetroArch.

My exact thought

Anyways to the answer the OP, you are being way too ovedramatic. Although I am really sad that Nintendo decided to sue the developers of yuzu and citra (especially sad about citra). There are still going to be other emulators for that system. There is also the Internet Archive where the emulators can be quite easily found. Also since most emulators are open-source, it is quite easy to fork them and share them. So, emulation is not going to be dead anytime soon. 

Also, emulation is not illegal. People get super confused over what an emulator is, even Nintendo uses emulators for stuff like Nintendo Online games, etc. Distribution of ROMs on the other hand is what's illegal about it.

Not being overdramatic. I shared this concern about digital only games. Lots of people thought this was the new and best way to play games. Now see what has become of it. Control of what and when and how we play games. It's easy to think maybe in our lifetime nothing major will happen but it's a slow process things are removed, taken away, made illegal, and resources more difficult to obtain. Movies and books are censored and made harder to access games are right there. Just concerns. It's always a slow change many don't see until it's too late. I'd be happy not to be concerned. And I'm glad there are those out there who will continue to work on more and better ways to preserve, protect and make games available for the future.

9 minutes ago, Scottier681 said:

Not being overdramatic. I shared this concern about digital only games. Lots of people thought this was the new and best way to play games. Now see what has become of it.

I hate to break it to you, but many people still think it's the "new and best way" to play games. Physical releases of modern games are almost pointless now.

10 minutes ago, Scottier681 said:

Movies and books are censored and made harder to access games are right there.

are you seriously comparing the culture war surrounding books in libraries to not being able to download a tears of the kingdom rom before the official release date because if so a.) what the fuck and b.) what the fuck

Not a direct comparison. Just steps of how things slowly can be altered right in front of us while we don't pay much attention. 

And if you read all of the above, it was never about books in libraries or a particular ROM being downloaded before a release date. It's about looking below the surface issues. Legal issues, future precedents, loss of possible access to all of the above( books, movies, games), with everything being digital and in full control of people who either want us to have "their" version of a product, or none at all (discontinued stuff all the time). Maybe when you have lost something you had or would like again and can't get it then you can cry "what the fuck"?

8 minutes ago, Scottier681 said:

And if you read all of the above

I did, and it was barely coherent. You're jumping between multiple different topics as if they were all the same thing. An emulator getting lawyered out of existence for being run by idiots does not effect the availability of physical games does not effect the censorship of books.

Never mind. I'll let it go at that.

Wake me up when Sony copyrigths and delete rimms blairs 

That could be possible at the moment with what yuzu and nintendo precedents make it feel.

The only good one it's Xbox.

1 hour ago, Scottier681 said:

Maybe when you have lost something you had or would like again and can't get it then you can cry "what the fuck"?

Can you give some examples of games you personally want to play but are now unable to due to this issue? I don't mean that in an argumentative way, I'm genuinely curious. As far as I can remember, all the games that I've played that are now impossible to play were either multiplayer games that shut down, shareware games that just got lost to time (WildTangent), or Fllash games. Besides the shareware games just being lost due to obscurity and lack of care, I simply accepted it because I knew it was a possibility for the multiplayer games, and I knew that Flash game websites weren't going to last forever, at least not all of them. It would help your case if you gave some examples of your own instead of saying "wait until you see an example for yourself".

I don't have a particular game that I can't play ( currently there are emulators still to do so) but my point was to say ( to the person who made that initial comment ) what if? If you cared about a particular game and emulators get stopped legally and there were no other ways to play them if the big corporations didn't make them available what would you think, feel, say then? I used to struggle to find old arcade machines to play but with MAME that was solved. My point was for NOW, we have ways to play games such as emulators, physical copies, flash drives. Etc. I was initially just concerned that legal action against emulators could become further complicated and have little to do with piracy issues like the above mentioned company but with companies becoming more controlling with digital wares, physical copies becoming less and less, hardware to play them less possible or too expensive to obtain, then what is next? The examples of movies being released digitally has outraged even directors like Christopher Nolan, because movies can be pulled out of production and removed from digital stores, books removed from print, digital books altered or removed are other examples of us losing control of our media. I hope that helped some and thank you for responding in a decent way. I appreciate your asking the way you did. Maybe I am overreacting, overthinking all of it but it was just to get opinions and ideas that was all. 

4 hours ago, Naarok0fkor said:

There should be a universal emulator. ROMs, Dos games, Playstation...everything...all included in Windows 12...

RetroArch exists but MAME also aims to be that to an extent, especially after MESS got merged into it.

3 hours ago, Scottier681 said:

Not being overdramatic. I shared this concern about digital only games. Lots of people thought this was the new and best way to play games. Now see what has become of it. Control of what and when and how we play games. It's easy to think maybe in our lifetime nothing major will happen but it's a slow process things are removed, taken away, made illegal, and resources more difficult to obtain. Movies and books are censored and made harder to access games are right there. Just concerns. It's always a slow change many don't see until it's too late. I'd be happy not to be concerned. And I'm glad there are those out there who will continue to work on more and better ways to preserve, protect and make games available for the future.

Maybe I understand your concern but you should have given examples. There's one case when I missed physical copies.  

When the rights to some of the licensed music expire, the digital versions of these games are altered:

- in GTA San Andreas Definitive Edition: 21 songs were missing, 

- The City of Lost Heaven: all the licensed music is gone,  

This is one of those rare cases where you can sorely miss your boxed copy. But no sane person can blame the Publishers for respecting the law.