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Valve's latest Steam Deck trailer briefly plugs a Nintendo Switch emulator
- torginus 4y agoEmulation or not, the Deck has really eaten into the 'AAA gaming in your hand' market the switch has established, considering most non-Nintendo titles are available on the Deck as well.
- jitl 4y agoOof, the linked trailer on YouTube shows “This video is private” for me.
- priner2 4y agoLooks like they reuploaded it, with Yuzu cut out. (around 1:40 in the video) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRnZrSBK3R4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRnZrSBK3R4
- IceWreck 4y agoWhile Valve shouldn't have done this, Yuzu (and emulation) is completely legal. Nintendo cant do anything unless they want to go hard against emulation itself which brings us to the same are APIs copyrightable debate.
- stoplying1 4y agoWait, why should Valve not have done this? I know Nintendo likes to bully smaller folks but it's not like Valve is small or that they rely on keeping good terms with Nintendo, right? Edit: I guess I didn't realize Portal was on Switch.
- summerlight 4y ago>99% of emulator usages are coming from piracy and Steam probably shouldn't want to promote such use cases on their platform in a longer run.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- saagarjha 4y agoBecause it ruins their relationship with Nintendo.
- smeagull 4y agoThe only reason anybody buys their terrible consoles is because Nintendo doesn't have a relationship with anybody. They're always exclusive.
- hyperhopper 4y agoAh yes, everybody should just bow down to bullies that abuse the legal system.
- saagarjha 4y agoWhether something is "morally correct" does not make it prudent to do, unfortunately.
- TaylorAlexander 4y agoSometimes when you have a sensitive relationship, it can be helpful to support the thing that makes the other company uncomfortable without openly advertising it.
- smegger001 4y agowhat relationship? Valve is pretty much PC only other than some ports of old source engine games. Nintendo is first party console and handheld with couple of iOS/android apps. their isn't really any relationship to be sensitive.
- TaylorAlexander 4y agoThat's fair. I have no idea, but I was reading other people's comments as suggesting there was some relationship between them.
- onion2k 4y ago
- devwastaken 4y agoThe more emulation becomes mainstream the more money Nintendo will invest to illegalize it. You cannot legally get roms of commercial games, even if you own the game. Breaking of DRM is automatically copyright infringement according to the DMCA.
- wudangmonk 4y agoThey can invest in it but they cannot predict the outcome. I'd like to see DMCA go up against property rights.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y agoIt is a big gamble. I mean, if any company can pull it off now, it is Steam. It has money, position and fairly vocal customer base, but are you sure this would be enough to stave off a relentless swarm of lobbyists descending upon WH?
- wildzzz 4y agoIf there is a way to make a backup of a game you own while still preserving whatever DRM exists, it would be legal. Like if you had some device that could dump the contents of the Switch cartridge without cracking any DRM, then your backups would be legal. The hard part is that "cracking DRM" could mean anything since it could be construed that any sort of electronic signals between your backup device and the cart that emulates a retail Switch is bypassing DRM. Ripping a CD or making a completely intact copy of retail software are probably the only legitimate backups you can make without technically breaking the law. Really the only "legal" thing you could do with Yuzu is to play homebrew. It would be like owning a really fancy bong in a country where weed is illegal, surely you could put legal tobacco in it but it really works a lot better with weed.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y agoI will admit that I am mildly concerned with this myself. I dislike that everywhere now there are youtube videos showing off how you can make play Switch games, but on Deck. We are effectively forcing Nintendo's hands. While it was a niche thing, they mostly didn't have to care and now they might have to.. Things MAY work out to the benefit of regular users ( though often they work out to the benefit of those with best lawyers ). All I am saying is, if push comes to shove, as much as I would like to believe Gabe will actually fight this should Nintendo go after them somehow ( and I will actually spend money on Steam to fund it if needed ), it would have been so much better if it stayed a hobbyist thing. Edit: And for the record. I love my Deck. I love that in the sea of closed off crap, Steam made it all this magic come together.
- manojlds 4y agoBecause Valve wouldn't want you to emulate Steam games as well (which people do, for online stuff). Valve and Nintendo are on the same side of this.
- lights0123 4y agoPirating games. Valve doesn't care if you play games you buy not on their hardware (being their original business), while Nintendo doesn't want you playing Switch games on a computer even if you bought the game.
- oneoff786 4y agoCan you play the same game on two devices from the same steam account without hiding offline?
- ThrowawayTestr 4y agoAt the same time? Not that I know of. But then doing so would be a violation of the game licence.
- dleslie 4y agoSteam's presence API only supports one playing device at a time. It wouldn't be able to understand multiple active playing games on one account.
- squeaky-clean 4y agoSo it claims, but many games let you click X on that dialog and play other games. I have an old laptop which is basically a dedicated Civ 6 machine. I can still play any other steam game on my desktop while the laptop has Civ open.
- dleslie 4y agoMany games on Steam can run without access to Steam. When you close that dialog you're denying the game access to the Steam API.
- ErneX 4y agoI think it’s pretty obvious most people using Switch emulators are getting the games on the net for free. So it’s awkward to show that on promotional material of another handheld device.
- Gigachad 4y agoTbh Nintendo does make it particularly hard to pay and emulate. To legally emulate switch games you have to buy and then dump them, but if you hack your switch to dump them, you get banned from the estore so you can no longer buy them. Personally I'd be happy to pay money and get access to the game ROMs to run on an emulator because I find it more convenient to play them in an emulator than to switch a bunch of cables to put the switch on my monitor.
- bakugo 4y ago>but if you hack your switch to dump them, you get banned from the estore so you can no longer buy them. You actually don't, and I have to give credit to nintendo for this one, there are only a few ways you can get banned (the main one being installing pirated games, the switch has telemetry that sends back data about the signatures of the games you have installed) but just running simple homebrew isn't one of them, you can load up custom firmware and run a game dumper without getting banned just fine. You can even play online with it active (I have done it). The bigger problem is that only very old models of the console can be hacked without having to solder a modchip so this is completely inaccessible to most switch owners.
- redox99 4y agoOnly because it's very hard to pay for switch ROMs. As gaben himself said, "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem". If getting switch ROMs were as easy as buying any other game on Steam, most people would probably pay, the same way most people already pay instead of pirating PC games.
- serf 4y ago> Only because it's very hard to pay for switch ROMs. As gaben himself said, "Piracy is almost always a service problem and not a pricing problem". how many rootkit-level DRMs does Steam need to distribute before we can throw that comment of Gabe's out the window? They own the PC market, they have just about mastered software distribution, and everyone seems fairly happy with the service provided, yet piracy still exists and most everyone on the Steam marketplace go out of their way to implement various methods of software DRM to prevent it. What kind of fantasy service provided is he imagining that would put a stop to software piracy? Safe to say that the comment was plain wrong at this point, no?
- Madmallard 4y agoEmulation has been deemed legal? Since when? You're not paying for the system or the games and playing them freely?
- monocasa 4y agoSince Sony vs. Bleem. Bleem even won a protective order against Sony's public statements.
- ElCheapo 4y agowhat has emulation got to do with not paying for the games?
- matsemann 4y agoWhy would Valve advertise you could emulate if not for pirating games?
- some-human 4y agoTo play the wide range of homebrew switch software created by the vast homebrew community the switch has, of course. https://switchbrew.org/wiki/Homebrew_Applications https://switchbrew.org/wiki/Homebrew_Applications
- matsemann 4y agoYeah, no one really believes that.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y agoIn the same way that nobody torrents linux isos? Just because it's less popular than other uses doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
- imaltont 4y ago
- fendy3002 4y agoIf saying it like that, proton is technically windows environment emulator in Linux. So if Yuzu and co is prohibited, won't proton and wine will be prohibited as well?
- lousken 4y agoAnd what's the problem exactly? It's just emulation - if anything should cause a stir, it should be nintendo for their anti-consumer behaviour
- hyperhopper 4y agoExactly. Whats the worst that can happen to valve? Nintendo: "oh no, how dare you show that your product can do something that's perfectly legal and a very common use"
- mgraczyk 4y ago"Portal 3 will not be available on Switch"
- hyperhopper 4y agoIt's okay it has a 3 in the name, it won't be on steam either
- scheeseman486 4y agoThat sucks for Nintendo more than Valve. Portal 1 & 2 weren't even a Valve push, Nvidia Lightspeed was the lead.
- numpad0 4y agoThat only worked because Nintendo HQ didn't have good visibility of markets outside ground transportation ranges from it.
- ThinBold 4y agoVALVe themselves have game IPs they want to protect. Within the boundary of "it's legal, wygd" there are always ways to make pirating VALVe games easier and VALVe will stand no ground to ban those.
- mmis1000 4y agoI don't think valve ever tried to do that seriously. Even games checked purchasing status via steam api at startup are usually one dll away from allow it to run completely locally. They don't say them allow it, but don't seem to seriously fight against them either. I think what they sells are more about services that support the game. For example: you can find l4d2 crack easily. But you are never able to join to the official community server list without a proper purchase.
- dewey 4y agoTo the people saying "it's completely legal, what can Nintendo do" it might be worth considering that not everything is about legal / not legal. Companies and people have relationships and it's not always about if something is technically allowed, it's about how it's being understood by the other party and in this case it's pretty clear that Nintendo is not a big fan of emulators.
- ng12 4y agoNintendo is notoriously as hostile as they come, especially to the PC gaming market. Since Valve is all-in on PC I don't see why they should be the ones to play nice.
- scheeseman486 4y agoValve include access to Flathub on the Deck by default, a repository that distributes Yuzu. The degree of separation is a little larger than outright distributing on Steam, though must be said, Valve already distribute Nintendo emulators on the store including Wii/Gamecube via RetroArch. Switch is more recent, but Nintendo are still selling games that released on those platforms. The only thing I can see this threatening is native JoyCon/Pro Controller support on Steam (more specifically use of their controller glyphs) if Nintendo want to get real vindictive. Otherwise there doesn't appear to be much of an existing relationship to be threatened.
- ehsankia 4y agoI mean, Deck is literally a Linux machine and getting to desktop mode is one click away, and opening a browser is just one more click, then you have access to literally anything your heart desires. Still, including something in promotional material is very different.
- scheeseman486 4y agoIt's not like a web browser where it's up to the user to find the services who host the content they want. Yuzu is accessible as directly as anything on Steam is, using systems and services (Discover and Flathub) Valve made a conscious choice to implement. They aren't hosting Yuzu on their own servers, but they are providing direct access to it. Putting Yuzu into marketing materials was definitely a bit of a faux pas, but it's also one of those occasions that highlights the absurd pageantry of pushing the narrative that emulation is taboo. It's in the video because there are those at Valve use Yuzu on Steam Deck themselves and normalizing that is a net good.
- bravetraveler 4y agoI don't really get the buzz, it's Linux and has flatpak. You want to emulate it? Install it
- edmcnulty101 4y agoSide note, is anyone using one of these as a daily driver computer for development? The specs look decent enough and the price is cheaper than a laptop.
- dewey 4y agoCheaper than a laptop? You could get a cheaper laptop with better or equal specs if you buy used or get something from a previous year. A lot less hassle than trying to get something on custom hardware to run with no real upside.
- ThatMedicIsASpy 4y agoUsed T480(s) T490(s) is starting at 400-500€
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y agoIs it cheaper than a laptop? For $400 you can get a pretty good chromebook that has a full size screen and keyboard. That said, it would probably work so long as you connected an external keyboard.
- jhasse 4y agoSteam Deck has 16 GB RAM.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 4y agoNot exactly, but I ssh'ed into my mine, because my sausage fingers couldn't handle messing around with correcting corrupted emudeck profile. It is basically a PC. It ran Kingdom Come and CP77 well with heatwave being the only apparent notable side effect. I am sure people will soon be posting all sorts of weird deck setups:>
- TillE 4y agoThere aren't a lot of serious use cases, but if you're a casual / indie game developer, it's great as sort of a complete Linux dev kit that's also a fun toy.
- RajT88 4y agoOddly enough, the light that Humble Bundles have shone into gaming revenue cycles has made me question our copyright system as a whole. Stay with me. In Europe during the time of Mozart, composers were incentivized to be prolific by only getting royalties off the first public performance of their works. Now that is not fair today because of course we can losslessy reproduce such things infinitely. However, Humble Bundles (and really, steam sales and other similar discounts and give-aways) work because the vast majority of the money a game is ever likely to make is early in the revenue cycle. Not 20 or 10 or even 5 years later. We don't know the revenue Nintendo derives from virtual console sales, but you can be assured that virtually none of it is making it to the creators which is who copyright is designed to protect.
- EMIRELADERO 4y ago> We don't know the revenue Nintendo derives from virtual console sales, but you can be assured that virtually none of it is making it to the creators which is who copyright is designed to protect. I too have many gripples with copyright but this is simply wrong. Copyright is designed to protect the rightsholder. Whether it is a person or a company is irrelevant. This isn't a conspiracy or cynical-type explanation, this is by design
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ece 4y agoI'm not an author or artist, but you only need to search for tweets about copyright on Twitter to see it benefits the rightsholders a bit too much. If the term was shorter, maybe it would be different. Of course the reason the term is longer is because of rightsholders.
- Aerroon 4y agoI made a YouTube video a long time ago in 2013. It's wild to think about the fact that somebody could be in trouble with copyright infringement over that video in the year 2141. I expect to live at least another 50 years. In a large amount of countries copyright is granted for the lifetime of the author and an additional 70 years. It seems a little excessive.
- fit2rule 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- knaik94 4y agoWhile this is legal, Nintendo is very vocally anti-emulation. Nintendo and Denuvo announced anti-emulation measures for switch games in August 2022. There's a big difference between support and marketing support. Nintendo doesn't care what other companies do internally, but cares a lot about what is shown publicly. I remember when Nintendo took down a bunch of youtube videos showing how to jailbreak the original switch. Nintendo isn't coming to PC anytime soon though, so I can't imagine this having any major impact, but it is bad manners. Video and thumbnail edited out Yuzu.
- some-human 4y agoNintendo are anti piracy, not anti-emulation. They used to sell emulators on their marketplace for their back catalogue under the 'virtual console' brand and more recently on Switch include emulation for NES, SNES and Nintendo 64 titles as a benefit on their online subscription model. https://www.nintendo.com/switch/online-service/ https://www.nintendo.com/switch/online-service/
- dotnet00 4y agoThey're anti-emulation when they aren't the ones doing it.
- matheusmoreira 4y ago> Nintendo and Denuvo announced anti-emulation measures for switch games in August 2022. Are there details on those measures?
- confident_inept 4y agoEmulation aside, the Steam Deck has been compared to the Switch in some capacity or another in almost every single review I have ever seen of it. While I wouldn't think it's had any negative impact on Switch sales, it's a absolute fact that the Deck can emulate a multitude of games at performance parity or better than the Switch itself. The deck is constantly lauded as an emulation powerhouse and the Switch appears frequently in the discourse. Emulation legality aside, Nintendo would certainly be the company I would expect to pressure Valve for a case against enabling and abetting piracy given their history of legally attacking perceived "competition".
- odessacubbage 4y agoultimately the iwata strategy of 'sell hardware that is underpowered compared to the competition & and bank on 1st party titles & exclusives to stay competitive' was going to create this problem sooner or later, even 10 years ago it was relatively trivial to run games in dolphin that offered parity if not better performance than official nintendo hardware (not to mention far superior netplay with less headaches). unlike the wii or the ds, the switch's central gimmick, 2-in-1 portability is not some niche offshoot but rather the logical path of progression for pretty much the rest of the market and was already a fairly occupied space before either nintendo or valve decided to pursue that direction. if nintendo continues on this path, then nintendo devices will no longer be the best way to experience nintendo games; arguably that has already been the case for some time.
- danieldisu 4y agoThey sell hardware that is very competitive in price, and I thank that was one of the biggest selling points of the switch
- aliqot 4y agoLegal, but playing with fire, knowing Nintendo. They can be vindictive and litigious, often both at the same time.