8 ms·

Wait, 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

• 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 ago
  Because it ruins their relationship with Nintendo.
  • smeagull 4y ago
    The only reason anybody buys their terrible consoles is because Nintendo doesn't have a relationship with anybody. They're always exclusive.
  • hyperhopper 4y ago
    Ah yes, everybody should just bow down to bullies that abuse the legal system.
    • saagarjha 4y ago
      Whether something is "morally correct" does not make it prudent to do, unfortunately.
    • TaylorAlexander 4y ago
      Sometimes 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 ago
        what 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 ago
          That'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
      No one is abusing the legal system. They're using the legal system. The way to fix it is not to try to stop people using the system 'wrong', but to update the system so it's appropriate for modern tech.
      • rhn_mk1 4y ago
        While that's strictly true, morality is not the same as the legal system. Using the legal system in ways that other see as immoral does not and should not make friends.
      • eptcyka 4y ago
        Sure, Nintendo is definitely in the right issuing Nintendo ninjas to people they don't like.
  • gs17 4y ago
    Do they have that much of one? I think they've had one Switch title (the Portal collection) and Nintendo doesn't really have anything on Steam as far as I know.
    • uni_rule 4y ago
      Even then the relationship more Valve repo acces and licencing > Nvidia's First Party Studio > Nintendo. And obviously Nividia has a good relationship with Nintendo because of the Tegra X1 powering the switch so it's not a situation of Valve communicating with Nintendo as much as it's Valve letting Nvidia make ports out of their back catalog by occasionally going "I will allow it" whenever Nvidia Lightspeed Studios asks politely enough.
    • PuppyTailWags 4y ago
      I would guess its much more subtle than this. Consider potentially nintendo refusing to port games that were on steam, or demanding more money/control over games that have overlap with steam.
      • scheeseman486 4y ago
        Punishing publishers for choosing to release on a competitors platform they don't like would hurt those publishers more than Valve. Nintendo's relationship with third parties is already often strained, doing anything like you suggest would in particular cause indies, which Switch relies on to fill the gaps between Nintendo releases, to flee the platform.
  • aeturnum 4y ago
    It seems like Valve has re-uploaded without the emulator, but I think there's a case to be made that this sets expectations for Valve and Nintendo in an important way. Valve is not selling a walled garden product and if you are expecting them to administer the steam deck like one you will be disappointed. If that's not for you then you should not go into business with Valve - it would be painful for both parties.
  • ouid 4y ago
    Why would they need one? Just use an emulator
  • squeaky-clean 4y ago
    What relationship with Nintendo? Nintendo has no games listed on Steam, and the only Valve game on any Nintendo platform is the recent Portal port.
    • thaumasiotes 4y ago
      Nothing is more strategically important to Valve than its ability to rerelease a 15-year-old game on every current platform.
  • daniel-cussen 4y ago
    [dead]
  • zamalek 4y ago
    Nintendo doesn't have a relationship with anyone (content creators included), apart from their lawyers. Despite the video being retracted the desired effect has been achieved. The flurry of news has more lay people thinking about the Steam Deck in the same class as the Switch, even if their intent is not to emulate.
    • cowtools 4y ago
      Well, valve released portal on the new nintendo, so they have some buisness connections
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  • shmerl 4y ago
    Do they have a relationship? Nintendo barely cares about releasing their games for PC gamers.
• devwastaken 4y ago
  The 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 ago
    They can invest in it but they cannot predict the outcome. I'd like to see DMCA go up against property rights.
    • A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
      It 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 ago
    If 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 ago
    I 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 ago
  Because 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 ago
    Pirating 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 ago
      Can you play the same game on two devices from the same steam account without hiding offline?
      • ThrowawayTestr 4y ago
        At the same time? Not that I know of. But then doing so would be a violation of the game licence.
      • dleslie 4y ago
        Steam'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 ago
          So 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 ago
            Many 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 ago
  I 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 ago
    Tbh 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 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". 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?