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I was listening to a gaming podcast last week and they were talking about how this release was pirated and available for the last week or so on torrents. That

I was listening to a gaming podcast last week and they were talking about how this release was pirated and available for the last week or so on torrents. That in itself wasn't surprising, but the interesting point they talked about is that the game is much more enjoyable when played on PC with an emulated copy because modern gaming PC hardware is much smoother and higher resolution than the stock Switch. It really makes me think Nintendo has an untapped market here to sell a little box you plug into your PC that plays switch games, interfaces with their controllers, etc. They've done oddball stuff like the SNES Gameboy player and GameCube GBA player add-ons in the past. It feels like there would be people willing to pay to properly play Switch games on their gaming PCs.

denkmoon 3y ago
Nintendo are way too control-freak for this, not to mention fearful of piracy and emulation. They don't want that money.
- qbasic_forever 3y ago
  Like it or not apparently Switch piracy is a thing so this doesn't really change much for their current situation. But it does give people who want to do things the right way an avenue to do so. I kind of think of it like high end CAD software and such that ships a physical dongle in order to use the software--Nintendo can sell hardware to help ensure it's legitimate use of their emulation software.
  - andy_ppp 3y ago
    Yes exactly, this idea that piracy is lost sales has always been rubbish. The people who go out of their way to pirate always will. Does it work on an M1 Max yet?
    - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
      > Yes exactly, this idea that piracy is lost sales has always been rubbish That's beside the point. What matters is that Nintendo believes that piracy must be opposed at all costs. It's not about sales, it's not about money, it's not about logic, I don't think it's even about the actual law. It's about attacking piracy, as an end unto itself.
      - wiz21c 3y ago
        Businesses don't attack piracy because of law but because of losses. Besides,as another post mentions, Switch piracy is probably very limited. So it doesn't cost much to Nintendo to maintain pressure on piracy. And after all, even if they don't do it for the law, they can do it thanks to the law. It's their right (and I'm a free software zealot :-)).
        yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
        > Businesses don't attack piracy because of law but because of losses. > Besides,as another post mentions, Switch piracy is probably very limited. Switch piracy is very limited, but they pursue it aggressively because of the losses it causes them? Besides, that's already bunk; every time someone actually puts together a study it turns out that piracy is good for sales. > And after all, even if they don't do it for the law, they can do it thanks to the law. It's their right Well no; when I say that I don't think it's even about the law, I meant that their idea of what is and isn't okay seems to be more aggressive than the actual law. Contrast: https://web.archive.org/web/20190329045404/https://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#emergence https://web.archive.org/web/20190329045404/https://www.ninte... > Are Game Copying Devices Illegal? > Yes. Game copiers enable users to illegally copy video game software onto floppy disks, writeable compact disks or the hard drive of a personal computer. They enable the user to make, play and distribute illegal copies of video game software which violates Nintendo's copyrights and trademarks. These devices also allow for the uploading and downloading of ROMs to and from the Internet. Based upon the functions of these devices, they are illegal. vs https://web.archive.org/web/20230428020356/https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230428020356/https://www.copyr... > 117. Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs55 > (a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.— Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided: [...] > (2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful. Now I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but I struggle to read that as anything but Nintendo very confidently refusing to consider that a person could copy a game for any reason other than illegal piracy, while the actual law appears to allow for backups. Further up the same page they likewise are overwhelmingly confident that emulators only exist for illegal purposes, because nobody could ever want to play a legitimately-purchased game on anything except for original hardware.
    - jackphilson 3y ago
      this doesn't make sense. take it to it's logical conclusion and say there's a site that allows anyone to pirate with minimal friction with one click. Still think piracy isn't lost sales?
      - cogitoergofutuo 3y ago
        > say there's a site that allows anyone to pirate with minimal friction with one click. Still think piracy isn't lost sales? Say that this site is user-funded and actually buys a copy for every click. Still think piracy is lost sales? “What if reality were different in a way that I’ve concocted specifically for the purposes of this discussion?” is a fun game!
    - Doddler 3y ago
      Sure piracy isn't necessarily a lost sale, but would there be more sales if people could not pirate the game, as with say a ps5 game? Especially in the case of rather widespread piracy in the weeks preceding release where even normal platform users may pirate because it's the only way to play. To what degree I couldn't tell you, it's most certainly not a 1 to 1 like the companies would like to argue, but there's almost certainly at least some amount of loss.
  - hnlmorg 3y ago
    That’s not how Nintendo would view it though. The GP is absolutely correct that this would be seen as inviting people to leave Nintendos ecosystem. The only way this would work for Nintendo Would be if the “dongle” cost as much as a Switch, but then who’d want to pay that much for an emulator? It’s also worth noting that Nintendo don’t have an issue with emulation per se, several of their commercial products are based on emulation. But I’m every instance where they support emulation it has been looked into their hardware ecosystem and the “emulation” word is never spoken publicly.
  - WastingMyTime89 3y ago
    It changes the situation deeply. Switch piracy is not easy. You need to get an emulator, get a key dump for a Switch, torrent the game, setup everything. For a console you need physical modification or some tinkering shorting pins if you have a first gen console. That’s a high bar to cross for Nintendo main market which remains families. Plus at this point the Switch is mostly a money printing machine between the old hardware and the store.
    - circuit10 3y ago
      If you’re pirating you would probably also pirate the keys and you wouldn’t need to do the console exploit (as far as I understand it anyway)
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - WastingMyTime89 3y ago
        That’s not at all equivalent to just plugging a box sold by Nintendo however which was the point I was making. Pirating is an involved process. The fact it exists doesn’t at all make a business case as the parent comment was implying especially considering that PC gaming is already a niche market.
        sirtomato 3y ago
        It is really not that much of an involved process. Reading a wiki page and downloading a few files from the first hit of a Google result is probably similar effort to setting up whatever potential product you have in mind.
  - lrvick 3y ago
    You can never stop motivated people from dumping the memory of hardware they own and making it easier for everyone else. Piracy can never be stopped and they waste a lot of effort trying. They should optimize for being lower friction than privacy, like Steam.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - lifeonlars 3y ago
      They are successfully competing with piracy, but not by being lower friction but by being more reliable and trustworthy. Nintendo are highly focussed on a market where the person making the buying decision isn't the person playing the game. Buy your 11-year-old son a Switch for Xmas and you know that a) it will work out of the box b) there will be a several family-friendly games with name recognition for any child that age (Mario, Pokemon, Zelda) and c) no one in his class will have a more expensive version or one that works better. Contrast this with trying to get something to work on a PC with a 'switch emulator dongle'. You have to plug it in yourself, you will end up spending more than you planned in the computer store because each component comes with sucker upgrades, and game choices will be much wider and trickier. Then the game which looks great on your son's friend's machine will play like sh*t and you'll feel guilty for having cheaped out, without necessarily knowing what the operative constraint is.
  - ilyt 3y ago
    It would be pointless: piracy already happens so dongle stops nothing ,and dongle costs extra. Just make PC ports like everyone else, it's free money (compared to risk of making new game) at this point
  - sudosysgen 3y ago
    The dongles for high end CAD software don't work either. Iranian, Russian, and Chinese pirates are very very good at cracking them (and some even provide support contracts and bugfixes). It's an interesting side effect of sanctions. If you get a proxy in Iran, you can find cracks and even cracked updates and custom bugfixes of basically any CAD software you want.
- HlessClaudesman 3y ago
  Also Nintendo's whole philosophy is all about doing more with less. They make money on every device by not putting out overly engineered / performant systems. So they have always been lagging in terms of cutting edge hardware, but they make up for it by focusing on joyful content.
  - Dalewyn 3y ago
    I would argue Nintendo has their priorities straight. Joe Schmoe doesn't know and doesn't care about hardware. Ohled? Gigglehearts? Flame rates? WTF are you talking about, he'll say to you. What Joe Schmoe does know and does care about is whether the game he's playing is fun. This is where Nintendo focuses their energy.
    - Schiphol 3y ago
      Joe Schmoe and me both
    - Fricken 3y ago
      There is a reason why Hollywood doesn't put technical people in charge of it's films. A successful film director needs to prove their ability to deliver powerful experiences on next-to- no budget at all before anyone puts them in charge of a $150 million dollar blockbuster.
  - ProfessorLayton 3y ago
    I wouldn't say that's always been the case. Both the N64 and Gamecube featured relatively cutting edge tech during their time. Of course, those two are their weakest selling home consoles, so they've definitely shifted their strategy afterwards. But for two generations, they did try and keep up with their contemporaries.
    - elromulous 3y ago
      > those two are their weakest selling home consoles Wii U would like a word.
- bzzzt 3y ago
  What you call 'control freak' is just the culture of a company focussed on creating a curated experience which is a combination of software, hardware and user experience. Anything not fitting in that vision diminishes that experience and they will do anything to prevent that. Of course, they also like to get paid for their work ;)
  - thefz 3y ago
    > just the culture of a company focussed on creating a curated experience Core product on core platform struggles to reach playable FPS at launch. A "curated experience" is waaaay different than this.
    - pallas_athena 3y ago
      According to Digital Foundry [0], the game is a perfectly stable 30fps the vast majority of the time [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLlZBwN_-C4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLlZBwN_-C4
      - thefz 3y ago
        "30fps the vast majority of the time" in 2023 is just laughable.
        Maken 3y ago
        The standard in 2023 is "broken at launch" and "sub 30 FPS in latest hardware".
        Accacin 3y ago
        It's not in my opinion though. I have a Gaming PC and a Switch. My gaming PC has a 6900XT and so I expect to be playing every game at 1440p @ 60FPS at a bear minimum - some games come out and surprisingly have trouble with that. The Switch is old hardware that was under-powered on release, therefore, I expect that I'm not going to be getting 60FPS. Basically, it's down to expectations. The Switch is absolutely great at what it does, and I appreciate it for that reason alone. My expectations are greatly different compared to a gaming PC/PS5/etc. My biggest gripes with Nintendo is the god awful way they handle people using their IP to make YouTube videos, etc.
genocidicbunny 3y ago
> It really makes me think Nintendo has an untapped market here to sell a little box you plug into your PC that plays switch games, interfaces with their controllers, etc. They've done oddball stuff like the SNES Gameboy player and GameCube GBA player add-ons in the past, it feels like there would be people willing to pay to properly play Switch games on their gaming PCs. It seems unlikely they would be willing to let go of control like that. With all their oddball stuff, you were still largely within the Nintendo ecosystem. They also probably don't want to deal with the piracy problem on PC, considering they already deal with it on their relatively locked-down consoles. For better or for worse, Nintendo also likes to really control the experience you get playing games on their platforms; It would probably not be a great look for them to have to deal with thousands of customers that are trying to run their games on hardware older than a Switch and complaining that it's a terrible experience. Yeah the existing hardware is underpowered, but its uniformly underpowered, and that's worth quite a bit too. I think for Nintendo, the more prudent solution would be to release an updated Switch with some more powerful hardware that's fully backwards compatible with the existing Switch library. It would be very par for the course for them, and assuage most of the complaints about the Switch being underpowered.
- bzzzt 3y ago
  People complaining about the Switch being underpowered are expecting PS5 level performance on a mobile device. Even if a new console would be twice as fast they still would be disappointed. It's perfectly possible to create innovative and - most important - fun games on something as powerful as the Switch.
  - ZoF 3y ago
    [dead]
  - genocidicbunny 3y ago
    More recently the comparison I've been hearing is against things like the Steam Deck, which are a little more fair. > It's perfectly possible to create innovative and - most important - fun games on something as powerful as the Switch. Of course, but there have been plenty of games released for the Switch that could seemingly do with a bit more oomph from the hardware, TotK being the current example.
Asmod4n 3y ago
The day 1 patch makes this a Locked 30 fps game without frame drops except when using ultra hand. It’s the first AAA release in months to run this smooth.
- meibo 3y ago
  It definitely still dips regularly in heavy areas. It doesn't impact the experience the way it did before, imo, but saying that it doesn't would be disingenuous. You're right about it being the only acceptable AAA release this year though.
- peanuty1 3y ago
  Only 30 fps?
  - lewispollard 3y ago
    The game itself is hard coded to run at 30 fps. There is a 60 fps patch for emulated versions, but using it makes the FMV movies run at double speed due to the game's hard coded 30 fps.
- simooooo 3y ago
  Don’t use smooth in the same context as 30fps. 120hz+ is smooth
nindalf 3y ago
Playing Switch games emulated on the Steam Deck is pretty common. The power of the Deck does give you better performance, no doubt. The trade off is that the battery life is significantly worse than a Switch.
dgunay 3y ago
It would be incredibly cool if they ported their games (even just ones more than 10 years old) to PC, but they clearly want to double/triple/quadruple dip on retro game purchases from console to console so that would never really work. I have really grown sour on Nintendo over the years but that would do a lot to win me back, personally.
- baq 3y ago
  Yeah Bayonetta on pc was pretty good as a case in point.
irjustin 3y ago
But hasn't this always been the case? Like computers are always more powerful than consoles, but the draw of consoles being a "turns on and just works" system - minus blowing-into-the-cartridge-on-the-original-nes
- zwirbl 3y ago
  We are talking playing a current generation console game on emulator with better framerate and resolution than on the original console, at release. So no, it has not always been the case
  - michaelt 3y ago
    Well, it's long been the case that a $400 console has lower specs than a $1200+ gaming PC, even in the year the console is released. And that the performance gap gets even wider as the console gets towards the end of its lifecycle. Part of the criticism here is that the $340 Switch is getting outperformed by emulation on the $399 Steam Deck.
  - cubefox 3y ago
    I'm pretty sure it has always been the case that a PC emulator could outperform a several years old gaming handheld. At least if enough interest was there for someone to write the emulator.
    - dmonitor 3y ago
      It just feels different since the switch is a “home console” technically instead of a pure “portable”
      - cubefox 3y ago
        I'd say that something which is portable is a "portable" even if you can plug it into a TV. It is strongly power constrained. It is just bigger than old portable consoles. (I actually don't know why they were always so small before the Switch. Perhaps large screens were too expensive. Or everyone thought of them as having to fit inside a pocket.)
jonwinstanley 3y ago
For the last few generations Nintendo has been happy to be slightly behind Playstation and Xbox in terms of graphics so that they can be the lower-cost alternative. And based on unit sales, that strategy seems to be doing pretty well.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  Yeah, and parents love it too for that reason. People really seem to underestimate the market for children (and parents / family gifting and indulging said children), not just with gaming but also with e.g. youtube. To add, people also underestimate mobile gaming; westerners still look down on it compared to console and PC gaming, despite the financials telling a whole different story.
  - klabb3 3y ago
    Well I’m not a parent and switch is perfect for me. Would I want 4k? Ray tracing? Yeah sure, but it’s nowhere near a deal breaker. As long as it runs smooth I care orders of magnitude more about gameplay. Botw gave me so much joy, simply because it’s an amazingly well made game. In my experience, graphics upgrades feel amazing at first, but if it’s a good game, you mostly forget about it after just a few minutes. But yes, sometimes you have very scenic environments, like in RDR2, but even then I feel like it’s 90% making good composition, color, lighting, and 10% is the actual GPU doing real time lighting etc. At least to me, this obsession with cutting edge graphics is just an expensive hobby of moving goal posts. I’m the same with TVs, I care much more about the movie or show than the TV specs.
  - goosedragons 3y ago
    IDK, mobile games don't tend to have a spending cap. On most PC/console releases the most you can spend on a game is few hundred for the game and all the DLC bought day 1 and usually goes down as time goes on. Mobile games will have one gem bundle or whatever that costs more than the complete package of a PC/console title. So you can easily get whales spending thousands on one game. The financials tell me mobile games are better at extracting money from their audience or a subset rather but that's kind of how they feel to play! Everything is geared towards extracting money.
tonyhb 3y ago
How can they compare with something that hasn’t been released? It might be true, but at the same time it feels disingenuous to compare unreleased games on switch to a pirated PC. “Much more enjoyable” can’t be a thing until you compare, right?
- zwirbl 3y ago
  You can compare all the other releases, including Breath of the Wild, why should this release be any different? Especially when the emulator keeps improving and PC hardware keeps getting better
  - tonyhb 3y ago
    Specifically because they said the experience is better without knowing the other unreleased version they’re comparing it to. Bringing up other releases is irrelevant.
- SifJar 3y ago
  Presumably they can run the pirated version on actual hardware as well (via custom firmware etc.), and therefore compare?
- wzdd 3y ago
  You were downvoted but you are right. The podcast was released last week, but the game came with a day-1 patch to improve the performance on Switch which they would not have been able to try. Obviously it will never compete with emulation on a PC, but it runs just fine on Switch. 99.9% of players are not going to think "wow, this would be much more enjoyable on a PC!" The gaming podcast crowd is not exactly representative.
idonotknowwhy 3y ago
The best way to play Breath Of The Wild, is at 4k 60fps on Cemu (the WiiU emulator). Can also play at ultrawide 21:9 if you have a monitor like that.
- MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
  This. It works very well on Cemu, except for the parts where you need gyro input.
erfgh 3y ago
They can't control the experience you will get on your PC. PCs vary so you could get a bad experience and blame it on Nintendo.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
sspiff 3y ago
I think it would make more sense for Nintendo to make a more powerful console on a compatible platform that isn't handheld, kind of like the Sega Master System/Game Gear or Sega Mega Drive/Nomad consoles. So you can enjoy the same titles on the go as you can on the TV, and you could still use the Switch on the TV, but there would be an alternative for people who want a more high fidelity, fluid experience on a TV or a monitor. It doesn't even have to be that much more powerful. Even when sticking to the same vendor, a 2018 Nvidia ARM chip had roughly 3-4x the CPU power and 10x the GPU power of the Switch, in a 15-60W power budget. This would be fine for a console that's always plugged into the power mains. Going to more midrange vendors like Rockchip or Mediatek, or - and this is a long shot - striking a deal with Samsung for using their Exynos chips would probably yield a lower cost device but still net a 4-5x increase in gaming performance. Emulation has proven that the games are not tied so tightly to their hardware platform for switching to a more modern architecture while maintaining compatibility to be an issue. Even without first-party involvement people have been running Switch games on mobile Android devices with a good processor.
- zimpenfish 3y ago
  > striking a deal with Samsung for using their Exynos chips The fantasy world where they do a deal with Apple for M2 SOCs (or even just get bought wholesale by Apple.)
  - Cthulhu_ 3y ago
    > (or even just get bought wholesale by Apple.) This is a crazy idea but... it might end up becoming reality. I don't see Nintendo selling any time soon though, it's been very independent for a very long time, to the point where it was huge when they released some things for smartphones (pokemon go, super mario jump, etc). That said, Apple's been trying some things with gaming (they pushed gaming as one of the use cases for the Apple TV), but then I realize they already have one of the biggest gaming platforms in the world with the iphone.
    - peanuty1 3y ago
      Apple seems very uninterested in gaming on Mac.
stavros 3y ago
Is Switch emulation on PC that good? Maybe I should try it if so. I imagined it would be fairly janky due to the difficulty of emulating currentish hardware, and only old consoles could be emulated with good performance.
- lawn 3y ago
  It's excellent for some popular games, decent at many others, and garbage at some.
  - stavros 3y ago
    That's good enough, thanks!
- acallaha 3y ago
  I already bought the game from Nintendo, but stumbled on this thread this morning. I'd be willing to play it on an emulator instead of my switch if the performance was better, but some quick skimming online isn't convincing me. To wit, the consensus opinion on reddit is that BOTW is still a buggy mess on the main switch emulators, Yuzu & Ryujinx, and that people should play the Wii U version via the CEMU emulator instead. If BotW isn't a polished experience many years after release, I'm pessimistic about TotK being a good experience so soon after release. You can skim the bug reports on the emulator sites; there's lots of stuttering and invisible walls and all other kinds of jank. I think I'll stick to playing it on my switch :-)
- sb057 3y ago
  I've been playing the leaked version of TotK at 4K 60 fps for several days, and with only extremely minor visual bugs (example: when switching abilities, the background turns black rather than out-of-focus). It's honestly less janky than many AAA PC games.
  - stavros 3y ago
    Huh, that's very encouraging, thanks! Which emulator have you been using, out of curiosity?
thefz 3y ago
> It really makes me think Nintendo has an untapped market here to sell a little box you plug into your PC that plays switch games Games that are more locked down and walled than Apple products, that run 30fps on the oldest hardware possible in 2023, made by a company that actively alienates its own fanbase with aggressive copyright claims over the silliest things? No thanks. Really, you can keep them out of the PC market.
- cubefox 3y ago
  It seems the fault is less with Nintendo than with parts of the "fan base" which defend piracy. I bet much, much fewer people would play Zelda on an emulator if they a) had to pay for it and b) had to wait until it comes out.
  - simooooo 3y ago
    It’s Nintendo. Plenty of people have a hard time doing reviews on YouTube
dirtyid 3y ago
I stopped my BOTW playthrough recently after seeing game being rendered in 4K RTX. I'm usually not a stickler for visuals, but swith is getting a bit too dated.
_trackno5 3y ago
I doubt Nintendo would be willing to open up like that, but who knows. Nowadays there are barely any exclusive games on Xbox and Playstation. Most games are made available in every platform. Maybe Nintendo will buckle under the $$$ figure they could earn by making their games available on other platforms. On the other hand, Nintendo could make a killing releasing a "Switch 2" with beefier hardware and backwards compatibility.
afterburner 3y ago
The PC version also let you mod the game. The weapon durability mod (removing the extremely quick destruction of your favourite equipment in the normal game) was excellent.
lrvick 3y ago
You can already connect switch controllers to a PC and play any switch title, legally, on your PC right now. I have legally purchased all my switch games but I make backups and play on PC sometimes just because it is a better experience.
- roflc0ptic 3y ago
  This doesn't seem unambiguously legal - it seems like the backup part is the legally grey bit.
  - 0xcde4c3db 3y ago
    The legally grey bit is that there's no method to make a usable backup without circumventing the DRM.
the_70x 3y ago
Nintendo has never been about High Res or State of the art graphics at all
Decabytes 3y ago
I have katamari reroll on the switch and the steam deck and I vastly prefer the experience on the steam deck. It loads the levels faster, has a smoother experience, and it’s easier to do the acceleration of the ball with the steam decks analog switches or extra buttons on the back. The game is nowhere near tears of the kingdom level and the experience is better. So I understand why people want a better switch
H1Supreme 3y ago
Or sell a Nintendo "emulator" of their own for PC. Just for Nintendo releases like Zelda, MarioKart, etc. They wouldn't even need to produce any hardware in that case. I'd be first in line to purchase such a piece of software. I tried one of the popular Switch emulators, and they work great. But, I'd rather just pay Nintendo, and not have to fiddle with it. Really does seem like an opportunity for them.
- jacurtis 3y ago
  A great example of this is Sony with Playstation exclusives. In the past few years, they have broken their longstanding rule and made PC ports of many of their previously exclusive Playstation titles to play on PC. This includes Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, and The Last of Us. In the most recent earnings call, Sony said that these titles sales on PC have dramatically outperformed expectations and that they will be putting additional effort towards PC ports in the future as a way to supplement Playstation sales. Microsoft has figured out the same thing, by not really making Xbox exclusives anymore. Granted, they were always much more closely tied between PC and Xbox than companies like Sony were, but they quickly embraced this "play everywhere" mentality many years ago, and released a Ultimate Gamepass which basically lets you play the same games (with some exceptions) on PC or Xbox and even switch between the two with cloud saves. Point being, other publishers have discovered that locking yourself down to a single hardware device is not good. PCs are the most universally owned and flexible hardware devices out there and have the biggest market. I'd love for Nintendo to do the same thing. But knowing Nintendo, they will never do such a thing. They are a very stubborn company. They often do not act in their own self-interest (market share, revenue) in order to control things like hardware or create false scarcity.
looping8 3y ago
Nintendo is extremely resistant to change and compromise, there is probably zero chance they will do it. Remember that, even as they make excellent games, they reject a lot of modern aspects of gaming. Like they used to ban Twitch streams and YouTube let's plays of their games.
- gabrielizaias 3y ago
  > Nintendo is extremely resistant to change and compromise Are you sure? The company the brought us… - Color TV-Game - Game Boy - Nintendo 64 - GameCube - Nintendo DS - Wii - many, many others [0] … is resistant to change? They have always been at the forefront of hardware innovation/experimentation, I'm sure they wouldn't be against it. I'd suggest listening to the 2-part Acquired podcast episodes about Nintendo [1] if you haven't already. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_video_game_consoles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_video_game_consoles [1]: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/nintendo https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/nintendo https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/nintendo-the-console-wars https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/nintendo-the-console-wars
moneywoes 3y ago
That would cannibalize their switch sales no?
- kimbernator 3y ago
  I doubt there's much, if any profit margin on the consoles themselves. I think it's pretty typical for consoles of all brands to be sold at a loss in order to capture customers for their ecosystem where they will buy games and other media which have very healthy margins. Nintendo's biggest concern is probably controlling the experience. While it might not be a marvel of gaming technology on the Switch, it is consistent. Allowing it to run on any old computer hardware means a lot of it will be poorly optimized as a rule. non-technical people will likely have no idea what that means; to them it will just be a shitty gaming experience and they will then associate that experience with Nintendo. Technical people will probably not even bother and they'll just emulate it for free instead of paying $70 for a game that isn't going to have any official support on their platform. There's really no upside for Nintendo in this plan.
- NwtnsMthd 3y ago
  Sure, but they probably make the majority of their profit on sales of games.
yowzadave 3y ago
I think Nintendo wouldn't want to do this because it would make their primary platform (the Switch) feel second-rate by comparison.
pierat 3y ago
> I was listening to a gaming podcast last week and they were talking about how this release was pirated and available for the last week or so on torrents. https colon slashslash thepiratebay DOT org slash description.php?id=68303898 (slightly broken for inadvertent link click) And https://github.com/Abd-007/Switch-Emulators-Guide/blob/main/README.md https://github.com/Abd-007/Switch-Emulators-Guide/blob/main/... for a howto install Ryujinx/Yuzu Switch emulators. But yeah, games arent my cup of tea, but I did try it. And it's BUTTER SMOOTH on real computer hardware. And yeah, we pierats had it before legit purchase. Again, pirates get the best experience and legit gets meh. > It really makes me think Nintendo has an untapped market here to sell a little box you plug into your PC that plays switch games, interfaces with their controllers, etc. They've done oddball stuff like the SNES Gameboy player and GameCube GBA player add-ons in the past. It feels like there would be people willing to pay to properly play Switch games on their gaming PCs. I guess they could do that, but that would cannibalize sales of their consoles. And then, what makes them any different than Steam? The biggest benefit of a Switch is it's handheld and portable. The biggest pirate downside is that it nearly necessitates a desktop with significantly better equipment. I've heard some work being done with the Steam handheld.. but subpar at best.
- paulcole 3y ago
  > The biggest pirate downside is that it nearly necessitates a desktop with significantly better equipment For me personally, the biggest downside is that I don’t feel good about myself when I take things I know I don’t have the right to take. YMMV.
  - jacurtis 3y ago
    In that case I would consider buying a copy on switch, even if you don't own a switch. if you buy the copy and then decide to play it on your PC instead of Switch then you don't really have any reason to feel guilty. This is similar to buying a BluRay and then ripping it to watch it on your personal Plex or Jellyfin server because you prefer that method instead of using a BluRay player. I understand and share your ethical dilemma. The goal is to support the creators of the work. If you do that, then there is no reason to feel guilty because you enjoy their work in a different way.
teekert 3y ago
You can play it at 120 Hz, 4K, ultrasmooth, what have you, when you buy the next gen Nintendo console for 350+ eur/$. Not using a small cheap box... Knowing Nintendo.
yodsanklai 3y ago
> the game is much more enjoyable when played on PC with an emulated copy Neophyte question here, but what's the 3d engine used for this game? can you just change a parameter to make the game more realistic if the hardware supports it?
- traverseda 3y ago
  It's a custom engine by nintendo, also seems to be user by other games like super mario odyssey. Changing graphics settings would be accomplished using patches, more or less the same idea as making cheats in older games. Find the value somewhere in their code that corresponds to render distance and change that, as an example. Emulators for older systems can do more impressive things. Graphics pipelines tend to be a certain shape and use certain data types, so once you're already emulating at the GPU level you can do things like upscale old textures (works great on cell-shaded games like megaman legends). For 2d games you can use a dedicated pixel art scaling algorithm. Pretty much all 3D games can output at a higher resolution than the original hardware allowed, just due to how the hardware is set up. You're game isn't responsible for deciding the output resolution, the GPU is, essentially. Changes aspect ratios is much harder and often requires patching the games themselves to make it work properly. Other common patches are things like higher FPS. By default the new zelda game plays at 20fps, but there are patches to play them at 30 and 60 fps for a smoother experience. Those are once again actually reverse engineering and patching the game files though.
deleted 3y ago
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pipes 3y ago
I've a really good pc under my TV that I pretty much only use for emulation. So I'm not anti emulation by any means (it's allowed me to put all my real hardware in a cupboard and not have a big mess of wires in my living room)! But what these videos never show is that emulation is a pain in the ass. There's always a nagging feeling that game isn't quite right. I end up spending more time tweaking settings than playing the game. If I get stuck I end up wondering if there's a bug in the emulator. I don't own a switch but I'd much prefer to play a fully tested game the way the developers intended. My pc could run it no problem (rtx 3070 etc), but if I ever do play it, it will be on a switch. Anyway your point is a bit differen, that Nintendo could make money on this etc.
- abustamam 3y ago
  Out of curiosity, what is your setup? I'm guessing windows 10/11, hdmi plugged into your TV? I have a windows box in my home office but and an Nvidia shield attached to my TV but it has always been a pain to play games via steam link. I mean, it's doable, I just figure there's a way to make it as convenient as console gaming and I'm missing something.
  - pipes 3y ago
    PC, windows 10, ryzen 3600, 16gig ram. A few mayflash controller adapters: snes,gamecube, n64, ps1. Also use a usb Saturn pad for six button fighters etc. And god help me I've ordered a sinden light gun!
- dmonitor 3y ago
  Breath of the Wild (Wii U version) on PC is the ideal way to play the game. Gyro is kind of a pain to set up, but 1080p 60fps more than makes up for it. I highly recommend it, even if it’s a second play through. It’s a beautiful and elegant game. I’ve heard TotK is still pretty glitchy under Switch emulation, but I expect it’ll be resolved in less than a year or two. Yuzu and Ryujinx have a healthy competition between the two of them.
  - pipes 3y ago
solarmist 3y ago
Like Apple, Nintendo is a hardware company that makes software, not a software company. They’d never do this in a million years.
AlwaysRock 3y ago
Nintendo makes very confusing business decisions very often. They seem to succeed despite all their business decisions, largely due to having IP that people love, and people are constantly thinking about how great they could be.
byyyy 3y ago
I've tried this and I have a monster machine. The experience is overall better on the switch. Not everything has been emulated correctly and the frame rate is still higher on the switch overall.
ajsnigrutin 3y ago
I play a lot of emulation (of older titles mostly), and i really like the cheats functionality. I'm not 15yo anymore, I don't have the time to grind, but I really like the adventure part of a game... so playing a game with some kind of invincibility is great for me. I understand the concept of games needing to be "hard" in some parts, and that making your grind to get stronger to win is a thing... but sometimes I just want to mess around and play through the story, and games like zelda ones (and GTA series and many others) are one of those. Sadly, cheats have turned into microtransactions (be it crystals, gems or amiibos).
Matthias247 3y ago
It might just be a gigantic support burden for them: They then would have to care about thousands of hardware configurations, and people complaining "doesn't work on my PC". It's probably not worth it. Also the market for it is likely small. Most Switch users seem children, casual games, families, etc. Those usually just want to buy hardware which "just works", compared to enthusiasts who actually want to fiddle around with tons of settings.
threeboy 3y ago
Sega tried something along those lines - with proper PC hardware you could play Saturn games... I don't think it worked out for them.

denkmoon 3y ago

Nintendo are way too control-freak for this, not to mention fearful of piracy and emulation. They don't want that money.

qbasic_forever 3y ago
Like it or not apparently Switch piracy is a thing so this doesn't really change much for their current situation. But it does give people who want to do things the right way an avenue to do so. I kind of think of it like high end CAD software and such that ships a physical dongle in order to use the software--Nintendo can sell hardware to help ensure it's legitimate use of their emulation software.
- andy_ppp 3y ago
  Yes exactly, this idea that piracy is lost sales has always been rubbish. The people who go out of their way to pirate always will. Does it work on an M1 Max yet?
  - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
    > Yes exactly, this idea that piracy is lost sales has always been rubbish That's beside the point. What matters is that Nintendo believes that piracy must be opposed at all costs. It's not about sales, it's not about money, it's not about logic, I don't think it's even about the actual law. It's about attacking piracy, as an end unto itself.
    - wiz21c 3y ago
      Businesses don't attack piracy because of law but because of losses. Besides,as another post mentions, Switch piracy is probably very limited. So it doesn't cost much to Nintendo to maintain pressure on piracy. And after all, even if they don't do it for the law, they can do it thanks to the law. It's their right (and I'm a free software zealot :-)).
      - yjftsjthsd-h 3y ago
        > Businesses don't attack piracy because of law but because of losses. > Besides,as another post mentions, Switch piracy is probably very limited. Switch piracy is very limited, but they pursue it aggressively because of the losses it causes them? Besides, that's already bunk; every time someone actually puts together a study it turns out that piracy is good for sales. > And after all, even if they don't do it for the law, they can do it thanks to the law. It's their right Well no; when I say that I don't think it's even about the law, I meant that their idea of what is and isn't okay seems to be more aggressive than the actual law. Contrast: https://web.archive.org/web/20190329045404/https://www.nintendo.com/corp/legal.jsp#emergence https://web.archive.org/web/20190329045404/https://www.ninte... > Are Game Copying Devices Illegal? > Yes. Game copiers enable users to illegally copy video game software onto floppy disks, writeable compact disks or the hard drive of a personal computer. They enable the user to make, play and distribute illegal copies of video game software which violates Nintendo's copyrights and trademarks. These devices also allow for the uploading and downloading of ROMs to and from the Internet. Based upon the functions of these devices, they are illegal. vs https://web.archive.org/web/20230428020356/https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230428020356/https://www.copyr... > 117. Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs55 > (a) Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.— Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided: [...] > (2) that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful. Now I'm not a lawyer and this is not legal advice, but I struggle to read that as anything but Nintendo very confidently refusing to consider that a person could copy a game for any reason other than illegal piracy, while the actual law appears to allow for backups. Further up the same page they likewise are overwhelmingly confident that emulators only exist for illegal purposes, because nobody could ever want to play a legitimately-purchased game on anything except for original hardware.
  - jackphilson 3y ago
    this doesn't make sense. take it to it's logical conclusion and say there's a site that allows anyone to pirate with minimal friction with one click. Still think piracy isn't lost sales?
    - cogitoergofutuo 3y ago
      > say there's a site that allows anyone to pirate with minimal friction with one click. Still think piracy isn't lost sales? Say that this site is user-funded and actually buys a copy for every click. Still think piracy is lost sales? “What if reality were different in a way that I’ve concocted specifically for the purposes of this discussion?” is a fun game!
  - Doddler 3y ago
    Sure piracy isn't necessarily a lost sale, but would there be more sales if people could not pirate the game, as with say a ps5 game? Especially in the case of rather widespread piracy in the weeks preceding release where even normal platform users may pirate because it's the only way to play. To what degree I couldn't tell you, it's most certainly not a 1 to 1 like the companies would like to argue, but there's almost certainly at least some amount of loss.
- hnlmorg 3y ago
  That’s not how Nintendo would view it though. The GP is absolutely correct that this would be seen as inviting people to leave Nintendos ecosystem. The only way this would work for Nintendo Would be if the “dongle” cost as much as a Switch, but then who’d want to pay that much for an emulator? It’s also worth noting that Nintendo don’t have an issue with emulation per se, several of their commercial products are based on emulation. But I’m every instance where they support emulation it has been looked into their hardware ecosystem and the “emulation” word is never spoken publicly.
- WastingMyTime89 3y ago
  It changes the situation deeply. Switch piracy is not easy. You need to get an emulator, get a key dump for a Switch, torrent the game, setup everything. For a console you need physical modification or some tinkering shorting pins if you have a first gen console. That’s a high bar to cross for Nintendo main market which remains families. Plus at this point the Switch is mostly a money printing machine between the old hardware and the store.
  - circuit10 3y ago
    If you’re pirating you would probably also pirate the keys and you wouldn’t need to do the console exploit (as far as I understand it anyway)
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - WastingMyTime89 3y ago
      That’s not at all equivalent to just plugging a box sold by Nintendo however which was the point I was making. Pirating is an involved process. The fact it exists doesn’t at all make a business case as the parent comment was implying especially considering that PC gaming is already a niche market.
      - sirtomato 3y ago
        It is really not that much of an involved process. Reading a wiki page and downloading a few files from the first hit of a Google result is probably similar effort to setting up whatever potential product you have in mind.
- lrvick 3y ago
  You can never stop motivated people from dumping the memory of hardware they own and making it easier for everyone else. Piracy can never be stopped and they waste a lot of effort trying. They should optimize for being lower friction than privacy, like Steam.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - lifeonlars 3y ago
    They are successfully competing with piracy, but not by being lower friction but by being more reliable and trustworthy. Nintendo are highly focussed on a market where the person making the buying decision isn't the person playing the game. Buy your 11-year-old son a Switch for Xmas and you know that a) it will work out of the box b) there will be a several family-friendly games with name recognition for any child that age (Mario, Pokemon, Zelda) and c) no one in his class will have a more expensive version or one that works better. Contrast this with trying to get something to work on a PC with a 'switch emulator dongle'. You have to plug it in yourself, you will end up spending more than you planned in the computer store because each component comes with sucker upgrades, and game choices will be much wider and trickier. Then the game which looks great on your son's friend's machine will play like sh*t and you'll feel guilty for having cheaped out, without necessarily knowing what the operative constraint is.
- ilyt 3y ago
  It would be pointless: piracy already happens so dongle stops nothing ,and dongle costs extra. Just make PC ports like everyone else, it's free money (compared to risk of making new game) at this point
- sudosysgen 3y ago
  The dongles for high end CAD software don't work either. Iranian, Russian, and Chinese pirates are very very good at cracking them (and some even provide support contracts and bugfixes). It's an interesting side effect of sanctions. If you get a proxy in Iran, you can find cracks and even cracked updates and custom bugfixes of basically any CAD software you want.
HlessClaudesman 3y ago
Also Nintendo's whole philosophy is all about doing more with less. They make money on every device by not putting out overly engineered / performant systems. So they have always been lagging in terms of cutting edge hardware, but they make up for it by focusing on joyful content.
- Dalewyn 3y ago
  I would argue Nintendo has their priorities straight. Joe Schmoe doesn't know and doesn't care about hardware. Ohled? Gigglehearts? Flame rates? WTF are you talking about, he'll say to you. What Joe Schmoe does know and does care about is whether the game he's playing is fun. This is where Nintendo focuses their energy.
  - Schiphol 3y ago
    Joe Schmoe and me both
  - Fricken 3y ago
    There is a reason why Hollywood doesn't put technical people in charge of it's films. A successful film director needs to prove their ability to deliver powerful experiences on next-to- no budget at all before anyone puts them in charge of a $150 million dollar blockbuster.
- ProfessorLayton 3y ago
  I wouldn't say that's always been the case. Both the N64 and Gamecube featured relatively cutting edge tech during their time. Of course, those two are their weakest selling home consoles, so they've definitely shifted their strategy afterwards. But for two generations, they did try and keep up with their contemporaries.
  - elromulous 3y ago
    > those two are their weakest selling home consoles Wii U would like a word.
bzzzt 3y ago
What you call 'control freak' is just the culture of a company focussed on creating a curated experience which is a combination of software, hardware and user experience. Anything not fitting in that vision diminishes that experience and they will do anything to prevent that. Of course, they also like to get paid for their work ;)
- thefz 3y ago
  > just the culture of a company focussed on creating a curated experience Core product on core platform struggles to reach playable FPS at launch. A "curated experience" is waaaay different than this.
  - pallas_athena 3y ago
    According to Digital Foundry [0], the game is a perfectly stable 30fps the vast majority of the time [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLlZBwN_-C4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BLlZBwN_-C4
    - thefz 3y ago
      "30fps the vast majority of the time" in 2023 is just laughable.
      - Maken 3y ago
        The standard in 2023 is "broken at launch" and "sub 30 FPS in latest hardware".
      - Accacin 3y ago
        It's not in my opinion though. I have a Gaming PC and a Switch. My gaming PC has a 6900XT and so I expect to be playing every game at 1440p @ 60FPS at a bear minimum - some games come out and surprisingly have trouble with that. The Switch is old hardware that was under-powered on release, therefore, I expect that I'm not going to be getting 60FPS. Basically, it's down to expectations. The Switch is absolutely great at what it does, and I appreciate it for that reason alone. My expectations are greatly different compared to a gaming PC/PS5/etc. My biggest gripes with Nintendo is the god awful way they handle people using their IP to make YouTube videos, etc.

genocidicbunny 3y ago

> It really makes me think Nintendo has an untapped market here to sell a little box you plug into your PC that plays switch games, interfaces with their controllers, etc. They've done oddball stuff like the SNES Gameboy player and GameCube GBA player add-ons in the past, it feels like there would be people willing to pay to properly play Switch games on their gaming PCs. It seems unlikely they would be willing to let go of control like that. With all their oddball stuff, you were still largely within the Nintendo ecosystem. They also probably don't want to deal with the piracy problem on PC, considering they already deal with it on their relatively locked-down consoles. For better or for worse, Nintendo also likes to really control the experience you get playing games on their platforms; It would probably not be a great look for them to have to deal with thousands of customers that are trying to run their games on hardware older than a Switch and complaining that it's a terrible experience. Yeah the existing hardware is underpowered, but its uniformly underpowered, and that's worth quite a bit too. I think for Nintendo, the more prudent solution would be to release an updated Switch with some more powerful hardware that's fully backwards compatible with the existing Switch library. It would be very par for the course for them, and assuage most of the complaints about the Switch being underpowered.

bzzzt 3y ago
People complaining about the Switch being underpowered are expecting PS5 level performance on a mobile device. Even if a new console would be twice as fast they still would be disappointed. It's perfectly possible to create innovative and - most important - fun games on something as powerful as the Switch.
- ZoF 3y ago
  [dead]
- genocidicbunny 3y ago
  More recently the comparison I've been hearing is against things like the Steam Deck, which are a little more fair. > It's perfectly possible to create innovative and - most important - fun games on something as powerful as the Switch. Of course, but there have been plenty of games released for the Switch that could seemingly do with a bit more oomph from the hardware, TotK being the current example.

Asmod4n 3y ago

The day 1 patch makes this a Locked 30 fps game without frame drops except when using ultra hand. It’s the first AAA release in months to run this smooth.

meibo 3y ago
It definitely still dips regularly in heavy areas. It doesn't impact the experience the way it did before, imo, but saying that it doesn't would be disingenuous. You're right about it being the only acceptable AAA release this year though.
peanuty1 3y ago
Only 30 fps?
- lewispollard 3y ago
  The game itself is hard coded to run at 30 fps. There is a 60 fps patch for emulated versions, but using it makes the FMV movies run at double speed due to the game's hard coded 30 fps.
simooooo 3y ago
Don’t use smooth in the same context as 30fps. 120hz+ is smooth

nindalf 3y ago

Playing Switch games emulated on the Steam Deck is pretty common. The power of the Deck does give you better performance, no doubt. The trade off is that the battery life is significantly worse than a Switch.

dgunay 3y ago

It would be incredibly cool if they ported their games (even just ones more than 10 years old) to PC, but they clearly want to double/triple/quadruple dip on retro game purchases from console to console so that would never really work. I have really grown sour on Nintendo over the years but that would do a lot to win me back, personally.

baq 3y ago
Yeah Bayonetta on pc was pretty good as a case in point.

irjustin 3y ago

But hasn't this always been the case? Like computers are always more powerful than consoles, but the draw of consoles being a "turns on and just works" system - minus blowing-into-the-cartridge-on-the-original-nes

zwirbl 3y ago
We are talking playing a current generation console game on emulator with better framerate and resolution than on the original console, at release. So no, it has not always been the case
- michaelt 3y ago
  Well, it's long been the case that a $400 console has lower specs than a $1200+ gaming PC, even in the year the console is released. And that the performance gap gets even wider as the console gets towards the end of its lifecycle. Part of the criticism here is that the $340 Switch is getting outperformed by emulation on the $399 Steam Deck.
- cubefox 3y ago
  I'm pretty sure it has always been the case that a PC emulator could outperform a several years old gaming handheld. At least if enough interest was there for someone to write the emulator.
  - dmonitor 3y ago
    It just feels different since the switch is a “home console” technically instead of a pure “portable”
    - cubefox 3y ago
      I'd say that something which is portable is a "portable" even if you can plug it into a TV. It is strongly power constrained. It is just bigger than old portable consoles. (I actually don't know why they were always so small before the Switch. Perhaps large screens were too expensive. Or everyone thought of them as having to fit inside a pocket.)

jonwinstanley 3y ago

For the last few generations Nintendo has been happy to be slightly behind Playstation and Xbox in terms of graphics so that they can be the lower-cost alternative. And based on unit sales, that strategy seems to be doing pretty well.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago
Yeah, and parents love it too for that reason. People really seem to underestimate the market for children (and parents / family gifting and indulging said children), not just with gaming but also with e.g. youtube. To add, people also underestimate mobile gaming; westerners still look down on it compared to console and PC gaming, despite the financials telling a whole different story.
- klabb3 3y ago
  Well I’m not a parent and switch is perfect for me. Would I want 4k? Ray tracing? Yeah sure, but it’s nowhere near a deal breaker. As long as it runs smooth I care orders of magnitude more about gameplay. Botw gave me so much joy, simply because it’s an amazingly well made game. In my experience, graphics upgrades feel amazing at first, but if it’s a good game, you mostly forget about it after just a few minutes. But yes, sometimes you have very scenic environments, like in RDR2, but even then I feel like it’s 90% making good composition, color, lighting, and 10% is the actual GPU doing real time lighting etc. At least to me, this obsession with cutting edge graphics is just an expensive hobby of moving goal posts. I’m the same with TVs, I care much more about the movie or show than the TV specs.
- goosedragons 3y ago
  IDK, mobile games don't tend to have a spending cap. On most PC/console releases the most you can spend on a game is few hundred for the game and all the DLC bought day 1 and usually goes down as time goes on. Mobile games will have one gem bundle or whatever that costs more than the complete package of a PC/console title. So you can easily get whales spending thousands on one game. The financials tell me mobile games are better at extracting money from their audience or a subset rather but that's kind of how they feel to play! Everything is geared towards extracting money.

tonyhb 3y ago

How can they compare with something that hasn’t been released? It might be true, but at the same time it feels disingenuous to compare unreleased games on switch to a pirated PC. “Much more enjoyable” can’t be a thing until you compare, right?

zwirbl 3y ago
You can compare all the other releases, including Breath of the Wild, why should this release be any different? Especially when the emulator keeps improving and PC hardware keeps getting better
- tonyhb 3y ago
  Specifically because they said the experience is better without knowing the other unreleased version they’re comparing it to. Bringing up other releases is irrelevant.
SifJar 3y ago
Presumably they can run the pirated version on actual hardware as well (via custom firmware etc.), and therefore compare?
wzdd 3y ago
You were downvoted but you are right. The podcast was released last week, but the game came with a day-1 patch to improve the performance on Switch which they would not have been able to try. Obviously it will never compete with emulation on a PC, but it runs just fine on Switch. 99.9% of players are not going to think "wow, this would be much more enjoyable on a PC!" The gaming podcast crowd is not exactly representative.

idonotknowwhy 3y ago

The best way to play Breath Of The Wild, is at 4k 60fps on Cemu (the WiiU emulator). Can also play at ultrawide 21:9 if you have a monitor like that.

MrBuddyCasino 3y ago
This. It works very well on Cemu, except for the parts where you need gyro input.

erfgh 3y ago

They can't control the experience you will get on your PC. PCs vary so you could get a bad experience and blame it on Nintendo.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

sspiff 3y ago

I think it would make more sense for Nintendo to make a more powerful console on a compatible platform that isn't handheld, kind of like the Sega Master System/Game Gear or Sega Mega Drive/Nomad consoles. So you can enjoy the same titles on the go as you can on the TV, and you could still use the Switch on the TV, but there would be an alternative for people who want a more high fidelity, fluid experience on a TV or a monitor. It doesn't even have to be that much more powerful. Even when sticking to the same vendor, a 2018 Nvidia ARM chip had roughly 3-4x the CPU power and 10x the GPU power of the Switch, in a 15-60W power budget. This would be fine for a console that's always plugged into the power mains. Going to more midrange vendors like Rockchip or Mediatek, or - and this is a long shot - striking a deal with Samsung for using their Exynos chips would probably yield a lower cost device but still net a 4-5x increase in gaming performance. Emulation has proven that the games are not tied so tightly to their hardware platform for switching to a more modern architecture while maintaining compatibility to be an issue. Even without first-party involvement people have been running Switch games on mobile Android devices with a good processor.

zimpenfish 3y ago
> striking a deal with Samsung for using their Exynos chips The fantasy world where they do a deal with Apple for M2 SOCs (or even just get bought wholesale by Apple.)
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  > (or even just get bought wholesale by Apple.) This is a crazy idea but... it might end up becoming reality. I don't see Nintendo selling any time soon though, it's been very independent for a very long time, to the point where it was huge when they released some things for smartphones (pokemon go, super mario jump, etc). That said, Apple's been trying some things with gaming (they pushed gaming as one of the use cases for the Apple TV), but then I realize they already have one of the biggest gaming platforms in the world with the iphone.
  - peanuty1 3y ago
    Apple seems very uninterested in gaming on Mac.

stavros 3y ago

Is Switch emulation on PC that good? Maybe I should try it if so. I imagined it would be fairly janky due to the difficulty of emulating currentish hardware, and only old consoles could be emulated with good performance.

lawn 3y ago
It's excellent for some popular games, decent at many others, and garbage at some.
- stavros 3y ago
  That's good enough, thanks!
acallaha 3y ago
I already bought the game from Nintendo, but stumbled on this thread this morning. I'd be willing to play it on an emulator instead of my switch if the performance was better, but some quick skimming online isn't convincing me. To wit, the consensus opinion on reddit is that BOTW is still a buggy mess on the main switch emulators, Yuzu & Ryujinx, and that people should play the Wii U version via the CEMU emulator instead. If BotW isn't a polished experience many years after release, I'm pessimistic about TotK being a good experience so soon after release. You can skim the bug reports on the emulator sites; there's lots of stuttering and invisible walls and all other kinds of jank. I think I'll stick to playing it on my switch :-)
sb057 3y ago
I've been playing the leaked version of TotK at 4K 60 fps for several days, and with only extremely minor visual bugs (example: when switching abilities, the background turns black rather than out-of-focus). It's honestly less janky than many AAA PC games.
- stavros 3y ago
  Huh, that's very encouraging, thanks! Which emulator have you been using, out of curiosity?

thefz 3y ago

> It really makes me think Nintendo has an untapped market here to sell a little box you plug into your PC that plays switch games Games that are more locked down and walled than Apple products, that run 30fps on the oldest hardware possible in 2023, made by a company that actively alienates its own fanbase with aggressive copyright claims over the silliest things? No thanks. Really, you can keep them out of the PC market.

cubefox 3y ago
It seems the fault is less with Nintendo than with parts of the "fan base" which defend piracy. I bet much, much fewer people would play Zelda on an emulator if they a) had to pay for it and b) had to wait until it comes out.
- simooooo 3y ago
  It’s Nintendo. Plenty of people have a hard time doing reviews on YouTube

dirtyid 3y ago

I stopped my BOTW playthrough recently after seeing game being rendered in 4K RTX. I'm usually not a stickler for visuals, but swith is getting a bit too dated.

_trackno5 3y ago

I doubt Nintendo would be willing to open up like that, but who knows. Nowadays there are barely any exclusive games on Xbox and Playstation. Most games are made available in every platform. Maybe Nintendo will buckle under the $$$ figure they could earn by making their games available on other platforms. On the other hand, Nintendo could make a killing releasing a "Switch 2" with beefier hardware and backwards compatibility.

afterburner 3y ago

The PC version also let you mod the game. The weapon durability mod (removing the extremely quick destruction of your favourite equipment in the normal game) was excellent.

lrvick 3y ago

You can already connect switch controllers to a PC and play any switch title, legally, on your PC right now. I have legally purchased all my switch games but I make backups and play on PC sometimes just because it is a better experience.

roflc0ptic 3y ago
This doesn't seem unambiguously legal - it seems like the backup part is the legally grey bit.
- 0xcde4c3db 3y ago
  The legally grey bit is that there's no method to make a usable backup without circumventing the DRM.

the_70x 3y ago

Nintendo has never been about High Res or State of the art graphics at all

Decabytes 3y ago

I have katamari reroll on the switch and the steam deck and I vastly prefer the experience on the steam deck. It loads the levels faster, has a smoother experience, and it’s easier to do the acceleration of the ball with the steam decks analog switches or extra buttons on the back. The game is nowhere near tears of the kingdom level and the experience is better. So I understand why people want a better switch

H1Supreme 3y ago

Or sell a Nintendo "emulator" of their own for PC. Just for Nintendo releases like Zelda, MarioKart, etc. They wouldn't even need to produce any hardware in that case. I'd be first in line to purchase such a piece of software. I tried one of the popular Switch emulators, and they work great. But, I'd rather just pay Nintendo, and not have to fiddle with it. Really does seem like an opportunity for them.

jacurtis 3y ago
A great example of this is Sony with Playstation exclusives. In the past few years, they have broken their longstanding rule and made PC ports of many of their previously exclusive Playstation titles to play on PC. This includes Horizon Zero Dawn, God of War, and The Last of Us. In the most recent earnings call, Sony said that these titles sales on PC have dramatically outperformed expectations and that they will be putting additional effort towards PC ports in the future as a way to supplement Playstation sales. Microsoft has figured out the same thing, by not really making Xbox exclusives anymore. Granted, they were always much more closely tied between PC and Xbox than companies like Sony were, but they quickly embraced this "play everywhere" mentality many years ago, and released a Ultimate Gamepass which basically lets you play the same games (with some exceptions) on PC or Xbox and even switch between the two with cloud saves. Point being, other publishers have discovered that locking yourself down to a single hardware device is not good. PCs are the most universally owned and flexible hardware devices out there and have the biggest market. I'd love for Nintendo to do the same thing. But knowing Nintendo, they will never do such a thing. They are a very stubborn company. They often do not act in their own self-interest (market share, revenue) in order to control things like hardware or create false scarcity.

looping8 3y ago

Nintendo is extremely resistant to change and compromise, there is probably zero chance they will do it. Remember that, even as they make excellent games, they reject a lot of modern aspects of gaming. Like they used to ban Twitch streams and YouTube let's plays of their games.

gabrielizaias 3y ago
> Nintendo is extremely resistant to change and compromise Are you sure? The company the brought us… - Color TV-Game - Game Boy - Nintendo 64 - GameCube - Nintendo DS - Wii - many, many others [0] … is resistant to change? They have always been at the forefront of hardware innovation/experimentation, I'm sure they wouldn't be against it. I'd suggest listening to the 2-part Acquired podcast episodes about Nintendo [1] if you haven't already. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_video_game_consoles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_video_game_consoles [1]: https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/nintendo https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/nintendo https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/nintendo-the-console-wars https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/nintendo-the-console-wars

moneywoes 3y ago

That would cannibalize their switch sales no?

kimbernator 3y ago
I doubt there's much, if any profit margin on the consoles themselves. I think it's pretty typical for consoles of all brands to be sold at a loss in order to capture customers for their ecosystem where they will buy games and other media which have very healthy margins. Nintendo's biggest concern is probably controlling the experience. While it might not be a marvel of gaming technology on the Switch, it is consistent. Allowing it to run on any old computer hardware means a lot of it will be poorly optimized as a rule. non-technical people will likely have no idea what that means; to them it will just be a shitty gaming experience and they will then associate that experience with Nintendo. Technical people will probably not even bother and they'll just emulate it for free instead of paying $70 for a game that isn't going to have any official support on their platform. There's really no upside for Nintendo in this plan.
NwtnsMthd 3y ago
Sure, but they probably make the majority of their profit on sales of games.

yowzadave 3y ago

I think Nintendo wouldn't want to do this because it would make their primary platform (the Switch) feel second-rate by comparison.

pierat 3y ago

> I was listening to a gaming podcast last week and they were talking about how this release was pirated and available for the last week or so on torrents. https colon slashslash thepiratebay DOT org slash description.php?id=68303898 (slightly broken for inadvertent link click) And https://github.com/Abd-007/Switch-Emulators-Guide/blob/main/README.md https://github.com/Abd-007/Switch-Emulators-Guide/blob/main/... for a howto install Ryujinx/Yuzu Switch emulators. But yeah, games arent my cup of tea, but I did try it. And it's BUTTER SMOOTH on real computer hardware. And yeah, we pierats had it before legit purchase. Again, pirates get the best experience and legit gets meh. > It really makes me think Nintendo has an untapped market here to sell a little box you plug into your PC that plays switch games, interfaces with their controllers, etc. They've done oddball stuff like the SNES Gameboy player and GameCube GBA player add-ons in the past. It feels like there would be people willing to pay to properly play Switch games on their gaming PCs. I guess they could do that, but that would cannibalize sales of their consoles. And then, what makes them any different than Steam? The biggest benefit of a Switch is it's handheld and portable. The biggest pirate downside is that it nearly necessitates a desktop with significantly better equipment. I've heard some work being done with the Steam handheld.. but subpar at best.

paulcole 3y ago
> The biggest pirate downside is that it nearly necessitates a desktop with significantly better equipment For me personally, the biggest downside is that I don’t feel good about myself when I take things I know I don’t have the right to take. YMMV.
- jacurtis 3y ago
  In that case I would consider buying a copy on switch, even if you don't own a switch. if you buy the copy and then decide to play it on your PC instead of Switch then you don't really have any reason to feel guilty. This is similar to buying a BluRay and then ripping it to watch it on your personal Plex or Jellyfin server because you prefer that method instead of using a BluRay player. I understand and share your ethical dilemma. The goal is to support the creators of the work. If you do that, then there is no reason to feel guilty because you enjoy their work in a different way.

teekert 3y ago

You can play it at 120 Hz, 4K, ultrasmooth, what have you, when you buy the next gen Nintendo console for 350+ eur/$. Not using a small cheap box... Knowing Nintendo.

yodsanklai 3y ago

> the game is much more enjoyable when played on PC with an emulated copy Neophyte question here, but what's the 3d engine used for this game? can you just change a parameter to make the game more realistic if the hardware supports it?

traverseda 3y ago
It's a custom engine by nintendo, also seems to be user by other games like super mario odyssey. Changing graphics settings would be accomplished using patches, more or less the same idea as making cheats in older games. Find the value somewhere in their code that corresponds to render distance and change that, as an example. Emulators for older systems can do more impressive things. Graphics pipelines tend to be a certain shape and use certain data types, so once you're already emulating at the GPU level you can do things like upscale old textures (works great on cell-shaded games like megaman legends). For 2d games you can use a dedicated pixel art scaling algorithm. Pretty much all 3D games can output at a higher resolution than the original hardware allowed, just due to how the hardware is set up. You're game isn't responsible for deciding the output resolution, the GPU is, essentially. Changes aspect ratios is much harder and often requires patching the games themselves to make it work properly. Other common patches are things like higher FPS. By default the new zelda game plays at 20fps, but there are patches to play them at 30 and 60 fps for a smoother experience. Those are once again actually reverse engineering and patching the game files though.

deleted 3y ago

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pipes 3y ago

I've a really good pc under my TV that I pretty much only use for emulation. So I'm not anti emulation by any means (it's allowed me to put all my real hardware in a cupboard and not have a big mess of wires in my living room)! But what these videos never show is that emulation is a pain in the ass. There's always a nagging feeling that game isn't quite right. I end up spending more time tweaking settings than playing the game. If I get stuck I end up wondering if there's a bug in the emulator. I don't own a switch but I'd much prefer to play a fully tested game the way the developers intended. My pc could run it no problem (rtx 3070 etc), but if I ever do play it, it will be on a switch. Anyway your point is a bit differen, that Nintendo could make money on this etc.

abustamam 3y ago
Out of curiosity, what is your setup? I'm guessing windows 10/11, hdmi plugged into your TV? I have a windows box in my home office but and an Nvidia shield attached to my TV but it has always been a pain to play games via steam link. I mean, it's doable, I just figure there's a way to make it as convenient as console gaming and I'm missing something.
- pipes 3y ago
  PC, windows 10, ryzen 3600, 16gig ram. A few mayflash controller adapters: snes,gamecube, n64, ps1. Also use a usb Saturn pad for six button fighters etc. And god help me I've ordered a sinden light gun!
dmonitor 3y ago
Breath of the Wild (Wii U version) on PC is the ideal way to play the game. Gyro is kind of a pain to set up, but 1080p 60fps more than makes up for it. I highly recommend it, even if it’s a second play through. It’s a beautiful and elegant game. I’ve heard TotK is still pretty glitchy under Switch emulation, but I expect it’ll be resolved in less than a year or two. Yuzu and Ryujinx have a healthy competition between the two of them.
- pipes 3y ago

solarmist 3y ago

Like Apple, Nintendo is a hardware company that makes software, not a software company. They’d never do this in a million years.

AlwaysRock 3y ago

Nintendo makes very confusing business decisions very often. They seem to succeed despite all their business decisions, largely due to having IP that people love, and people are constantly thinking about how great they could be.

byyyy 3y ago

I've tried this and I have a monster machine. The experience is overall better on the switch. Not everything has been emulated correctly and the frame rate is still higher on the switch overall.

ajsnigrutin 3y ago

I play a lot of emulation (of older titles mostly), and i really like the cheats functionality. I'm not 15yo anymore, I don't have the time to grind, but I really like the adventure part of a game... so playing a game with some kind of invincibility is great for me. I understand the concept of games needing to be "hard" in some parts, and that making your grind to get stronger to win is a thing... but sometimes I just want to mess around and play through the story, and games like zelda ones (and GTA series and many others) are one of those. Sadly, cheats have turned into microtransactions (be it crystals, gems or amiibos).

Matthias247 3y ago

It might just be a gigantic support burden for them: They then would have to care about thousands of hardware configurations, and people complaining "doesn't work on my PC". It's probably not worth it. Also the market for it is likely small. Most Switch users seem children, casual games, families, etc. Those usually just want to buy hardware which "just works", compared to enthusiasts who actually want to fiddle around with tons of settings.

threeboy 3y ago

Sega tried something along those lines - with proper PC hardware you could play Saturn games... I don't think it worked out for them.