I hate to say it, but I'm mostly on Nintendo's side here.
I love emulators. I love being able to play old games on my PC, and I love being able to play modern Switch games at higher frame rates. However, I just don't think we should ignore the fact that 99% of Yuzu users are pirating the games they're playing.
Maybe you are personally in the 1% of people who dutifully buys every Switch game they play in Yuzu. You are in a tiny minority.
I would feel very differently if Yuzu, say, partnered with a company to create Switch game cart readers that connect via USB, and the software would only load games which were actually plugged in.
> That screws over anyone with a laptop or handheld, who can't just put all their games on a nearby shelf.
It does. That's life. You don't have an inalienable right to play Nintendo games, and this just isn't such an extreme inconvenience. It's far more convenient than the current actually-legal process of tracking down an early model switch and taking the time to mod it and transfer games over, which everyone totally pinky swears they actually do!
> That's life. You don't have an inalienable right
You made up this idea. So no it's not.
> taking the time to mod it and transfer games over, which everyone totally pinky swears they actually do.
Downloading versus ripping yourself is a dumb technicality that most people don't care about. The important part is whether you own the game. That's the part Nintendo actually cares about too.
> Downloading versus ripping yourself is a dumb technicality that most people don't care about. The important part is whether you own the game.
Agreed. I just don't believe that the number of people doing this is more than a rounding error.
Imagine: You hear that a recent update has made Tears of the Kingdom playable in Yuzu! You consider going to your favorite piracy site to grab a copy, but you remember that you need to actually buy a copy first. It would be morally wrong to hit the download button without first ordering your $70 piracy-absolution ticket from Amazon: a box you will never open as you don't own a Switch.
I think there are some people who really do this, but I think it takes a special type of person. I wouldn't be surprised if there were more people who buy Switch games to dump them than buy Switch games as piracy absolution tickets, because at least in the former case, you are physically using your purchase for something. Human psychology is relevant here.
There may be a substantial number of people who bought Mario Odyssey on release to play on their Switch, and downloaded a rom years later to replay in Yuzu. This situation cannot apply to new releases.
> That's the part Nintendo actually cares about too.
Nintendo likely isn't thrilled that people can play their games without buying their hardware even if the games were legitimately purchased, for the same reason Apple cares if people can use iMessage without an iPhone. But that is Nintendo's problem; adversarial interoperability is a good thing.
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Also, you know what, fine, this theoretical USB cart reader doesn't have to stay plugged in. Just plug it in once while running Yuzu, and you can play the copied rom on that machine indefinitely. Put some cryptographic system in place that makes it reasonably difficult to transfer the game validation between machines.
The system does not have to be foolproof; if Yuzu's developers did this, I'm sure there would still be modified builds floating around without that requirement. Yuzu's moral responsibility is merely to ensure that playing a legitimately purchased game is substantially easier than playing a pirated one.
> Nintendo likely isn't thrilled that people can play their games without buying their hardware even if the games were legitimately purchased, for the same reason Apple cares if people can use iMessage without an iPhone. But that is Nintendo's problem; adversarial interoperability is a good thing.
Does the cartridge not count as "their hardware"? I know Nintendo doesn't sell the consoles at a loss but they don't make all that much off it.
iMessage is different because the software is free and Apple builds their brand on the feeling of exclusivity.
I love emulators. I love being able to play old games on my PC, and I love being able to play modern Switch games at higher frame rates. However, I just don't think we should ignore the fact that 99% of Yuzu users are pirating the games they're playing.
Maybe you are personally in the 1% of people who dutifully buys every Switch game they play in Yuzu. You are in a tiny minority.
I would feel very differently if Yuzu, say, partnered with a company to create Switch game cart readers that connect via USB, and the software would only load games which were actually plugged in.