Nintendo 5 years from now: “After suing multiple fan projects and intimidating them to cease projects, Nintendo admits that they were just fan projects”
This is the company by the way that’s behind on the times of technology. Like, how long did it take them to adopt broadband technology on their consoles? The Wii?
They killed Splatoon’s grassroots Esport community thanks to them making a quick buck with splatoon 3, that promised a bunch of network functionality improvements that never materialized.
So now, a game that used to have multiple small but growing international tournaments now has nothing. Hell, they used to have tournaments on the main stage at PAX East.
They’ve been shutting down Smash Bros tournaments as well.
Ok but like… given what I was hearing from those scenes that was probably for the best
How they treated professional Melee and especially Project M was the moment I realized Nintendo was just another out-of-touch company. So many indie devs would kill for fans that passionate, let alone a modding scene that robust. Nintendo threw it all away.
Edit: and that ignores the graveyard of fan games Nintendo has killed. AM2R, Pokémon Uranium…
Never got into Splatoon but it looked like great fun and kind of perfect for low-stakes competition.
Fucks sake Nintendo
It’s a great game with a very high skill ceiling, but the MMR and team balancing was absolute garbage. It was very rare that it was a close match. You usually clapped or got clapped.
I never understood why they abandoned Splatoon 2. Like, I get that they have a new game, and that’s great, I guess…but why not support Splatoon 2 until Switch 2 comes out? I never bought the splatoon 3, because I JUST bought splatoon 2 like 2-3 years prior when it came out. You NEED online to play that game.
So you’re paying $59.99 for the game, and then $20 a year for online. All for a game that exists in a time bubble. Once it’s time for the next game, fuck you. Buy the new game. Your old game means nothing.
Well fuck you too Nintendo. I’ll just not buy Splatoon 3, and not pay for online anymore. How about that?
As one of the leaders in said community for the NA scene I wouldn’t lay the blame entirely on Splat3. Things were slowing down before then and a lot of the old guard were hanging up their hats.
Networking left much to be desired, but we also started the grassroots on the Wii U after all.
Fair, I have connections to a few that were fairly serious during 2, most of which were in tournies, one of those never bought 3, but the rest gave it a shot.
The ripoff that is S3 seems to be nails in the proverbial coffin.
Yeah the transition between games was hard. 1 to 2 was ok-ish as there was excitement on the switch. 2 to 3 was rough as the average comp player was between high school and college aged which had less disposable income to get the game right away. Not to mention each time was a hard reset on both maps and equipment that slowly rolled out over time made getting cohesive teams extra hard…
Folks pointing out GCN/Wii internet abilities are missing that the experience was awful. Like sure, the guts of broadband were there, but actually playing a game with friends online was way more trouble than it was worth.
So to your point, real online gaming was indeed way behind other consoles (IMHO).
I stopped playing Mario Kart online with others on the Wii. Some players had set an infinite blue shells hack on. Just wasn’t fun to play. Complained to Nintendo and they replied like there was nothing they could do or something like that.
on the bright side you could literally use their eShop to download games you don’t own if you had a hacked switch
I’m pretty sure the switch didn’t support Bluetooth connectivity for years until they finally decided to enable it just after I bought one.
That is the action of a company either incredibly incompetent, or that was hoping to exploit it for financial gain.
Nintendo is competent at exactly 1 thing - designing great video games.
They are run by the equivalent of dwarven master blacksmiths… They’re one of the few gaming companies with employees on staff with more than 40 years experience of game dev (and whom have ONLY ever worked at Nintendo their entire careers) in charge of things.
That’s great if you like Zelda and Mario games… but because they’re run by a bunch of old-school grandpas… they’re not good at much else.
Terrible store, multiplayer, ancillary modern network-driven services like voice chat and partying up, little to no 3rd-party support (whether it’s games, media apps, or even tech integrations with formats like Dolby ATMOS), and - as a benefit - really terrible device security so it’s usually pretty easy for folks to reverse engineer, run custom boot-loaders / jailbreak / scrape their store servers / etc. - stuff that companies like Sony and Microsoft either never had issues with - or have taken seriously long enough that they have locked down.
The only reason they’re still in business is that they still do the one thing that matters most the best - design really great game-play mechanics for IP that is beloved by multiple generations of gamers who will overlook everything else.
Why not both
Game Cube had a network adapter, but few games used it. It did let you do 8 player Mario Kart.
Like, how long did it take them to adopt broadband technology on their consoles? The Wii?
As on addon or built-in? I know the GameCube had an Ethernet add-on and I think the N64 had a dialup addon (Would have been the fastest at the time for home users, nobody had home broadband on N64 release)
The Wii was the first to have it built in
As built in.
I’m personally surprised by Nintendo continuing to include user accessible SD cards in their consoles from the DS through the Switch. It becomes incredibly convenient for piracy and I would have thought they were doing it on purpose to at least sell the hardware if it wasn’t for all the evidence you the contrary.
IMO SD cards are not good for gaming and accessible M.2 should be more common
Okay, but as I understand PlayStation and Xbox do not have easily accessible drive ports at all. Or am I mistaken?
I don’t think people remember, but there was a time when no twitch streamer or youtuber would play Nintendo games because they fucking take down their streams for copyright infringement.
I owned Mario Kart 8 for Wii U and it had a feature to record gameplay and post it to YouTube.
I post a clip once and they fucking claimed ad revenue on it.
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The original Xbox (2001) came with integrated Ethernet
I think you forgot about the XBox360
And the OG Xbox. And the Dreamcast.
360 didn’t launch with built in wireless though. But yeah you’re right that’s worth mentioning
If we’re just mentioning internet connectivity, the PS2 did end up getting the ethernet + HDD expansion adapter
.I remember playing MGS Online that way with friends back in the day.
You don’t say, Nintendo. Pretty sure they’re also using open source emulators, from the developers they really hate, to run their older titles.
Idk their emulation is garbage except for the suspension and rewind. A lot of the open source emulation I have seen, especially of Nintendo products, is immaculate.
Not to mention the selection of games available is pretty paltry.
That’s just not true. They have their own emulators, but most of the time they are inferior to community ones. I think Virtual Console releases used some kind of optimized emulators for their hardware, but didn’t care about accuracy, etc.
The top IP lawyer at Nintendo agreed that emulators are technically legal at a panel for intellectual property rights.
They run afoul of the law when they bypass encryption, recreate copyrighted programs, or point users to pirated material.
Yes, this wasn’t an admission because it’s a well-known fact that is not inconsistent with Nintendo’s earlier actions. The headline is deceptive and people don’t read the article. The article itself contains no new information and it is only worth reading for someone who has been deceived by the headline and needs to be set straight by the same people who wrote the deceptive headline. It’s click bait that shouldn’t exist.
Nintendo used to have a page on emulation on their website incorrectly claiming that it was always illegal and all emulators had solely been created to enable piracy. This new claim is not compatible with their previous action of having that page.
Repeal the DMCA. One of the worst pieces of legislation ever passed.
while were at it, let’s get rid of copyright and IP law altogether
Is it possible to emulate without bypassing encryption?
In theory, it’s possible for games that don’t use encryption. None of which are official Switch games.
I don’t recall finding any encryption on the NES.
Needless to say I will not be buying a Switch 2 today.
I imagine the steam deck will be capable of emulating switch 2 titles nearly immediately, so there’s little reason to buy it. They really need to make their hardware comparable to their software (minus the notoriously awful Japan™ netcode)
Emulating Switch 2 games on the Steam Deck would be a challenge. Even though it’s on an outdated process node, I think it’s fair to say it’s in the same class of hardware as a Steam Deck (which is 3 years old at this point).
Deck 2, though…
Good luck getting someone to continue emulation development. The only potential chance for development is exclusively on the under web, and the dev has said that “this was supposed to be a hobby” meaning they have an out if they don’t want to continue
Yeah you’ll have to wait until at least march
So when they shut down Ryujinx and Yuzu, was it basically “Stop running this emulator or we will ruin your lives with legal bills”?
Iirc, and take this with a grain of salt, ryujinx actually got paid by Nintendo to stop development.
Back to the forks bois
With the Switch 2 announcement, it’s kind of clear that they aren’t even trying to be a tech company anymore. While not every last one of their consoles released was a true innovation, it did feel like something that was built into part of their brand. Now we just have the Switch 2 which is mostly what you’d expect with some decent QoL upgrades.
Nintendo is pursuing the walled garden approach. You’re barely even buying a console anymore, a lot of this hardware has more or less converged. What you’re buying is access to the cultivated ecosystem. Like everything else these days, they entice you in with the big, recognizable brands and hope there’s enough else to keep you there. Emulators straight pierce that veil and it’s why they went so hard on them.
I’m not criticizing (too heavily) the people that choose to hold on to the franchises they love, but once you step outside and choose alternatives, there’s very little to bring you back. Pokemon lost me a few gens ago, honestly not the biggest Zelda fan, and Mario alone won’t do it for me. Metroid and Starfox are scattershot … Personally I’ll stick with the Steam Deck and wait for Switch 2 emulation to roll around. And if it doesn’t, there are just so many other games to play these days.
. You’re barely even buying a console anymore, a lot of this hardware has more or less converged. What you’re buying is access to the cultivated ecosystem.
Bingo. In an age where most people’s phones have better hardware than the Switch, it’s all about access to the walled garden instead of hardware.
Not that I disagree with your point about walled gardens, but “better” hardware for a handheld gaming machine needs to have a decent balance between performance and battery life. Longest plane or train journey that I’m likely to take is about five hours, and I’d need to rate any gaming hardware on the ability to run for that length of time. On that basis, the Switch is pretty much optimal. My phone has a higher resolution and can probably push more frames, but it would run hot for about forty-five minutes maximum. Plus, I’d then not be able to make calls or listen to tunes at my destination.
Steam deck would probably be a better choice, though. Fuck Nintendo.
I don’t think Nintendo ever tried to be a tech company. They have always been a game company first and foremost. If they were ever a kind of tech company, the closest analogy would be Apple, another company that focused on consumer electronics.
I wouldn’t say ALWAYS, seeing as how they also tried their hand at taxis and love hotels for a while there.
What walled garden are you talking about? Exclusive games? Literally every console ever made has those.
Nintendo bad for making QoL console releases? Again, Nintendo is not the only company to do that. PS4/PS5 Pro, the recent Xboxes, etc
With emulators, they’re only trying to protect their current hardware. They’ve put basically zero effort into shutting down emulators for consoles they don’t sell anymore. Yeah, I’m with everyone else in wishing they didn’t shut down the switch emulators but it’s somewhat understandable that they’re trying to protect their revenue from hardware sales
Nintendo bad for making QoL console releases? Again, Nintendo is not the only company to do that. PS4/PS5 Pro, the recent Xboxes, etc
Nintendo has a history of doing something different each hardware generation: Snes had the 4 button + shoulder buttons controller. N64 controller was designed for someone with 3 hands, DS had 2 screens, 3DS had 3d without glasses, Wii had motion controls, Wii U the tablet controller, Switch is a console and portable… Every system had something that made it unique. What’s unique about the Switch 2?
Nintendo is not able to compete with other consoles on power, it’s the unique hardware that gives a reason to own it over something else.They’ve put basically zero effort into shutting down emulators for consoles they don’t sell anymore.
Technically correct. They may not be shutting down emulators, but if they hear a whisper of a ROM for Mappy Land on the NES they have their lawyers on speed dial. ( Me typing that sentence means someone from Nintendo is now watching this thread to see if anyone links to a ROM.)
How do you see with your nose so far up Nintendo’s butt?
Fuck Nintendo!!!
No shit, it’s been case law since the 90s (Bleem, Connectix). The recent cases haven’t been about emulation, but decryption keys lifted from the BIOS.
Doesn’t matter, bait headline worked wonderfully.
Stop buying Nintendo, mkay?
Time to counter-sue?
You know they got DEEP pockets.
I was a life long Nintendo fan boy. I have every system excluding the virtual boy cuz of the headaches, and the Wii u because I was under employed when it released. I stopped buying Nintendo after Gary Bowser, their software is janky, and bad for 2000’s level of web portal. I had already complained to Nintendo as a long term investor, and instead of innovating their software and hardware, they litigate away anything that might be considered competition and sue into poverty anyone that alters the devices. I never altered my switch, but I stand on the side of the hackers because Nintendo desperately needed to create a quality software core for their switch family. They want their software to be an extremely basic game launcher, and in modern software terms, that’s just incompetent. I stopped buying Nintendo because Nintendo stopped innovating their software, started litigating their profits, and relied solely on old worn out IP instead of creating something new and fresh. You know how many new games are gonna launch on switch 2? Less than 5. Know what one of the first 10 games is gonna be? Mario. Want another? Probably a racing game that’s another rehash but has something blandly new and shiny, like space ship racing with gerbils(instead of diddy Kong racing, or jet ski racing etc). Nintendo has no new IP ideas, and while I was mostly OK suffering through the tired old crap to get to whatever gameplay innovation they made, they seem to have abandoned the gameplay innovation entirely, and are just suing people to force them to play their games the way they want, even if they already received money for the game and system. Whatever they might have in store for the switch 2, so long as Gary Bowser is living in debt to Nintendo, I will never purchase another Nintendo product new, ever again, and I will only purchase used if they have an absolute banger of a game, but I’m only buying that used as well. No profit to Nintendo. I can buy off eBay.
Nintendo lost my business long ago nothing they make or say will get me to buy another Nintendo product
There’s nothing new in this article. And I don’t think Nintendo ever said that emulation is illegal, just emulating their games is, which technically is true to some part at least in the United States, where sometimes you need to circumvent some security measures to get games emulated which is a forbidden (this is mentioned in the article).
